We're not the best at maintaining our blog...maybe one day we'll get better!

We live and teach at an international school in South Korea. We're starting our 4th year and are not sure when we'll end up leaving! We really love our jobs and we get to travel all over the world and see some amazing things. We feel very blessed to be living the lives we are, and all glory goes to God! He is our reason for living.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Rest in peace, dear friend...

I have a heavy heart right now. I just found out a couple of hours ago that my dear, beloved youth minister, John Austin Smith, passed away unexpectedly. I am not sure of the details yet as it happened in the U.S. and I am at work in Korea, and all I can gather is information from Facebook, etc. but as I understand it he had been having some heart problems, went to sleep and had a heart attack in his sleep. He was only 43 years old. Please pray for his sweet mother, Elizabeth, and for the innumerable people who knew him and loved him. I have so much emotion within me right now and so many memories of John that I don't have time to put down at the moment, but I will write another post soon dedicated to him. Here is a great photo of John with two other dear friends in ministry, Toni and Laketa. I don't know if I have any photos of John and I together with me here in Korea, but I will look when I get home tonight. If any of you have some, would you be able to scan them and email them to me? Thanks, friends.

~Leslie

2 comments:

The McDowells said...

Amber emailed me the news. I was sad to learn of his passing. I know a lot of people will miss him. I am planning on pulling out the old photo albums while the kids are taking a nap today and reminiscing about some of the old youth group times together. I will try to email you some if I have some of you guys together.

The McDowells said...

I looked through my old albums. I hadn't looked at them in a long time! There are some group shots of us (we sure were dorky) and John. What church was he at now? I can't think of the name, but was't it another church in San Diego?

I was just wondering the other day if Seth was going to see him in a few weeks at Pepperdine, they have run into each other there before.