Lesley Dana Dennis

Lesley described herself in the intro on her Facebook page as “Friend of God, a sojourner in the world”. She certainly knew herself best. A fourth generation Californian, on her father’s side, she started her adventures on October 26, 1963, in Santa Cruz, California, the youngest of the five children of George T. Smith and Shirley Kesterson Smith.

Her Mom & Dad nurtured her spirit of adventure right from the beginning, hauling the kids around the country every summer while George served as a National Park Ranger and Guide. Lesley shared so many memories about those early days, and while some were fond while others were not, those summer trips laid the foundation for her love of nature and hiking, a love that never waned.

So eager she was to get out into the world, she graduated Aptos High School in 1981, a year early. Having tasted travel as an exchange student to Sweden one summer, she headed to Paris to study French at Alliance Française though her wanderlust and quest for purpose brought her back to the U.S. in short order.

She recognized her restlessness as a spiritual journey, though a journey not without pain or suffering. She often opined you can’t have a message without a mess or a testimony without a test. Both her message and testimony were forged during those turbulent teen and young adult years searching for love and acceptance and purpose, not always in the right places with the right people doing the right things; but in all that, Lesley’s mom never stopped praying for her and God never abandoned her.

Lesley’s search eventually led her back to the Catholic Church, in which she was baptized (February 9, 1964) and confirmed (May 14, 1989), yet her desire to know God and make Him known grew beyond what the local Parish could provide, and in 1992, God directed her steps to the Youth With A Mission (YWAM) organization through which she attended Discipleship Training School (DTS) from October 1992 to February 1993 in the small town of Richardson Springs, California. With her immersion baptism in a small cold creek on November 21, 1992, she publicly proclaimed her death and resurrection in Christ Jesus, and with her baptism in the Holy Spirit during DTS, God planted in her a missionary’s heart and the Great Adventure kicked into high gear.

Lesley’s passion to know Christ and make Him known was inspirational. As part of DTS, she spent two months in Tepic, Mexico sharing the Gospel and serving the poor and needy. Following DTS graduation, she led a youth group in Reedley, CA, taking the group on a short-term mission trip to Tampico, Mexico to share the Gospel. One of those youth later became a full-time missionary to Mexico. She continued to grow in her faith and to seek and serve God through different programs and outreach efforts in northern California throughout 1993 and 1994, persevering through persistent personal struggles and setbacks. However, Lesley’s calling was to share God’s love to the nations, not just northern California, so in February 1995 she traveled to Penang, Malaysia to attend YWAM’s School of Bible Studies (SBS), an intensive Bible study program. While there, she conducted numerous short-term mission and outreach trips to Thailand, Indonesia and within Malaysia.

Nearing the end of that 9-month program, Lesley asserted the Lord gave her a vision of the man she was to eventually marry and directed her to return to the U.S. following graduation in November 1995. That vision was of a faceless man in a military uniform. Being from a small town on the central coast of California, Lesley had never seen a military man let alone met one. She thought she’d misheard God; she’d been wrong more than once about what she thought the Lord had told her regarding a future husband. Nevertheless, despite her strong desire to remain on the overseas mission field, she obeyed and returned to her job in the Silicon Valley in December 1995. Then, on May 16, 1996, just five months later, she spied a dashing young man with impeccable posture dressed in a suit standing alone in the lobby of the hotel where she, and he, as it turned out, were attending a Toastmasters conference. As was often her style, she confidently approached the somewhat aloof young man and introduced herself. She could be bold that way.

That young man turned out to be then Lieutenant Ron Dennis, United States Navy, who was attending graduate school at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. After much prayer and handwringing, months of interrogation by family and friends that would have made the Spanish Inquisition look like an inquiry at the supermarket deli counter, and a six-month deployment by Ron, on May 23, 1998 Lesley became a Navy wife, the toughest job in the U.S. Navy, and her mission field became wherever the Navy would send the new couple.

And send the couple the Navy did: a year at Fort Leavenworth, KS; three years in Norfolk, VA; three years in San Diego, CA; three and a half years in Atsugi, Japan just outside Tokyo; three years in Rota, Spain just outside the Strait of Gibraltar; a year back in Alexandria, VA just outside Washington, DC; three years in Cairo, Egypt serving as diplomats and members of the military attaché corps representing 63 different countries; and finally back to the DC metro area where the family settled after Ron retired from the Navy. God, in his faithfulness, had given Lesley the desire of her heart…to share His love with the nations. As Lesley was so fond of saying, “God is good…all the time…and all the time…God is good.”

Lesley could light up a room with her smile. She could easily start a conversation with anyone, from the poorest person on the street to senior military officers and diplomats. Shoot, she could talk to a lamppost and the lamppost probably would answer back. Everywhere we lived, Lesley was, well, Lesley. She fostered relationships, shared the Gospel, started Bible studies, and ministered to and mentored women, American and locals alike. Along the way, she earned her Bachelor of Science in Bible and Theology and Christian Leadership from San Jose Christian College (now William Jessup University) and her Master of Arts in Missiology (International Relations) from Regent University. She birthed and raised, two awesome children. She planned international moves, global vacations, and local outings as easily as pouring milk on your morning cereal. And she held our family together through much prayer and the sheer power of her electric personality, much of the time alone. She was a Navy wife after all.

As a sojourner, Lesley was always making travel plans. The last trip was to Northern Spain where she and Ron walked/hiked the last 117 kilometers of the Camino Frances branch of the El Camino de Santiago fulfilling a goal she’d had for almost two decades. She had so many other places she wanted to see, so many other things she wanted to experience, but she also knew our time on earth is only temporary. “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails” (Proverbs 19:21, NIV). Having fulfilled her purpose here on earth, Lesley made her final trip on June 10, 2023. She is now in the one place she truly has longed to be for more than 30 years, in the loving arms of Jesus.

Lesley was the heartbeat of the family, the fuel that made it run. Without her spark and energy, we would have been a cold lump of inert matter sitting in a cold dark cave of a house. Instead, she introduced us to art and culture around the world and showed us what selfless love could look like. She perfectly fulfilled the role God gave her as Ron’s helpmate. She was his copilot in life, his best friend, his joy, and his love. Rest in peace now, Fireball, you are home…whole, healed and restored.

In lieu of flowers, we ask people make donations to either Youth With A Mission Chico (https://donate.ywamchico.com/) “In memory of Lesley Dennis (nee Smith) DTS 1992-1993” or to The National Multiple Sclerosis Society (https://www.nationalmssociety.org/Donate).