Meet the Bloggers: Melissa

Hey friends. I have enjoyed sharing with you on the blog over the summer.  Now that we are diving into days packed with school, sports, and holidays, I thought this would be a great time to introduce myself.  

Hi! I am Melissa.  I am a wife to Justin, a mom to two kiddos, and a nurse by trade. My family and I have been members at Capstone for a little over 6 years now.  
When we joined Capstone, we were new foster parents.  I grew up in a very small local Baptist church where most of my family attended.  That church family will always hold a special place in my heart, but Capstone is the right fit for our growing family. We found friends at Capstone that had been touched by foster care and adoption, and a young growing church is exactly what we needed.  

On our first Sunday trying Capstone out it was Easter Sunday, and our first foster daughter had gone home for a weekend visit.  I could not stand the thought of facing the sad faces at our little Baptist church, so I wanted to try Capstone out.  God reached out to both my husband and I’s hearts in that first sermon and lifted our very spirits. You see we had decided to skip all the normal Easter family celebrations that year because we were grieving the loss of our foster daughter—she was being reunited with her family the next week. While that is always the goal of foster care, it is still such a hard emotion to process.   After hearing the sermon, we came out with lifted moods and spirts.  We ended up joining our family celebrations and made the decision right then to join Capstone as partners. Fast forward to now and we have been members of Capstone for the last 6 years. Our children have grown up as Capstone Kids, and we have served in several different areas as volunteers.  

As a Fountain Inn native and resident, it feels important to me that we have found a church family that pours into our local community and gives back.  You can truly feel the love and desire to serve that Capstone as a church has for the Fountain Inn community. It is nice to see members of our church family coaching my kid’s baseball teams, attending community events, and the positive impact Capstone has made on our community.  I was born and raised in Fountain Inn, and my family has deep roots here.  Funny enough, I just had a conversation with my dad recently, that my family has been in the Fountain Inn community since the 1600s.  To see our church family pouring out so much love for our community feels personal.  When Justin and I got married, we lived in Simpsonville, but once we started to grow our family, we knew we wanted to move back to Fountain Inn. We desired more room for our kids to run and play, and a little slower pace of life.  Now, we live on 18 acres beside my parents out in the country in Fountain Inn.  My children attend the local school, and I work in Fountain Inn as well.  As a home health nurse, I service the Fountain Inn area, and I enjoy speaking with my patients that have been residents in Fountain Inn for a long time.  When a patient asks me where I am from, I feel a sense of pride stating I am from Fountain Inn.  Then they ask who my family is, and often I find out they know my family.  This generally leads to their question of which church do I attend.  Most of the time my patients know about Capstone.  It makes me proud that our “young” church reaches so deep into the community that its name and our mission is widely known.  

Nowadays, you can find me driving around in my sassy blue SUV, being a home health nurse, or hanging out with my family.  The older I get the more I am learning to savor life more.  I enjoy being home with our kids and 3 dogs or walking over to visit our neighbors (my parents).  We enjoy traveling and a good beach trip.  I love being a mom, but wow I struggle with it some days. I love audio books, music, Chinese food, chick fila, and naps.  Beach naps are my absolute favorite! I am also realizing I really enjoy blogging and being a member of the blogging team here.  I look forward to getting to know you, our readers, better, and you learning more about us too!  I hope you think of my blog post as a little conversation with me in writing, and that it brings you a little laughter, joy, and encouragement.

Until next time,
Melissa Nash-Abbott