Prayers offered for River Bluff High principal, family after vacation car accident

About 100 people crowded into Radius Church in Lexington on Thursday to pray for River Bluff High School Principal Jacob Smith and his family after they were hurt in a serious car accident in Hawaii overnight.

Pastor John Reeves said he started getting text messages Wednesday night about the injuries Smith and two of his children suffered, and the church quickly began organizing a prayer service to bring healing to the family.

“This is a hopeful prayer meeting,” Reeves told friends and family of the Smiths on Thursday, before they gathered in prayer circles to invoke divine intervention to pull the injured family members through. “There will be tears because we love them... but we’re praying for this family to be completely restored.”

Smith and his family were reportedly involved in a serious car accident while on vacation in Hawaii.

Reeves had a message from Crystal Smith, Jacob’s wife, shortly before the 1:30 p.m. service, he said. Jacob Smith and his son Banks, who just completed his freshman year at River Bluff, remain in a hospital in Hilo on the “big island” of Hawaii with injuries from the wreck. But their injuries are less serious than daughter Bekah, a college sophomore, who was flown overnight to an intensive care unit in Honolulu, Crystal Smith reported.

Their older son “Jake is with Banks and I’m with Bekah, so Jacob is all alone,” she told her pastor.

Jacob Smith, an educator for 20 years, has been with the Lexington 1 school district for about a decade. He was promoted to principal at River Bluff ahead of the 2021-22 school year.

Over audible sobbing, the crowd at Radius, including many River Bluff students, prayed individually and in groups for the family’s recovery, as Reeves and the other pastors prayed for each member of the Smith family in succession between praise songs.

Reeves said Crystal and Jacob have been active members of Radius since he came to the church seven years ago. “They love their community,” he said. “He’s obviously involved with the school, she’s involved as a businesswoman. They genuinely love their neighbors and they’re invested in a lot of the folks here at Radius.”

The Lexington 1 school district sent out an email Thursday morning to alert employees and students’ families that the Smiths had been involved in the accident.

The River Bluff basketball Twitter account posted a message from Saxe Gotha Presbyterian Church that the Smiths had been involved in a “head on collision.”

Reeves said he was unsure of all the family’s injuries, and he and church members were continuing to get updates. But he knew the family’s injuries were severe enough that the community would want to pray together Thursday, for their own sense of well-being as well as the family’s.

He reiterated that he remains hopeful the family can make a full recovery.

“I’m absolutely hopeful,” he said. “We need to pray for Bekah in particular, but I’m hopeful based on who I know Jesus to be.”