Vicki "Honey" Smyer

Vicki “Honey” Brandenberger Smyer, 78, stepped into her eternal life in God on January 23, 2020, from her home in Waco, Texas, surrounded by family and friends. A memorial service will be held 11:00 a.m., Friday, January 31, at Antioch Community Church. A family greeting opportunity will be held in the church lobby at 10:00 a.m., prior to the service. She was born on November 11, 1941, in San Antonio, Texas, to Victor M. and Lucy Lee Brandenberger. She graduated from MacArthur High School and later from North Texas State University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. While working for the San Antonio Express Newspaper, she met and married Joe Pate Smyer in 1965. She devoted her early career to supporting her family and children: Joel Pate, born in 1968, and Jennifer Marie, born in 1972. She came to know God’s love and follow Christ when she was 36 years old through Bible Study Fellowship. Discovering God as restorer of the brokenhearted, she pursued her Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Counseling at St. Mary’s University and graduated with her MA in 1990. In 2000, she courageously packed up her life of 59 years in San Antonio and moved to Waco, Texas, where she invested her life in the people of Antioch Community Church and in the Waco community. Through her counseling career in treatment facilities, Antioch Ministries International, and private practice, she dedicated her life to listening, providing wisdom, and tenaciously believing for breakthrough in people’s marriages and mental health. She worked to deconstruct stigma associated with mental health challenges and to provide people access to mental health services. Having a deep love for studying the Bible, she more recently returned to Bible Study Fellowship as a small group leader. She adored her grandchildren, hosted dinner parties in her home with beauty and grace, always smelled lovely, laughed with exuberance, cheered on the Dallas Cowboys when others had lost hope, traveled to serve missionaries in over 15 countries including Djibouti, Iraq, Sudan, and China, nurtured any plant back to health, dressed stylishly, felt most at home by the beach, enjoyed a cold Topo Chico, cherished Christmastime, created beauty with her hands through needlepoint, stained glass, and scrapbooking, was a voracious reader, prayed fervently for her family and friends, and always believed a new day would dawn no matter how dark the storm. She is preceded in death by her parents, Victor M. Brandenberger and Lucy Lee Harvey; and her brother, Kenneth D. Brandenberger. She is survived by her son, Joel Smyer of Ft. Worth; her daughter, Jennifer Smyer Dickey of Waco and husband, Chris; her sister, Emma B. Galvan of San Antonio and husband, Noel; and her beloved grandchildren, John “Jack” Mason Smyer and London Olivia Smyer of Ft. Worth, and Zoe Hope Dickey of Waco. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Vicki Smyer Mental Health for Missionaries Fund #3177388. Please make checks payable to NCF, 8214 Westchester Drive, Suite 950, Dallas, Texas 75225 (please indicate fund# on the check). The family invites you to leave a message or memory on our “Tribute Wall” at www.WHBfamily.com.