2023 Recap // Exciting Ministry Announcements!!! (Baylee)

Hello everyone!

I pray this letter finds you eager for the start of 2024 and all that God has in store for each of us this coming year! I am so excited and grateful to be writing to you today, as I have many exciting updates for you all! God has been moving in my heart and life in beautiful ways lately, and I am honored to share them with you! 

To begin this newsletter, I want to take a moment and reflect with each of you about where the Lord has brought us in 2023, give you a view of where I am now, and cast some vision for where the Lord is leading me here in the beginning of 2024! 

2023 RECAP

In 2023, I had the honor and privilege of bringing the gospel to 10 different nations and 15 US states!!! During my time on the World Race Gap Year in 2023, I was in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic, South Africa, and Swaziland, and following this, I said “yes” to the call to go and bring the love of Christ to Canada, Germany, Poland, and Ukraine over the summer! This was an incredible year full of fulfilled promises from the Lord, as I had been called to pursue the World Race and long-term missions almost 5 years ago during my freshman year of high school. Throughout the entirety of 2023, the Lord opened my eyes to many beautiful and sometimes difficult truths, but perhaps the one that has had some of the deepest meaning to me this year is found in the heart of Matthew 10:38-39: “And whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”. He is worthy of my life because He firstly gave His own for me; He is worthy of my love and sacrifice because He first loved me and sacrificed His own life for me. In 2023, the Lord asked me the question, “Am I worthy of ______?” many times. The beautiful thing about wrestling with the variations of that question (Is He worthy of my trust? Is He worthy of embracing suffering with hope? Is He worthy enough to bring my doubts to?) is that, each time I really engaged with the Lord, I found that I could see more of Him than before. He is worthy of my life laid down, and I pray that each of us would come under this heart posture in deeper ways this year! 

CENTER FOR GLOBAL ACTION

Moving into the second half of 2023, I participated in a program with Adventures in Missions called Center for Global Action. Rather than giving details about the program, I’d instead like to highlight what the Lord did through our class capstone project! I was chosen to be a part of the three-person leadership team who led this project, and as we asked the Lord for vision, He gave me a dream which we built the vision of the project around. With God opening and closing doors and guiding us every step, we led our class in developing a week-long road trip through Georgia and Tennessee where we partnered with local ministries, ministered intentionally to the families who graciously hosted us for the week, and put on worship and testimony events at local coffee shops and the University of Tennessee campus! It was a week FULL of incredible movements of the Lord both in our own group and in those we had the opportunity to befriend and minister to! At our final worship event, a man we had invited came to us and told us, “I recently got out of prison, and this was exactly what I needed to revive my relationship with God”! He then told us about how he truly encountered the presence of God and that he was so thankful that the Lord drew him to worship, pray, and share testimony with us! It was a beautiful week full of the glory, favor and presence of God! 

WHAT’S NEXT? 

I have some very exciting news about what the Lord has called me into next! A few weeks ago, I was offered a position on staff at Adventures in Missions in the World Race department, and after spending time in prayer, I decided to take it!

In short, I have the beautiful opportunity to help run January training camp for new missionaries coming to partner with Adventures as well as mobilize missionaries who will be onboarding this coming year! In both of these roles, I will be working to support young people in getting them to the field through training, logistics, and discipleship! Looking back at my experience in participating in World Race programs, I have been deeply blessed by staff members who have helped mature me into a woman of God who is empowered to follow Him closely on and off the mission field. I am beyond excited to have the opportunity to play this role for other young people! If you'd like to know more details about what I am pursuing, please do not hesitate to reach out to me by phone or email!    

I have now been pursuing missions for about the last year and a half consistently, and I am hopeful about this next step on the journey into long term missions! I am now living back in Gainesville, Georgia near the Adventures in Missions base along with most of the stateside Adventures in Missions staff. A large part of the transition into long term missions is building a support team, and if you are reading this letter, you are invited to be a part of my team! God absolutely changed my life and my walk with Him on the World Race, and I am asking that you pray about the capacity in which the Lord may be calling you to be part of what He is doing in me, through me, and in the World Race program and beyond! I am now support raising my salary as an affiliated missionary with Adventures in Missions and am praying for monthly prayer and financial support. In light of beginning to support raise as a long term missionary, I am currently 5% funded with a goal of reaching $2,000 monthly! If you desire to learn more about how the Lord is moving and how you can be involved through prayer and financial support, visit the Join My Team tab on my website! 

I have one final important announcement! As many of you know, in the last year and a half or so, I have been using email as a means to send out newsletter updates. I have noticed that this system has not been the most effective, as many of the emails get lost in inboxes. To remedy this issue, I have created this new website that contains as many of my past newsletter as I could retrieve, some photos, and all helpful links in one place! I will still be sending out an email notification to inform everyone when I post something new on the site! I hope that this new system is more effective and easy to use for everyone, please let me know if you have any questions!

 

PRAYER REQUESTS

• Above all, that the Father would have His will and His way in my life and that I would live in full trust in Him!

• Recently, the Lord has been putting the story of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42) on my heart as a reminder to remain simply focused on the greatest commandment: to love the Lord with all of my heart, soul, and mind! I’d love prayer for a continual, deep pursuit and groundedness in the Lord’s love!

• Please be in prayer for the group of around 85 young people who will be arriving on the Adventures in Missions campus to train to launch onto the missions field soon! Pray that they would grow in deeper knowledge of God’s love for them and that they would respond to the Great Commission to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18-20) with passionate hearts and eager curiosity!

• For my boyfriend, Ethan! He is currently leading a team on the World Race Gap Year, and the squad just recently arrived in South Africa. Pray for ministry opportunities for their team as well as wisdom and refreshment for him! We would both love prayer for endurance as we continue to do long distance and are seeking daily to honor the Lord in that journey! 

Thank you all so very much for continuing to choose to be part of the ways in which God is moving to restore lives, bring about redemption in people’s hearts, and fulfill His purposes on earth! Thank you also to those who have loved, supported, and championed me as I continue to say “YES!” to God’s call, no matter to where or to whom He is leading me! I would not be the woman I am today without your prayers and love! My prayer for each of you reading this is found in Matthew 6:10:

“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. 

Take a moment to reflect and ponder what Jesus is really saying here. I truly pray that the perfection of love, the restoration of the mind, the depth of belonging and purpose, and the eternal joy of heaven would be established in you today, just as Jesus Himself prayed! 

Much love, 

Baylee