Leaving the Dominican Republic; Traveling to South Africa! - March 2nd, 2023 (Baylee)

 Hello everyone,

I’m so glad to be writing to you once again! I pray that you are seeing more of the Lord and His love today than you did when I sent my last newsletter! I am currently writing from the Santo Domingo airport in the DR getting ready to board our first flight of the day! Our last week in the DR has been pretty bittersweet, but my team and I are so excited to be flying to Africa today! In the challenges and in the excitement of moving to a new place, I know that it is the Lord who establishes my steps and that He will continue to guide me in paths of righteousness! 

MINISTRY UPDATES: 

For the last three weeks, my team of eight and I have served alongside a well-established school in this community called Makarios. In my time here, I have been blown away by the dedication of the staff to provide a loving, safe environment for the kids they serve, and everything they do is done to guide the children towards the heart of Christ. It’s been a beautiful experience get to serve alongside people who keep the gospel at the center of all things! My team and I have served in various ways during our time here including teaching English, running a new volleyball program after school, cooking meals, and aiding the teachers in the kindergarten and preschool classrooms. It’s been so much fun to build genuine friendships with the kids here and have the opportunity to speak into their lives! 

PRAISE REPORTS: 

• Two of my teammates and I got the opportunity to run a discipleship class for 11th and 12th grade students as well as recent graduates at the school. They were so attentive and hungry for truth, and one of them asked me how I came to know the Lord. I got to share my testimony with them, and it opened up the door for us to talk about how having a relationship with God has changed our lives and how the same can be true for them. It was a beautiful conversation, especially because we are from completely different cultures and don’t even speak the same language! The love of the Father has no boundaries. 

• My squad has been split up in three different places throughout the DR for the last three weeks, and as a whole, we’ve gotten to be part of leading three people to Christ that I know of! 

• In my last newsletter, I wrote about the significant strife between the Haitian and Dominican populations in our last ministry area. Here however, the relationships between Haitians and Dominicans are much more peaceful, especially amongst the younger generations. The students Makarios serves are from both demographics, and this has played a major role in the unity we’ve seen between these people groups. The Lord is mending relationships and bringing His Kingdom to earth in major ways in the DR! 

• I’M FULLY FUNDED!!! Thanks to the incredible kindness and generosity of all of you, I’m able to stay on the field and continue to build the Kingdom where the Lord places me! To say I’m blown away by the Lord’s faithfulness and all of your love would be an understatement. With everything in me, thank you for trusting God and coming alongside me in this journey!!!

I’M GRATEFUL… 

• For the Lord and His gentle guidance! He has proven over and over again to be my steady Rock and my dearest friend. 

• For our ministry hosts. They are a family of five who have been serving long term in the DR for six years, and they have been nothing but welcoming and generous toward us! They’ve had us over for dinner multiple times and have treated us like family. As we all wrestle with homesickness and the struggle to feel like we belong from time to time, it’s been a gift to have a family welcome us into their home. Ryan, Courtney, and their three girls feel like parents and siblings to me. 

• My team and I had the opportunity to help prepare for and participate in the Dominican Republic’s Independence Day parade in our city of Montellano this past Monday! It was so sweet to see the patriotism and love the Dominicans have for their country! The culture here is very unique, and it was a gift to be part of something so significant to the people of the DR. 

• The love that’s grown in my team since being apart from our whole squad! We’ve had some really sweet time together celebrating Valentine’s Day, birthdays, going on adventures, serving together, and cooking for each other for the first time! This group of sisters is dear to my heart. We share a heart to love and serve wherever we are, which was proven in a conversation my friend Rachel had with a woman we met on our off day at the beach this week. She spent two hours talking to this woman about her life, about God, and answering her questions about Him. She planted seeds in her heart that we are believing will come to fruition one day! 

PRAYER REQUESTS: 

• I’ve been reading through the life of David in 1 and 2 Samuel along with Psalms lately, and I’ve learned so much about giving thanks in every circumstance. I pray that this would be my heart posture as well, and I’d love prayer for continued transformation through the renewing of my mind (Romans 12:2)! 

• For further healing and transformation in the Dominican Republic! The Lord is not finished with His work here, and I believe that there will be further renewal and unity here because of His presence. 

• Starting today, my squad and I have about 15 hours of driving and over 21 hours of flying coming up in the next three days, and we could use prayer for safety, endurance, patience, and joy as we travel! Pray for the Lord to put people in our path to love and minister to as we go! Please be in prayer also for a smooth transition into another culture that is very different from Latin America where we’ve spent the last six months. We are excited to be moving again, but the transition period is usually very difficult. 

• For my teammate Ryann who is coming back to the field after her mom’s passing about a month ago. I admire her courage and strength in choosing to say “yes” to the Lord’s call to come back to the field in the midst of grieving. Please be in prayer for my teammate Ethan as well, he broke his arm back in Nicaragua and is still in the healing process. The nerves in his hand are beginning to come back to life, but he still has a lot of healing left to go. Additionally, I may have injured my foot last week, but I’m not entirely sure what happened. I’m in some pain, so please be praying for healing and endurance so I am able to walk to and from ministry each day and thrive on travel day! 

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this update and pray for my team and I! The closer I get to the end of this trip, the more the Lord has grown my gratitude for all of you who have supported me with such love and generosity. 1 Samuel 7 has been heavy on my heart lately, and it has been part of my prayer of each of you receiving this newsletter, that you would know the joy that comes in humbly living in thanksgiving, desiring to exalt the Lord in all things! 

“Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God. You have spoken also of your servant’s house for a great while to come, and this is instruction for mankind, O Lord God! And what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord God! Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make your servant know it. Therefore you are great, O Lord God. For there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.”

‭‭2 Samuel‬ ‭7:18-22‬ ‭

I love you all dearly! May the peace of the Lord rest on you!

All my love,

Baylee