February was a full month with a lot of celebrations and events. It has been exciting to see all the ways God is working in the different ministries that make up DR Vision in the last month.
Updates: At school we had many celebrations throughout the month of February. We celebrated the 100th day of school, Valentine’s Day, and Independence Day. These were fun days to dress up and celebrate with my students. These days also allow a unique opportunity to have discussions with students about God’s love and the freedom that we experience in Christ.
On February 18th our DR Vision team had a team meeting to plan for visiting groups throughout 2024. This year we have a record-breaking number of teams visiting our ministries! Many missionaries on our team will be hosting groups who will be helping with various work projects, events, and ministries throughout the year. Our prayer is that each of these trips would impact both those who come to serve and those who are served by them for the Kingdom. On February 25th we had 8 people follow the Lord in baptism at IBEM. Three women who were baptized were reached through Mercy Workshop, one of the boys was a previous student of Las Palmas, and one of the girls was the daughter of one of the missionary families on our team. It was a blessing to watch each of them proclaim what Christ has done in their heart, and it is always an encouragement to see a glimpse of the harvest that the Lord is gathering from our ministries here.
Praises:After two more visits to the capital, my residency paperwork was finally accepted on February 1st. This is a huge praise! I went to get my medical exam done the same day. I am now waiting for the results of the medical exam to come back so I can have a new appointment date to pick up my residency card. This is the last step of the process to get my temporary residency which will be good for one year.I am excited to share that Faith Baptist Church donated to buy 18 Spanish devotional books this month! This will allow me to deliver a year-long devotional book to each student in my homeroom when I do home visits. I am looking forward to making more connections with the families of my students and providing them with resources to study the Scriptures with their child at home.On February 8th Las Palmas Christian School was ranked 24 out of 1,896 schools in the DR by the Ministry of Education. We praise God for the ways he has allowed our school to grow and serve families with excellence for His glory
Pray for the home visits I will be doing in the coming weeks. Pray that I can communicate effectively despite the language barrier and that the Lord would use these visits to open doors to share the Gospel.
Our head pastor at IBEM (Gary) recently announced that he will be stepping down from his position as the head pastor of our church. He is a missionary who has been serving at IBEM for many years. He shared that he believes the Lord is leading him to step down from the head pastor position to commit more time to the other ministries he is involved in (he is also the president of DR Vision). The deacons recommended our current assistant pastor (Carlos) to be the next head pastor. We voted on this as a church on February 25th. The results have not yet been announced. Please pray for clarity for our church leadership and unity amongst the members of the church body during this time of transition.
Thank you for continuing to follow along with what the Lord is doing here in the DR. I appreciate your faithful support and prayers.
Natasha
