Impacting the World for Christ...

Hello and thanks for checking out my page! My name is Ashley and I'm going into my junior year at DMCS. I have been at Des Moines Christian since second grade. Through that time, I have had many opportunities to serve those around me, one of those being the Mission Trip! This will be my second mission trip to the Dominican Republic. Last years trip allowed me to deepen my relationship with the Lord and open my eyes to see that I absolutely love teaching and missions!

I will be going back to the Dominican Republic where we will be helping at the Freedom International School, located about an hour away from Santo Domingo (the capital of the DR.)  When we are helping out around the school, we have the option of construction, elementary tutoring, or PreK 3/4.  Right now they are building their campus, and so one of the things we will be doing is laying brick or painting the school and apartments. Another main thing we will be doing is an English immersion program, which was my personal favorite. Last year I chose to do a lot of elementary tutoring. What elementary tutoring is, is we go to kindergarten through fifth grade and they would read us an English book. We would then correct their pronunciation or help them when to pause if there’s a period or comma. One of the things that I thought was super cool was to see how some of the kids I worked with at the beginning of the week were super shy and weren’t confident in themselves, but at the end of week those same kids were happy and were more confident in themselves. 

One thing that I took into last years mission trip was a prayer of allowing God to open my eyes to those around me and put me outside my comfort zone. Through that prayer, God opened my heart and showed me that I am not in charge of my comfort zone. He is the one who has the power to put in and take out things in my life. This year I am going in with the prayer of God opening my heart to show me how to love, serve, and grow relationships with His people better, as well as trusting in what he has in store for what is yet to come. 

Thank you for considering partnering with me to impact the world for Christ and I would truly appreciate any financial support you could give! More than anything, I would truly appreciate any prayers for the team, myself, and the people that we will be serving!

Thanks so much!