From 2016 to Present Day: Serving the Lord & His people in Latin America
Hi there. I'm Jamielynn Tinkey Flores.
For by GRACE you have been saved through FAITH. And this is not your own doing; it is the GIFT of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:8-9
After graduating from Valparaiso University School of Nursing, I became a missionary with the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod in July 2016. I moved to the Dominican Republic and have been serving ever since with the LCMS mission team in Latin America and the Caribbean.
I first came to the Dominican Republic (with a two year commitment) to serve alongside the church in this place and throughout Latin America. My main focus for my first three years of service was on missionary care, advocating for our missionaries and their families serving from Mexico down to Uruguay, in ten different countries.
As our team continued to ebb and flow, adding missionaries and saying goodbye to other missionaries, our regional leadership saw fit to put out the search for another nurse to serve alongside of us in this work of missionary care and to expand our efforts in human care & health education and mercy ministry throughout Latin America.
God was faithful in that search and sent Tirzah Krey, a dear friend of mine, to serve with us. After her arrival, we began to look at areas to expand. By this point (2020), I was engaged to Rafael and knew we would be moving to Chile, God willing. This fact also began to impact the conversation, and I began transitioning to a new project, one that was not tied to needing to live in the Dominican Republic.
Our wedding day - August 22, 2020
Today, I’m serving as a career missionary with the LCMS, studying in a distance deaconess program from Concordia Seminary - Fort Wayne, coordinating the Life & Health Ministry across Latin America, and looking forward to moving to Chile with Rafael in 2022! Rafael will graduate from the seminary here in the Dominican Republic, called "Seminario Concordia El Reformador" (Concordia Seminary the Reformer) in May 2022, God willing. Although he is Venezuelan, he was living in Chile before being sent to the Seminary, and the Confessional Lutheran Church of Chile sponsored his arrival to the seminary. That being the case, we have a commitment to head to Chile for his time of vicarage, and subsequent ordination and call, the timing of all of that according to God's will!
Do you want to know more about my 5 years of service (so far) with the LCMS mission in Latin America and the Caribbean?
I’ve rounded up the newsletters I’ve written to family, friends, and supporters over these years and have linked them below. When we produce new newsletters, I’ll make sure to link them in a relevant blog post as well, and they’ll be easy to find under the label “Newsletters”.
God has surely been faithful over these years of service and life in the Dominican Republic. We are trusting in Him as Rafa and I look forward to the next chapter, whether it be 5 years or 50 years, serving in Chile alongside His people there.
We hope you'll follow along with us here on the blog.
Comments
Post a Comment