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I began attending Lindsey Wilson University in the fall of 2015 and graduated with my BSN in the spring of 2019. After graduation, I worked in labor and delivery for two years in Bowling Green, KY, followed by six months in pediatric case management in Louisville, KY, before moving to the Dominican Republic to work for GO Ministries in their medical area of ministry.

I have been involved with GO Ministries in the Dominican Republic since 2006. I participated in various short-term service trips with my church and family growing up and later participated with LWU when they began taking students on short-term mission trips. In 2018, the summer after my junior year at LWU, I did a 5 1/2 week internship with GO Ministries here in the Dominican Republic.

In 2021, two years after I graduated with Lindsey Wilson, I was approached by the Lead Director of GO Medical, one of the focused areas of ministry within GO Ministries. I was presented with the opportunity to join staff full-time in the Dominican Republic, serving as the Coordinator of Community Health for GO Medical. After a few months of praying, I felt this was the next step for me and accepted, beginning my fundraising journey and preparation to move to Santiago, Dominican Republic.

GO Ministries is an organization that works to empower local leaders to make disciples. GO Medical specifically empowers local medical professionals to make disciples by providing quality, affordable healthcare to the hurting and vulnerable, creating opportunities for gospel transformation. My role does not involve direct patient care in our clinic, but rather, my day-to-day role focuses on providing support and resources for our local Dominican staff, coordinating outreach through health education and mobile health clinics, and coordinating trips for short-term mission teams, However, when we do short-term teams here serving with us across different areas of the ministry, I have the opportunity to provide care during whatever health-related issues may arise.

One initiative I have been able to jumpstart here at GO Medical is a prenatal program. There is a lot of need for prenatal care and education here in the Dominican Republic. Although we don't provide the full range of prenatal care at our primary care clinic, I have been able to use my experience as a labor and delivery nurse to lead a series of prenatal classes, educate our doctors on the schedule of prenatal care as well as abnormalities that should be referred out to an OBGYN, and provide expecting mothers' with some initial necessities for taking care of themselves and their new babies.

I have learned so much through working in a different culture and health system, especially when it comes to community health and education. I enjoy being able to collaborate with local medical professionals to provide the best care to our patients, while also sharing the love of God. For the future, we are working to expand the services that we provide to our patients and I'm excited to be a part of bringing those projects to fruition.