Red Nueva Vida Pastors Retreat 2025

 

Our 2025 Pastoral Retreat is in the books. This is an important time of connection and growth for all of us. I love the privelege of getting to lead this group. Please continue to pray with us for all the Lord has done and will do through the ministry of Red Nueva Vida in the USA. Check out more pics and info about the retreat below.

We started our time sharing together about praises and challenges in ministry and prayed for each other

We had some time of worship together too

Pastor Jonathan shared the word with us and talked about fervent prayer which was our theme for the retreat.

Of course we had a bonfire together and shared.

More prayer time early Saturday morning.

Pastor Randy Spacht shared with us Saturday morning. He is a great expositor of the word! He talked about how Christ is building his church and what the statement, "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of heall shall not prevail against it" from Matthew 16:18 means and its implications for us as pastors.

This was a workshop we did further building out and applying the message on fervent prayer on Friday night. Pastor Daniel Godbey led us in this workshop.

I got to finish our time with a conversation together about what it means for us as a team to form and execute the vision God has given us as a hispanic disciple-making network in the USA. We will continue to work on this in the weeks and months to come.

A Special thanks to Daniel, Jonathan and Randy for sharing at the retreat. Also a big thanks to Piedmont Church who helped sponsor part of the retreat!

Red Nueva Vida USA: Chicago Trip, Baptisms, and People of Peace Training

 

Here is a quick update on the ministry with Red Nueva Vida/New Life Network. I (Ben) traveled to our church partner just north of Chicago to visit and serve them and their pastor. I was able to witness a special time of baptisms as well at a park and a great time of fellowship after.

On August 31st we celebrated the day of New Life Network in which we celebrate all God is doing globally and also take a special offering to support a project together. This year we helped raise money for Venezuela. We are beginning to partner with about 12 churches there.

We commissioned 2 new disciplers on this Sunday as well.

New Discipleship Group

This a new disicpleship group that was started in May and I was able to join them for some training this last Sunday and will be doing this the next couple of weeks as well. Please pray with them as they work towards forming a church.

New schools, parks, libraries and more.

 The girls love libraries and parks and so we spend a fare amount of time at these facilities. In Guatemala these do not exist or are very limited so we have been enjoying since moving back. Here are a few pics from recent visits. We are glad to have both a library and a few parks within walking distance.

Emma loves to swing!

This is a tractor that the boys played on when they were little. Luke still enjoys it 😃

This is a park we just discovered in a neighboring neighborhood.

Grace and Sofia are doing well in their new school. Sofia won student of the month for her class last month. The 2nd graders also get a Bible at their school. We are so proud of both of them!

This is Joel at his new culinary school he is taking. We are proud of him as well and the great job he is doing balancing homeschool, culinary school and a new job.

Developing Fervent Prayer

 “Prayer—secret, fervent, believing prayer—lies at the root of all personal godliness,” says the great missionary William Carey.

It is an area in which most Christians struggle yet it lies at the root of all personal godliness. It is an area I (Ben) have been striving to grow in. I have been reading on it, trying to practice it more and leading our family and our team of pastors in it. It lies at the core of what we want to see God do in our family and in the ministry I am leading. We are working towards seeing a movement of discipleship. But as I keep repeating to myself and to our team, "Without a movement of prayer, we won't see a movement of disicpleship."

Here are a few things we have been trying to do to develop fervent prayer in Red Nueva Vida:

This is a monthly prayer time we have together. It is online most of the time but we try to gather physically every 2-3 months for those that are local.

This is an early morning weekly prayer time we have together.

I was encouraged to hear a few of our pastors have started their own online prayer groups. And more are working towards the same.

Please continue to pray for our family and the pastors and churches I get to serve. We have a retreat in October where we will focus on prayer and strive to grow in it more together. 

First days of school, Birthdays, Anniversary, Another Licensed Driver and other Family Fun

 

The girls are off to a good start for the new school year.

They started at a new Christian School this year not too far from our home. We are grateful for this opportunity for them.

Time at Mamaw and Papaw's house.

Fun times with the cousins before school started. They made Christmas cookies and listened to Christmas music in July.

We had a great celebration for Jennifer's birthday. We were glad that Levi and Alanna were able to come for the weekend.

Apparently this is the only picture we got of Levi and Alanna's visit in late August ;-) Not a Levi visit without a game of Catan.

Jennifer and I celebrate 27 years of marriage on August 1st.

Watchout world: Joel passed his driver's test and now has his license. He has many changes in the last few weeks. He got a job, got his license and started at a vocational training center here taking cooking courses.

We are glad that Luke has reconnected with a friend from school from years ago. They have been able to hangout a bit. They both love our minor league baseball team here in Indy so we took them to a game a few weeks back.