Easter and Sofia's Birthday

 

We have had some celebrations recently with birtdays, easter and other various events. When you have a big family there is almost always something to celebrate. Of course, we took time to reflect on and celebrate the resurrection of our King Jesus. The picture above is on Sofia's 7th birthday, April 1st. Below are some additional pics of easter and Sofia's birthday and some other fun time together.

Jimena Sofia Kunkel 7 years old

The whole crew.

Palm Sunday

Easter Sunday Fun

Egg Hunt

Recent visit with Mamaw after last surgery to fix hip replacement.

We got in on the solar eclipse viewing too.

Birthdays, Gotcha Day and other Misc Pics

 We had a gathering to celebrate Ben's Moms 75th birthday this past weekend. It was fun seeing some people we don't get to see too often and some we hadn't seen in years.

We had to get new passports for some of the girls recently for our upcoming trip to Guatemala.

Alanna celebrated her 21st birthday on the 4th of March, the same day we celebrate bringing Sofia home to live with us. It's hard to believe it has been 4 years!

Emma loves her (Jakey pie) she calls him

Bens Travels and Ministry Connections

 Ben has been adjusting to his new role with New Life Network. He as been connecting with many pastors and leaders in the Latino Church in the US. Most of the connections have been local with a trip to Chicago where we have some churches in the Network and also a trip to Phoenix to make some connections with other Latino leaders and learn about missions sending and challenges as well.

This was our trip to Phoenix which I made with our President Jonathan Morton. We connected with several Latino leader and learned alongsid them for a few days.

This is the main group we connected with and share about New Life Network as you can see below. We learned from them as well

This is my new friend Abraham who is a pastor on the southside. He has a great ministry and has a big vision. I am excited to see how the Lord leads us to partner together.

Please pray with us for these connections among others that the Lord would lead us in how to partner together for the gospel. We are better together!

Sofia's new school and other fun times with the family..

 In our transition from Guatemala we have experienced many new things. One of which has been new schools at least for the girls and more particulary, Sofia. Jennifer was doing homeschool with Grace and Sofia the last few years, really more of pre-school than school. This last fall, Sofia was enrolled in an online school here in Indiana. Sofia has had some challenges in learning some of which is a result of being exposed in her first few years of life to 3 different cultures and languages. So after attempting to do the online school, we felt it might be better for her (and Jennifer) to go to a brick and mortar school. She started this week and has loved it so far. Thanks for praying for her!

She loves riding the school bus!

We took her the first morning and met her teacher and some classmates. She has loved the first few days!

Here are a few other fun pictures and times spent together. The boys and Ben are still trying to get at least one time out per month together. In January they were able to go to a Pacer's game. Time is getting short on all our boys being in the house as Levi gets married in May and Jake will most likely be leaving sometime this summer for the Air Force.

We have been trying to spend some alone time with Emma on Wednesday nights when we drop the other kids off for youth/kids activities at church. She loves to go to McD and get an ice cream cone.

This was the boys and Alanna at the Pacer's game. Not sure why the crazy face from Caleb ;-)

Visit to Chicago

 

Jennifer and Ben were able to make a trip north to visit with the two pastors and churches that we have north of Chicago. It is about a four hour drive. Both churches have services at the same time so we could only visit one of the churches, but we had dinner with the other pastor. It was great to get to know them both. We are excited about the opportunities for further ministry and growth in that area.

We had a beautiful time of worship with them

Ben got to preach at the church "El Buen Pastor" pastored by Jose Juan. He and his wife Maribel are very sweet and we were grateful for the sweet time of fellowship with them and their church.

This will be a trip we take every 3-4 months to visit and encourage these churches. Please pray for the work there. It is an area that is about 80% hispanic so there are huge opportunities to plant more churches.

Holiday and Birthday Celbrations

We had some great Christmas celebrations. It is hard to get used to being close to extended family, but we are enjoying it. At the same time we miss our Guatemala Christmas traditions like fireworks, lots of Christmas parties with our ministries, celebrating Christmas with our missionary friends etc. Here are some pictures from our celebrations. One of our favorite traditions (don't have any pics of this) is looking at lights especially late on Christmas eve as we head home from my Jennifer's parents.

We are grateful to also have what will most likely be the last Christmas having all our kids together. Levi is getting married in May and Jake is considering joining the Air Force and may be gone next holiday season.

Luke's light up Elf sweatshirt

They have already painted their unicorns. They get excited about anything unicorn.

Big boys get boring gifts...clothes, razors, games etc.

Favorite gift from brother Levi.

Ben's Mom and Jennifer's parents came over Christmas night for dinner. 

Doesn't get much cuter!

Christmas eve at Jennifer's parents.

Afterward we went by to see Jennifer's niece and nephew who were working and then to see Christmas lights.

Levi turned 21 on New Year's Eve. 

I hope you had a great Christmas season!