Developing and Comissioning Leaders

This has been an amazing time to see how the Lord is raising up new leaders, pastors, disciplers etc to lead this next phase of ministry at both Love Guatemala and New Life Church. Check a few "commissioning" times we have had over the last few weeks recognizing the leaders and pastors God has called and raised up.

A little over a week ago we finished what has been 2-3 year process for some of these guys who were commissioned as pastors. They will serve as the board of elders leading New Life Church along with Carlos Lopez. Check out some pictures from this historic day. Please pray for Josh, Eswin and Yosimar!

We also had a good meeting with our new leadership team locally here at Love Guatemala. This team will support Katy Lopez the new General Director. We shared the history of Lg, shared some things we hoped that they would carry forward in this new season and we finishe our time praying over them and empowering them for the work of leading LG in this new season.

October Birthdays, Getaway and other random stuff

 October holds two birthday celebrations for the Kunkel Family. We celebrated Jake's birthday on the 20th and Caleb's on the 9th. Caleb is 13 and Jake turned 17. See some pics below.

It's hard to believe this boy is 13. He was 2 when we moved to Guatemala.

When the boys turn 13 I take them away for a night to do some focused discipleship/preparation for teenage years. I can't believe that this is the last boy for this special time. 

Jake turning 17!

We took a night away to have some fun at a hotel with some friends.

Girls having fun on the roof. I take them on the roof almost every evening. Emma has started joining in on the fun.

Emma Turns 1!

 One year ago God completed our family (We hope;-) with Emma Jane. She has been such a joy and it was fun to celebrate her first year of life and pray over the coming years. Please pray with us that God will use her to change the world. Check out some pictures of our celebration.

She is starting to walk and repeat some words. She is loud and still gets up at night to eat with mama. 

She dug in pretty good to her cake!

She liked eating the tissue paper more than the presents!

Ministry Trip to East Coast of Guatemala

 

(Carlos, Walter, Ben, Yosimar, Jose)

We had the opportunity to take a trip to the east side of Guatemala to explore some ministry opportunities for New Life Network Guatemala. We are excited for all the connections and open doors that we find there for ministry and planting churches. Please pray for wisdom and resources to know how, when and how to walk through these doors.

David the 2nd from the left is the director of El Faro the ministry we visited that is doing some great work in that area. (It is close to a city called Puerto Barrios which is on the east coast of Guatemala just north of Honduras)

Here we are praying for a missionary couple that is working in Greece with refugees from Iran. It was a great divine connection as we look to mobilize missionaries. I hope to visit them there in Greece.

This is a sweet girl in a village we visited called El Naranjal which I will share more about below.

This is the name of the ministry where we stayed.

This is the trip to the town I mentioned above, El Naranjal. It is an 1 1/2 hr boat ride from El Faro.

This is the school that El Faro built for this community. They were starting some leadership training with this community. This is one place where we would like to help plant a church.

Introducing ourselves

Carlos was leading the leadership training as it is training he has done many times at Love Guatemala.

On the way back we made another divine connection with Quique a Pastor in Livingstone. He has a fire for his people and the Lord which was noted only after visiting with him for 15 minutes. He invited us to come back and we may have him come and share with our church too. We were praying for him here.

It is a beautiful part of the country!

This is a discipleship group that Jose and Norita started at El Faro. Jose and Norita are our friends that leave here close but go to El Faro once a month for a week and serve there in pastoral care. He went through the discipleship route with us last year and now is leading this group there in El Faro.

The pic above was a meeting we had with Laura and Miguel who I mentioned above are missionaries in Greece. This was an amazing time of hearing their story and how God is using them.

This is part of the staff from El Faro plus our four.

I am grateful for this opportunity and excited to see how the Lord uses these connections.

Kunkel Home Assignment in 2023

 

In June of this year our family finished 10 years serving in Guatemala. It has been a great 10 years and we have seen the Lord do some amazing things which we talked a little about here if you are interested. We have sensed for a time that there is a need for us to take an extended time stateside. Since we have transitioned from Love Guatemala as of July 1 of this year we thought that now would be a good time to take an extended time stateside. We sought much counsel on this decision and with unanimous counsel on this decision and also the blessing of the leadership at New Life Network we have decided to take a one year home assignment for the year of 2023. We will be back in the states December of this year and plan to be back in Guatemala in January 2024.

Here are several reasons why we feel it is necessary in this season to take a year away from Guatemala:

• We have not all been back as a family for 3 years.
• We will have two grown children (Levi and Jacob) in the US when we come back and they need some more time and attention in this season.
• We want and need to spend some extended time with our our family especially our parents.
• We desire and need to further develop our relationship with New Life Network senior leadership that is currently located in Indianapolis.
• We desire to connect with all of our current ministry partners
• We need to raise some more financial support for our family. (We lost about 25% of our monthly support while transitioning from LG to NLN)
• We need a period of rest which is part of the plan you can see below.

What will we do in this year stateside? (No it is not a year long vacation ;-)

• Ben will be connecting with the senior leadership of New Life Network and be held accountable for the time stateside.
• We will focus on further building relationships with NLN leadership.
• We will stay connected virtually with team in Guatemala and still meeting regularly and supporting as much as possible from a distance.
• We will be supporting Love Guatemala and Katy regularly meeting with them for support and coaching as well as continuing to serve on the board.
• Ben will make a few trips to Guatemala for leadership mtgs/retreats and other needs.
• We will also be doing fundraising as indicated above which will require some travel.
• We are planning on taking a 3 month sabbatical where we will do very little ministry related.

How you can help and pray for us:

• Pray for a fruitful year in all the ways listed above.
• Pray for a great recharge of batteries for the next 10 years of ministry.
• Pray for financial provision and success in fundraising.
• Pray for transition for Jacob to states.
• Pray for transportation for us while we are there.
• Pray for health insurance options while we are there.

Praise the Lord with us for:

• A home to stay in. Thanks Cheek Family!
• Plane tickets purchased.
• A visa for Sofia. (We plan on pursuing citizenship for her while we are there)
• Great teams in Guatemala to lead the ministry as we are away.

Thanks for your prayers and support!

Please feel free to shoot us an email with any thoughts, questions or concerns you might have: benjamin@rednuevavida.org

Jennifer's Birthday and our 24th Anniversary

 Jennifer recently had a birthday. We won't say how old she turned. She is more beautiful than ever though! Unfortunately we were in quarantine dealing with Covid at the time of her birthday.

We still got her a cake though.

All her kiddos except Levi.

Selfie of the whole fam.

We also were able to get away for a night to celebrate 24years of marraige. What a gift our marriage is. 24 years we have had 7 kids, adopted 1, lived in 2 states in the US, two different countries, planted churches, established ministries, schooled kids, sent one of our kids to US and much more!

Of course we had a tag along this celebration. Next year for our 25th we are planning and saving for a trip without kiddos!

What is the Kunkel Family doing now?

This is the question we continue to get so since it does not yet seem clear to all about our role in Guatemala I wanted to take some time and explain exactly what we are doing in our ministry in Guatemala.

In January 2018 we planted a church. It began with 10 or so people in our apartment and now it is a church with a leadership team, Guatemala leadership and pastor and self-supporting. But the goal of this church was never just one church but a church that plants churches. A movement of churches all throughout Guatemala. 

(our first discipleship group that finished the 2yr discipleship process)

We began this church in cooperation with New Life Network. New Life Network exists to "Form and reproduce disciples, healthy churches, and servant leaders that are faithful and trained all among the Hispanic community globally." For more information on New Life Network you can visit our website here.

In each country where the network exists the network president has assigned a country coordinator. This is our role in Guatemala. Our job in this role is to expand the network here in Guatemala by establishing a a multiplying network of churches. So what does this mean?

• Coaching and encouraging pastors and leaders: Right now there is only one completely establish church and so I can coaching and encouraging this pastor, Carlos Lopez.
• Training New Pastors and Church Planters: We have a group of about 5 guys that are in the pipeline to become church planters. We are training these guys and other leaders through a variety of ways. 
• One way we are training is our Bible institute which contains two one year programs. The first year is how to plant a church and the second year is how to pastor a church.
• Another way is through our pastors school which gives more theological depth to those we are preparing.
• We have also established a program that includes our discipleship route, retreats, books and other things to help train several guys in church planting. Here is an example of one such retreat.
• Looking for potential areas to plant new churches.
• Develop Pioneers Program: This program allows existing churches to enter the network and use the tools and training we have developed.
• Form and develop operations team/staff in Guatemala that will serve to help us carry out training, processes developed, and coaching of church planters.
• Form and develop the board of directors in Guatemala that will help with the legal side of things. (We are autonomous and yet in related with New Life Network International)
• Communicate with and represent New Life Network International in Guatemala.

                                                                      (This is our institute)

In addition to these responsibilities. We are working on some missionary mobilization training to help begin mobilize more leaders Latinos to global missions. 

This should keep us busy for a while ;-) Thanks for your questions, prayers and support. It means a lot. Please let us know if you have any questions!