Baptisms, New Life Church and Old Testament Survey

 It has been a challenging season for our church (Iglesia Nueva Vida) as it has been for all churches. So we were excited to have our first service in over 6 months. We have seen God's faithfulness in many ways over the last 6 months but it was good to gather again as a church family. We got to celebrate baptisms and the Lord's Supper as well. 

I am so grateful for what the Lord is doing through NLC! I am hoping to install Carlos as the Pastor of this church in the not to distant future and then move on to plant another church in another community. Please pray for this transition. 

We also did a half day Old Testament Survey class this past Saturday that was a lot of fun. I was encourage to see over 20 people learning together on a Saturday morning.

Serving our staff

 One of the joys and responsibilities I have at Love Guatemala is to serve our staff. They are a great group of people who love Jesus and work hard to "give hope through the gospel and vocational training". Here are  a few things we have been doing to serve them, train them and support them in this time:

• Weekly Prayer and Devotional Times via Zoom.
• Weekly Mtgs mostly virtually with our team of directors to encourage and train.

• Carlos and Katie do regular training as well to serve and better prepare them. And sometimes they just have fun like yesterday...see a few pics below:

They had a competition making Noah's ark out of fruit.

Here is a fun devotional we did with the staff and students as well: https://loveguatemala.org/happiness/

This stuff along with lots of prayers and encouragement. Our staff has done a great job in this difficult season and I am very proud of them. 

House for Abuela Juana

 We did a visit about a month ago with one of the older ladies that attends our little church. Her name is Jane (Juana). She is a sweet lady with many challenges, but we were not aware of the housing situation until recently when we made this visit and found out where she was sleeping. We knew we had to do something to help. One of the values we have as a church is generosity and we are trying to teach our people to live lives of generosity and we have committed as a church to give away at least 50% of our offerings to help people like Juana, support missions and other needs and ways we can be generous. Check out some pics below of how we found her house and what her new place looks like. We were also able to get her a new bed. Gloria a Dios!

Her house was made up of old sheet metal with holes, dirt floor, plastic.

She just turned 77 years young.

Here is the work we did with our team of leaders from New Life Church:

Joel wanted to help and even gave some of his money towards it!

Our friends Eswin and Marvin bought and finished it up with a concrete floor. 

She did not want to move her few things back into her house until we came and prayed and dedicated it with cake and all!

Grateful for Abuela Juana! 

Birthdays and Anniversaries and more Kunkel Family Updates

 

Jennifer celebrated a birthday in late July. We had lots of chocolate cake (her favorite) and spoiled her a bit. She is an amazing mom, wife, lady, friend etc to so many. We are super grateful for her!

We had some fun and got her a cane for her birthday that she is holding here but hard to see. Luke escaped this pic as usual. 

We also got to go our for our 22nd anniversary. This was a special treat after 4 plus months of not being able to go out. I am grateful for this lady and our marriage. 

We also got to take the kids to Mcd for the first time in a long time.

Jake does a great job taking care of the girls. They love to go outside and swing!

This was a family worship time together with our friend Yeison.

Thanks for your continued prayers and support!

The hands and feet of Jesus in difficult times...

God calls us to represent him and his kingdom on this earth to make it on earth like it is in heaven. This means we are called to all kinds of acts of justice to display the love of God and glorify him through our actions so that more might now him and more disciples made. One of the major ways we have been able to do this in this time is through giving out food. We have done a lot of this partnering with generous people who have given sacrificially to allow us to continue this. And also we have partnered with other ministries and churches here to hand out the food. Here are some pictures of these food deliveries.

We also were able to help 3 families with a better place to live...here is one of the homes we did.

Hard to see but their current home is in the background...I forgot to get a good pic of it.

This was paid for and built by Iglesia Nueva Vida!

Not much of a house but a lot better than what they had.

This is where they family goes to get water!

I did not get a good picture of the family but here are a few of the kids. We got to share the gospel with them and pray and leave a few Bibles. Please pray for them!

Check out a quick video of the house project here.