Trip To Guatemala February 2025

 Ben had the opportunity to travel to Guatemala to serve alongside Carlos the new National Coordinator there. They held a pastor's conference, Ben was able to perform a wedding of couple he baptized and disicpled while living there. Love Guatemala also had a 10 year celebration of officially being a recognized ministry in Guatemala. And of course many visits with friends who are like family. 

Always fun to hang with the feeding center kids at Love Guatemala. The team continues to improve and disciple these kids.

The pastor's retreat which was held at our friend's ministry property.

Lots of time to share and worship together.

It's not a retreat without a campfire

10th anniversary of Love Guatemala

Prayer of thanks for 10 years and praying for many more faithful years serving the community of Magdalena and beyond.

Carlos and Telma the founders of LG

It was fun to hear many staff members share about their memories and experiences of working and serving at LG. This is Guicho our very first full time employee who is still working as Security.

The new staff at LG. They do a great job with Katy leading them.

Wedding time! This is Pedro and Silvia, Telma's brother and sister in law. The gospel continues to bring about restoration to their family. What a testimony to many there!

This was a special time of praying for them with their kids.

Ben enjoyed doing this wedding. Such a picture of the work of the gospel in a family. 

Getting some snuggles from Killian Caleb, Katy's son.

The best sunrises are in Guatemala!

Fun to hang out with the pastors one afternoon in Antigua!

Always hard to say goodbye!

New Life Network USA Vision for 2025

Ben learned a lot during 2024. There are a lot of challenges facing our hispanic brothers and sisters. It has been a joy for Ben to serve them and learn from them. New life network focuses on forming and reproducing discipeles, forming leaders and planting churches. Here are some things we saw God do in 2024:

• Started a monthly prayer time with our pastors.
• Started monthly coaching with each pastor.
• Started an annual retreat with the pastors and wives. (See pic above)
• 4 new churches or churches in process of being planted, entered the network. (6 churches in total now) (See pic at bottom which shows one new church signing)
• 2 new discipleship groups started. (See pic below of one of them)

The vision for 2025 is to continue seeing growth and implementation of our processes in the churches we have, grow in prayer, build a team to help lead the efforts. In addition this is what we are praying the Lord will do in 2025:

• See our churches grow from 6 to 10 in total.
• See our discipleship groups grow from 3 to 15, with 75 total people in our discipleship route.
• Have 10 leaders formed through our leadership training.
• Plant one new church.

Thanks for praying and supporting us which allows us to do this work of serving the Hispanic Church in the USA. 

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Matthew 28:19-20

Christmas and January Fun

 We had a great time with our family over the holidays. Levi and Alanna were here for about 10 days and Jacob came for 2 weeks. Below are a lot of pics and not necesarily in order but I will try and give a few details about some of the pics.

Emma wanted "big ole snuggle bug hugs" from her bubbies.

Not sure how they did this pic but I like it. Girls always wanted to play with Levi and Jake!

Birthday lunch for Levi on December 31st.

Christmas with Ben's side of the family.

Aunt Brandi got a new basketball goal for the kids for Christmas. 

Christmas Morning Fun

More snuggles with bubby

Lukester opening some presents

More pics from Ben's side of the family Christmas

Celebration at Jennifer's side of the family celebration

More pics from Levi's bday. 22 already!

It was a fun following Notre Dame football with the boys all the way to the Championship game this year.

Fun in the snow.

Sledding. They love all things unicorn and this was a hit too.

Fun times with the family over the last month or so.

Ministry Trips and Advances with Red Nueva Vida (New Life Network) in the USA

 The last month has been a busy one with Red Nueva Vida. The Lord has been opening many doors for us to serve churches in discipling hispanics, planting churches and training leaders. We have 2 new churches that have come on board and we have helped with a retreat and launching our discipleship in a few other churches as well. There are other opportunities in the works as well. Thanks for praying and supporting us so we can help build God's kingdom amongst the Hispanics here in the US.

Did you know there are over 63 million hispanics here in the USA? There is still a great need for more disciplers and church planters to reach this group. We are excited to see what role the Lord has for us and New Life Network in this work. See some of the pics and more information below:

This was a retreat I helped with at one of our churches north of Chicago called, Jesus the Good Shepherd.

This is a new church that is becoming part of New Life Network.

This is a new discipeship group forming in one of our churches.

This is a discipleship group that I lead every Monday in which we are preparing pastors and leaders from 3 different churches.