Mid-Year Ministry Report 2026

It is hard to believe we are past the middle of the year already. It has been a good year so far but with some challenges both in the family and in ministry. As Jesus promised, "In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33) 

(some of the pastors and families in one gathering we had in May)

I love to set goals and plan out what I hope the Lord will do through the ministry I am leading. Usually, the Lord's plans are different as Proverbs 16:9 says, "We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps." NLT

Here is the 2030 vision I set for the ministry I am leading: By the end of 2030, the New Life Network in the United States will have 554 disciples actively engaged in discipleship, 35% of whom will reproduce. We will have 26 churches—7 of which will be newly planted—and 104 leaders actively undergoing training (Institute and Leadership Training), and we will establish a solid leadership team for RNV USA.

Here is where we are at as of right now: 84 disciples active in discipleship, 7 churches or churches in the process of being planted, 8 leaders in training.

Here is where I hope we get to by the end of this year: 125 disciples active in discipleship, 9 churches, 25 leaders in training, and develop a leadership team.

(Paola and Oliver who joined the network this year)

Here are the advances and the challenges of this year: Oliver and Paola from the Reflejo de Cristo church joined RNV. We also had one church that decided they could not continue the process of planting a church. We trained all pastors in the 2026 version of the discipleship program.We trained the leaders of Esperanza Viva in the 2026 version of the discipleship program and will soon train another church with goals of both of these churches launching new groups this year. Several groups and churches are completing the discipleship track for the first time. We had one of our pastors decide to officially become part of the leadership team of RNV USA. We also have signed an agreement with one of our churches to help them start a pastors school using our Bible institute material. (see picture below)

Here are some more pictures of some of our pastors and their families:

Socrates and Alexanda and family

Leslie and Yuri and kids

Abraham and Amanda and their kids

 Harol and Kathy and their boy Jonathan

Jose Juan and Maribel and their family

Here is a video testimony from Amanda and Abraham and how RNV has served them.

Thanks so much for supporting us so we can serve these pastors and their churches!

How's the Ministry with RNV in Guatemala going?

 

Each month our global team made up of all the country coordinators meets to pray for one of our countries where we are working. They report on their work and we pray for that country. This month it was Guatemala and I was so encourage about what the Lord continues to do with Carlos Lopez and his team so I wanted to share it with you all. 

This is where the work is currently at. Keep in mind we started a small church in our apartment with 10 people. As RNV Guatemala, we are discipling 72 people across 7 different communities; we are training 13 individuals in local leadership; we have 2 students enrolled in the Bible Institute’s course on pastoral care and church leadership; we have planted 2 churches, with two more currently in progress; and we have one pioneer church. (Pioneer church is an existing church that enters the network)

Here are a few pictures of their discipleship groups.

Below is one of the churches in process of being planted in Santa Maria. They had a major earthquake last year and from the ministry and evangelism they did there a church has resulted.

This is their vision over the next 5 years:

To have 300 people active in discipleship groups. To plant 10 healthy churches in Guatemala by intentionally discipling their members through the Discipleship Route.

And 2 training centers:

A Bible Institute

A School of Missions

A Pastoral School

5 pioneer churches driven by a passion to make disciples who make disciples.

150 leaders undergoing training at the Bible Institute.

(Carlos has never lacked for vision ;-)

Here are some of the prayer requests he shared so you can join me in praying for them:

• Resources for the pastors and their families.
• Resources for transportation to reach the communities.
• That God would raise up a prayer leader to share with each of the pastors and community leaders.
• For the discipleship leaders, that they may attend to the needs of every discipler.

I hope this encourages you as it did me! May God be glorified and all of Guatemala discipled!

Join us in Prayer in 2026!

Ben is serving as the National Coordinator for Red Nueva Vida. One of our goals for 2026 as a Network of churches is to continue growing in fervent prayer. We desire to see a movement of people praying for spiritual encounters, discipleship, multiplication, new church plants etc.

Would you join us in praying? We know that without a prayer movement (multiple people praying in multiply places consistently and fervently) we will not see a discipleship movement. Here is a description of one such prayer movement that led to a missionary movement in the 1700s.

We are meeting regularly with our pastors to pray. We meet both online and in-person. We pray when we meet, we pray alone, we pray with our teams and families. We are praying for a move of the Lord in the USA among the hispanic population. Would you pray with us? If you desire to be a part of this prayer movement send me a note (ben@rednuevavida.org) and I will keep you updated on the prayer needs.

Thankfully we have begun to see groups multiply in some of the churches we are serving. Join us in praying.

This is one of our churches that prays during their Sunday morning services in different ways to grow in fervent prayer.

One of our many times of prayer at our Pastoral Retreat

2025 Ministry Report

I am giving thanks to the Lord for another year of ministry. This is our second year serving with Red Nueva Vida in the USA. It has been a time of learning and growing in different ways that I didn't expect. The challenges of ministring here in the US amongst hispanics are unique. I am grateful for this opportunity.

When I first began in 2024 I had set the goal of having 10 churches in the first 3 years of ministry and we are slowing but steadily moving in that direction. We are serving 7 pastors and churches or new works moving towards becoming churches. I am working with another church now to hopefully bring them on board in early 2026. But more importantly we have 114 disciples in disicpleship. Praise be to God.

But one of the things I have grown to love the most of my role is the pastoral care aspect. Most pastors have no one to love on them, pray for them and ask how they are doing. I love do this for the pastors I serve.

Here is a picture from a retreat we did for the pastors and their wives we did in October. This is one way we serve the pastors that are part of our network.

I also served the pastors and churches through trainings, regular meetings to pray and share, preaching when needed at their churches, and providing whatever resources are needed.

Other ways I have served through New Life Network is through teaching in our Bible Institute, teaching in the missions school in Guatemala, coaching missionaries with Red Nueva Vida and many other ways. We are grateful for all the ways the Lord used us in 2025.

We had a focus on fervent prayer in 2025 and we started an early morning prayer time in addition to our monthly prayer time. We also saw these groups multiply and now 3-4 of our churches added prayer groups that meet regularly.

In 2026, we hope to move to serving 10 churches, build a team to help lead the network, grow our discipleship groups, provide more training and support for our churches and pastors.

Thanks for all your prayers and financial support that make it all possible!

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge. 1 Corinthians 1:4-5

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.

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. 

Red Nueva Vida USA Update

 One of the things I (Ben) get to do is work with the churches we serve in helping prepare them to use the resources we have. Our goal is to help move our churches towards forming and reproducing disicples, healthy churches and leaders. We offer several resources to help them work towards this goal. Our main resources is our disicpleship route. Here are a few trainings I have done recently.

This was at Iglesia Esperanza Viva a church here in Indianapolis. I was doing training on the next few steps in the discipleship process.

This is a retreat that another church in Indy did not too long ago.

This is a leadership training I helped with at New Life Church Indy.

This is a prayer time before a disicpleship group launched with this group.

This is an evangelism training I did in a church north of Chicago.

Thanks for the continued prayers and support for our family and ministry! 

We have seen the work grow from 4 churches, 10 disciples in our disicpleship route in January 2024 when I started in this role to now having 7 churches involved, 8 disicpleship groups with 114 disciples, and 9 leaders in training. All glory to God!

 

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.

Partner with Us in Church Planting and Missions Mobilization in 2024

(First daughter church planted in Guatemala)

After years of church planting in Guatemala we are moving to the US to lead the church planting efforts with New Life Network. Our role consists of coming alongside the churches that have already been established (2 in Indianapolis and 2 in Chicago) to support them and help them to make disciples and plant churches. We also hope to see many new churches planted and some existing churches enter the network. This will require connecting with other Latino Church planters and organizations. We have one such trip planned in Phoenix in February in which we will share with about 30 churches that have shown interest in working with New Life Network.

(Recent missions team to another area in Guatemala)

Another role we will have is leading the global missions efforts at New Life Network. This will include helping our other coordinators and pastors mobilize their folks towards global missions. And as the Lord continues to raise up new missionaries we will train and send. This will eventually mean a need for a Missionary Training Center.

This ministry God has called us to we can't do alone. We need a team alongside us praying and supporting us to lead these works. 

"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your parntership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:3-6

Gospel partnership is biblical and necessary! We are so grateful to each of you who partner with us in many different ways. This past year we have had people pray for us, give us a van, let us use there home, support us financially, help connect us with other partners, taken us out and encouraged us etc! Thank You! 

Would you Consider Partnering with Us? Here is how:

1. Commit to Prayer Weekly for our family and ministry. We need a prayer team committed to weekly prayer praying for protection, provision and fruitfulness in ministry. This team will get a weekly email with specific prayer requests. If you want to join this prayer team please send an email to ben here: benjamin@rednuevavida.org
   
   
2. Commit to give financially to the Kunkel Family. We are still in need of $2,000 a month in monthly gifts to be able to meet our financial goals. If so you can set up financial support here:

• Online:  https://www.rednuevavida.org/ourteam/ben
• By Check or Bank Bill Pay: Red Nueva Vida Inc. 7010 East Thompson Rd, Indianapolis, IN 46239 (Mark "Ben Kunkel Support")

Thanks so much for considering partnering with us in this gospel work!

The Kunkel Family