Year End Offering

 

We just finished a lovely time having all our kids here for the first time in a year. It was a great time together. Unfortunately, this will be the new norm for our family since Jacob is in Germany and Levi and Alanna in Kansas City. It will be that way for at least 3 more years. I hope that you and your family enjoyed some time together this last week.

As we look back at 2025 we have seen God's faithfulness again and again. He has been with our family in all the changes and transitions, he has helped the girls grow in their schooling, the teenage boys adjust fairly well to life and school and new jobs and driving. He has been with our adult kids in their challenges and successes. God is faithful. "For the word of the LORD is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness." Psalm 33:4

We have seen God's faithful provision financially as well. However, our monthly support levels are still not at 100%. We are still short about $500 a month. We did have a bit of reserve built up to start the year but now those are dwindling and we need to rebuild them to be able to make it through 2026. 

God has been faithful in helping us build up the ministry of RNV USA as well. We have seen some progress in 2025 and we have a big vision moving forward for 2026 and beyond as well. You can read more about this here if you desire.

Another fun and exciting part of Ben's ministry is leading the missions efforts with Red Nueva Vida. Right now we are working with two Colombian families God is raising up to go as missionaries. There are some other exciting doors that God is opening as well. Ben has been working with developing processes, training and sending efforts for Red Nueva Vida.

Would you consider a year-end gift to help us continue serving the Lord in these various areas of ministry in 2026?

Any amount is helpful. You can donate here online or send a check made out to Red Nueva Vida to 7010 E Thompson Rd, Indpls, IN (Kunkel Support in memo).

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

Re-entry: Moving Back to Your Passport Country

One question we have heard a lot recently is: "How is the transition going?" So here are my thoughts on how it is going. Not really a good answer, but my thoughts on transition and re-entry anyway.

We wrote about here how we have decided that for this season the Lord has us back in the USA leading the church planting efforts in the US with New Life Network. This means us re-entering the culture in which we lived for so many years and yet so much has changed over the last 11 years since we have been in Guatemala.

I (Ben) have been taking a lot of time to ponder, reflect and work through this re-entry process. I am using a transition coach to help me work through some of the challenges related to this. It is a hard process to talk about or express especially to those who have never lived abroad and "re-entered". It is even different for each member of our family and probably has been most challenging for me. 

There are feelings of grief, confusion and excitement all at the same time sometimes. It is a weird feeling for the country you grew up to not feel like home. Indeed, there has not really been a "home" since we moved to Guatemala and not sure there ever will be again, but maybe that is the way we are all to feel as followers of Jesus since we are citizens of heaven. 

One book I was recently reviewing was comparing re-entry of  spacecrafts to that of missionaries re-entering there countries of birth. It is more dangerous for spacecrafts to re-enter then it is "to be orbiting 135 miles above earth at 118,00 miles per hour." This is often the case for missionaries. The entering into mission field and re-entering into passport country is most difficult. This might be a little overstated, but it definetly is challenging.

I write all this so you can be praying as we continue to "re-enter". There are lots of uncertains, decisions to be made, funds to be raised etc. In one sense, we are moving from one field to another as we will continue to minister in a culture that is not our own while living in a culture that is at least somewhat our own. That does not even seem correct as I write it because so much has changed in the last 11 years.

Thanks for praying and supporting us in this time of transition!

Trip to Virginia Nov 2023

 We were able to take a little trip out east to see friends, share about the work the Lord has us doing and have a little family fun. It was a pretty long trip but the kids did well. We are grateful to everyone who hosted us, fed us, took us out to eat, gave us hugs and loved on our kids. A special big thanks to Tom and Cindy Denome who spoiled us again when we stayed with them. Anyone who can host 8 people is amazing but they not only host but spoil us with special food and times together and bend over backwards to bless us. They are family and we are forever grateful. 

This was a fun gathering with a bunch of people who came down on teams from Virginia to Guatemala over the years. It was fun to catch up with everyone.

They girls had fun painting with Miss Kim.

Snuggle time

This was on the way we stayed at a hotel to break up trip thanks to Tom giving us hotel points to use.

Emma got tired while daddy was talking at church ;-) We shared at a church called Warehouse Church which meets at a missions organization.

There is a park always nearby. Weather was great while we were there.

Kim even taught Emma

Miss Cindy made all the kids custom t-shirts and of course the girls picked unicorns.

We got to celebrate Tom's bday a little early.

Kids adopted grandparents. 

The girls love the dogs. Daddy not so much ;-)

It was great to be united with Kim and Glen after almost 4 years! 

Family!

Trip to Guatemala and Honduras

 Ben was able to take about a 12 day trip to Guatemala and Honduras. The purpose was to visit and encourage the work continuing both at Love Guatemala and New Life Network. It was an amazing visit to see how great the leaders are doing in both ministries.

These two are doing an amazing job leading Love Guatemala and New Life Network. We are so proud of them and their leadership!

This is the leadership team at our new church we are planting in Santa Lucia and below is one of there weekly gatherings they are doing. The church officially launches in June.

We took this group on a road trip to explore some ministry opportunities in two different places. The drive was beautiful but long. Almost 13 hours to get there because of traffic, accidents etc.

Above is a discipleship group that our friend and ministry partner Jose has started using the material from New Life Network. They are doing great and planning on multiplying this group into surrounding communities.

It is a beautiful but primitive place on the east cost of Guatemala on a bay connected with the Atlantic. Pray for our ministry opportunities there with the multuplication of the discipleship group, starting the Bible Insititute there and church planting opportunities.

The second place we went was Travesia, Honduras. It is a beach town with a unique Garifuna culture.  

The ministry we visited and are partnering with is called Buena Vista Sports Academy. It was started by our friend Brock Johnson and their focus is using Futbol (soccer) to reach and discple young men. We visited here to look into the possibility of planting a church there, with a young man who feels called there from Guatemala, named Ivan. Please pray for this opportunity, Ivan and BVSA.

This is the team leading BVSA in Travesia together with our team. They are doing an amazing job of reaching young men for Christ.

This is the Catholic church there in the community.

Love Guatemala is doing great with over 300 students this year and most of them are there on Saturday which makes for a very full building.

It was great to see the feeding center back in full swing. 

The cooking school is back up and running too which is super exciting!

I got to spend some time with this amazing couple too. This is Yeison and Lilliana from Columbia. Yeison served with us for two years helping plant the first church in Guatemala. He is now going to be helping lead the Network in Columbia. They came and served in Guatemala for a few months and I caught them on the last part of their time there.

It was a great trip, but hard to be away from family for 12 days. Thanks for praying and supporting the work we are involved in!

New Life Network Guatemala Update

 

New Life Network in Guatemala continues to advance and grow. There are many opportunities for growth and we have been praying and discernign which doors to walk through. Two opportunties that we are pursuing is planting churches in two communties close to where we planted the first church. Pray for Eswin and Evelyn and there team there in Santa Lucia. They have been praying and evangelizing and forming a team there and hope to launch some Sunday gatherings mid year this year.

We also are preparing a planter for another community close and hope to begin a work there by the end of the year. We also have a young man, Ivan, whom we believe the Lord is raising up to be sent to Honduras to partner with another ministry BVSA who already has a ministry there to help them plant a church. We are super excited to send our first missionary!

The first plant in Magdalena just celebrated 5 years of ministry. Check out some pictures below of this work. Pray for Carlos, Yosimar and the elders of this church. Thanks for praying and supporting these works in Guatemala!

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.