Prayer Time with RNV USA Pastors

 

We had a beautiful gathering with some of our pastors a few weeks ago. It is hard to get everyone together but we try and do it as often as possible. We ate, worshipped, learned and prayed together.

We did some videos and everyone thought we were doing a video but it was a picture ;-)

Thanks for supporting and praying for us as we serve these pastors and their ministries!

Pastoral Retreat in Waukegan with Iglesia Jesus El Buen Pastor

Ben had the chance to travel with 3 of the pastors from the Indianapolis area up to Waukegan, IL where we serve another church called Jesus El Buen Pastor or Jesus the Good Shepherd. It was fun to hang out together and serve together. See some pictures below.

Left is Manuel from Living Hope Church in Indianapolis, then myself, Harol from New Life Church in Indianapoli and Leslie from Mt. Pleasant Christian Church. In front is Maribel and Jose who serve at the church there in Waukegan.

This is the same group with some of their leaders there. This church is located in a strategic area of a town that is over 80% hispanic. We are praying for a discipleship movement in this area!

Harol preached at their service Friday evening.

We each shared "un saludo" with the church.

I love getting to serve this man (Jose Juan) and his family. 

On Saturday morning we served the church by doing some training on how to mobilize and form a ministry team and how to form a ministry plan.

It was fun to serve alongside these men.

I am grateful to get to serve churches in these types of ways!

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

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. 

Pastoral Retreat

 We had a great Pastoral Retreat a few weeks back with the pastors we have the priviledge of serving. The theme was united in the mission of God. We really wanted to help foster strong relationships between all of us and I think we took some good steps toward that goal. I had my friend from Colombia, Remberto and also Daniel Godbey another friend who serves with the network share with the Pastors. Check out some pics of our time together below.

At our first session Jonathan Morton our president shared with the pastors too.

We had a beautiful time of sharing and prayer around a campfire.

Pastor Remberto sharing with us on how to heal from ministry hurt and to last in ministry.

Ladies and guys had some prayer and sharing times together.

We did a workshop on creating a culture of discipleship in our churches.

Heres the whole group minus Daniel who was taking the picture.

Lots of time in prayer together!

Thanks for those who prayed and supported this retreat!

Our Calling to Serve back in the USA

 

Calling to Serve through New Life Network in the United States:

It has been quite a year. We came back in December of last year for a year long home assignment, with the full intention of returning to Guatemala at the end of this year. But God is redirecting our steps. (In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps. Proverbs 16:9) We were invited by the president of our network to consider taking a role here in the USA of Country Coordinator. This is the same role I had in Guatemala. After much prayer, fasting and counsel, we decided that this was the direction that the Lord was leading us as a family. This was not an easy decision and still there are days in which we struggle with this, but we know that ultimately in this season the USA is where God wants us to serve.

Work in Guatemala:

What does this mean for the work in Guatemala? Last year, I completely transitioned out of Love Guatemala as director and that work has been going amazing under the leadership of Katy Lopez. They are going to have the largest graduating class ever this year and have a goal of 400 students next year. They finished up this year with just under 300 students. Ben is continuing to serve on the Board of Directors and giving ongoing coaching/suppport to Katy.

The work in the network has been led by Carlos Lopez in our absence and he has done a great job in leading and continuing the work and even improving it in our absence. He and the team have planted our first daughter church this year, and are preparing 3 more communities for church plants in the next couple of years. His leadership and development has helped in making the decision to stay here in the U.S. possible. Ben will continue to travel back and forth for a while to Guatemala as we take a year to transition Guatemala to the leadership of Carlos Lopez. Please pray for both Carlos and Katy and their teams and ministries!

Our New Role:

As mentioned above, Ben will continue to serve with New Life Network as a Country Coordinator. What does this mean? He will serve the existing 4 churches that we have in the USA through support and coaching. He will look for new church planters and opportunties to plant churches amongst the Latino Population. There are over 60 million Hispanics in the USA so the opportunities are enormous. The goal is to expand the work to 150 disciples in our discipleship route,  20 leaders/church planters trained, and 10 churches in the network in the USA over the next 3 years.

Ben will also serve as director of global missions for new life network. He will work to mobilize and train those within New Life Network Global. The goal is to mobilize and train 100 missionaries over the next 10 years. We hope to start at least 1 missionary training center in the next 3 years.

Family Transition:

As you can imagine this transition to live here in the USA is a challenging one, after living abroad for over 10 years. We still need to find permanent housing, vehicles, decide on education for kids etc. Please pray for these decisions and for our family as we process this big change.

Support Raising:

The role Ben has in the USA is still a role in which we will need to raise our own financial support. The cost of living in the USA is significanly higher so please pray and consider supporting our family if you can. We need to raise an additional $2500 per month for housing, insurance, vehicles, food and other ongoing monthly needs. You can set up a monthly gift here if you desire: www.rednuevavida.org/ourteam/ben or mail checks to this address: Red Nueva Vida Inc., 7010 East Thompson Rd., Indianapolis, IN 46239 (Attn: Ben Kunkel Support) 

Thank you so much for your ongoing prayers and support for our family! Please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions: benjamin@rednuevavida.org