Thanksgiving, Jake's Visit and Family Stuff

We were so grateful to have our older kids home recently. Levi and Alanna were with us for five sweet days, and Jake was here for almost two weeks. What a gift it was to have the house full again—for meals around the table, late-night conversations, and those simple moments you don’t realize you miss until they’re back.

Being far from our kids is one of the hardest parts of this new season of life. Jennifer and I were talking about it just last night. In some ways, this chapter feels lighter—living in the U.S. again brings many comforts we didn’t always have before. But in other ways, it’s more challenging, especially with our kids spread out and beginning their own lives far from home.

All of that makes the time we do get with them even more meaningful. We’re deeply grateful for every visit, every hug, and every day we get to share with our adult children. 

Here are some pictures from these times together:

Welcoming Crew

Thanksgiving

Decorating for Christmas

Pacers game with the boys.

Quick trip up to Indiana Dunes to hike in the snow.

Christmas with Jake

Lots of game time with Jake and boys

Trip To Colombia

 Ben took a trip to Colombia at the end of May/beginning of June for some annual meetings with all the other country coordinators. It is always a great time of hearing what God is dong globally through New Life Network. It is also a sweet time of prayer and fellowship with fellow co-laborers. We also had a retreat with the pastors in Colombia and some from Venezuela. Ben was impacted by the challenges confronting the church in Venezuela. See some pictures from this time below:

Our car ride in a compact car with all our suitcases from the airport to the place where we were staying.

During our time with the coordinators we all shared a report and prayed for each other.

Yeison and Liliana did a great job leading. Yeison is now the coordinator of Colombia. (He served with us in Guatemala)

This was our tourist day where we took the public transportation around Medellin Colombia. They have nice public transportation.

More time of sharing

More worship and prayer together.

More pics of our fun tourist day.

Over the weekend we served the pastors in Colombia at one of the churches there.

This was a workship that Daniel and Ben led on Developing a Culture of Discipeship.

This was another workshop we did on global missions.

This was a friend that came and served with us in Guatemala and lives in Medellin.

Trip to Kansas City and Mississippi

 We were grateful for some time away during the kids fall break to go and see Levi and Alanna in Kansas City and Jacob in Mississippi. They are all doing well as you can see in some pics below. We had a fun time although it was a lot of driving.

Levi got some lovings from his sisters

This was the highlight of the trip! Luke got to ride in Levi's space car. He combined Jake's job with Space Force and Levi's job with security on campus and called the police car the space car.

Of course the girls had to get in it too!

We celebrated Jake's bday while we were there

Jake and Ben did some hiking in Mississippi

This is in Levi and Alanna's apartment.

We played some games of course

Lots of snuggle bug hugs for Jake as Emma calls them.

The house where we stayed in Mississippi was a 100 year old home.

It was nice to have Uncle Dan come over and see us too. They only live about an 1 hr or so from where we were.