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!

Levi and Alanna's Wedding

 We just got back from Guatemala this week and spent nearly a month there. Well Ben, Joel and Caleb did spent that long there. Jennifer, Luke, Jake and the girls spent about 2 weeks there. We went primarily for the wedding of our son Levi and new daughter in law Alanna (that still doesn't seem right to say). Ben, Joel and Caleb stayed longer for camp and some meetings with New Life Network. It was an amazing time although hard in some ways as well. It was awesome to see Levi get married, but hard because everyone got sick at some point and Emma was very sick the day of the wedding and couldn't participate as a flower girl. 

It was a very hot day the day of the wedding but a beautiful location in Antigua, Guatemala about 30 minutes from were we lived from 10 years. Enjoy a small sampling of pictures.

We got one picture with Emma in it.

The goomsmen

Alanna and her family

The beautiful flower girls

Thanks for praying for Levi and Alanna as they prepare to move to Kansas City where Levi will work and study at Spurgeon College and Alanna already has a job lined up as a Kindergarten Teacher. We are very proud of them both and excited for what the Lord has in store for them.

Trip to Colombia

In 2018 we had a young man, Yeison from Colombia come and intern with us in the Church. He was a huge help in getting New Life Church started. This past week he got married. I was able to go and meet Levi there in Colombia for the wedding. I had the privilege of preaching at the wedding. I also got to share in a church there on Sunday May 2nd. It was an interesting trip with all the COVID restrictions and also the protests happening in Colombia but it was a good trip overall. It was good to spend some time with my son and also share with some other Pastors, churches and ministries there. We were in Bogota and Medellin. Below are a few more details and pictures:

We arrived Friday night into Bogota. We spent Saturday hanging out with Yeison and our host family. We also went and met Yeison's family who was staying in Yeison's apartment about 30 minutes away. (Bogota is a very big city about 10 million)

Sunday I got to preach at a church there in Bogota.

This is Pastor Diego. Below is his family and leaders that led the service. The churches there are still virtual.

Hanging out with Yeison and his brother Yeimer.

The wedding. It was in a beautiful place.

After the wedding we got into the back of a box truck and tried to get to the airport (Long Story) we finally made it and got to Medillin another city in Colombia about 10 hours by car but only a 1/2hr flight. We spend time with our friend Remberto and his family. He leads the New Life Network in Colombia.

They have a great public transportation system with cable cars that go over the city which gave us a great view and tour of the city.

This was a touristic place we visited. We climbed to the top.

My favorite part was hanging with this guy. He is becoming a fine young man. We hope to travel more together in the future. The Lord is doing some cool things in his life!