God's Grace seen in Grace

I am in love. I am smitten. Grace has me wrapped around here little pinky. However you want to say it. Yes! But can you blame me? The last month has been quite incredible. She is beautiful in so many ways. Her name Grace because it is by God's grace that we have her. Let me share a bit of this story...

About 15 years ago we began to pray for a girl as we already had two boys at the time and we had dreamed of 2 boys and two girls ;-) And then we had 3 more boys and in between these boys Jennifer had 5 other failed pregnancies. We had pretty much given up on the idea of ever having a little girl of our own.

But God's grace. The last year has been a roll coaster of emotions as we did not want to get our hopes up in case Jennifer again lost this baby. As she got further along in the pregnancy the emotions built and our hearts were a little more tender. And then in July we found out that not only was Jennifer having a healthy pregnancy but also that she was pregnant with a girl! We could not believe it and some days as I look at her I have to pinch myself.

As Jennifer continued in the pregnancy we were growing in expectation and a little bit of fear. Jennifer was high risk for her age and other failed pregnancies. We found a midwife and decided to go the natural route. Jennifer did amazing throughout the pregnancy. She did have some challenges with her legs and especially her veins.

By God's grace, Grace was born on December 18th, 2018. 12/18/18. Jennifer went into labor sometime in the morning and it began to intensify throughout the day. We left for the birth clinic which is about an hour drive from our home about 4:30pm. Guatemala has some major traffic issues at time especially about this time of day. We made it in about an hour and a half by 6pm.

Jennifer did amazing in the labor. Keep in mind she is 40 years young and has given birth every other time with a lot of drugs ;-) She was amazing and the midwife said she had never seen some give birth so peacefully. God's grace and many prayers! About 3 and half hours after we arrived she gave birth to Grace. Jennifer was grateful to have her mom there.

Thank you to all who prayed and encouraged us! We are enjoying every moment of her. Enjoy a few more pics below.

One of the joys has been watching our boys love on Grace and take care of her and even want to help change diapers and calm her when she is fussy. To God be the Glory! By God's grace! Thank you Jesus!

 1 month pictures.

2018 Year End Review

It is incredible that another year has come and gone. I was reflecting on my year and our year as a family and I wanted to take a few minutes to write down some of the things the Lord has done in and through us this year!

I will start with birthdays because it was a big year of birthdays for us! Jennifer and I both turned the big 40! Luke our oldest son turned 18. Joel turned 10 and Jake became a teenager! Jennifer and I also celebrated 20 years of wedded bliss, well for the most part ;-) Bliss for me anyway!

Another big part of this year was the launch of Iglesia Nueva Vida. Since we moved here to Guatemala I had a vision to see a grace, Jesus-centered church started here in the community of Magdalena. Little by little the Lord was forming this vision and preparing others. Finally, January 31st of this year we were able to launch New Life Church.

We have seen about 20 people give their lives to the Lord and 13 people follow the Lord in baptism, including our two youngest sons, Joel and Caleb.

One big miracle that we found out about in April was our princess, Grace Christina who is due on the 13th of December, but decided to come on the 18th of December at 9:31pm. She weighed 8lbs, 9oz. We are so in love!

We were able to take a trip back to the states this year as well and see family and friends and share at some churches and with supporters! 

We took some family pics while back as well.

Love Guatemala has grown this year as well. We had 24 graduates and improved a lot of things this year. We are preparing not just cooks, carpenters and artists, but leaders to transform the face of Guatemala! We have seen a ton of our students take big steps of faith.

Thanks for making all this possible with your prayers and support for our family!!

Year End Activities, Baby Showers, Baptisms and More...

We have begun to wrap up our school year here at Love Guatemala as well as the boys in their home school. In October we had our graduation at LG and some more baptisms as New Life Church and also our vacation schools. We also hosted a few groups over the last month. It has been a full and fun time of activities. See some pics and videos of all this below.

These pics are from our graduation 2018. Below are a few ladies from Bridge Church that was here to help us celebrate. Cindy led this team. We are grateful to her and Tom and Bridge Church for their support!

We were able to take Carlos and Telma out to celebrate his birthday! We are grateful to the Lord for both of them!

Above are a few pics from our vacation schools. We talked about the values of Love, Friendship, Respect and Forgiveness with them.

This is Kim, Rosalind and Mary. They came and served in the vacation schools and helped with our year end trip which you can see below or at least the bus ride there. I didn't get many pics of this.

We took the staff to a water park.

 Our staff ladies threw Jennifer another baby shower!

Our friends the Nortons and Harmans also threw Jennifer a baby shower. I think this was the 5th baby shower she had!! We are so grateful for all the support, love and prayers for this precious baby that is coming soon! Jennifer is now 36 1/2 weeks!

We also had another baptism at the end of October which I did not get many pics of but here is a video our friend did about Iglesia Nueva Vida and the baptisms and especially one of the guys that God has changed through the gospel: https://vimeo.com/299290438?fbclid=IwAR0jfgr1p4j72r7hN_S2TDVW5U8XqI2M7UZ76xpbOQXXz6p5pvfIlcBuWJ8

Thanks for your prayers and support!

October Birthdays

We have a few birthdays in October. Caleb turned 9 on October 9th and Jake turned 13 on October 20th. Both of these boys bring great joy into our lives. Below are a few pics from our celebrations. Please continue to pray with us for these boys that their hearts would be all for Jesus!

 Caleb wanted to do go-karting with his buddy for his birthday!

 There is always a lot of food involved in our birthday celebrations ;-)

He got a scooter for his bday!

 Cinnamon Pancakes for his birthday breakfast and fried chicken for dinner!

We are grateful for our boys!

Stateside Trip August 2018

We were grateful to be able to take a trip back to Indianapolis for about a month. It was fun to see all of our family. It is hard to be away from family and always good to be able to spend some time with them. We were also able to enjoy some fun things, like a trip to the amusement park, swimming, bowling, Indians baseball game and a preseason Colts game. Check out some of the pictures below.

Some of the cousins on Kunkel side of the family.

 First stop at Grandma Jane and Papa Harrys

2/3 of cousins/family on Price side.

 The other 1/3 of Jennifer's family.

Some fun time camping.

Matt and his sweet girls.

At King's Island.

Colts game with Matt.