8 years in Guatemala...

It is hard to believe that we have been here in Guatemala for 8 years. Here is a little of God's story in our lives over the last 8-10 years.

Our church had been sending teams and partnering with different missionaries in Guatemala for a few years and Jennifer decided to join one of these teams.

Through this trip she fell in love with Guatemala and the work of Carlos and Thelma and especially of the cooking school which was just getting started.

This is a bad pic but only decent pic of our first trip down together Jennifer and I with our pastor. After this we knew God was calling us to move and later that year in June we sold all our stuff and moved our family to Magdalena, Guatemala. A little more about this call and our first post on this blog.

Our sending off service in June of 2012 when Caleb puked on me ;-)

Jeremy Moss our second visitor.

Our staff in 2013 of these only 3 remain and one is in heaven!

My mom's first visit.

In 2014 the Lord miraculously provided for this facility and we expanded to more trade schools, feeding center. Check out the full story here.

2014

2016

Staff in 2016

End of 2016 in our first sabbatical as a family.

New Life Church Indy Visit in 2017.

Dec 2017

Started New Life Church in Jan 2018

Caleb and Joel Baptism in March 2018!

August 2018

January 2019

June 2019

Teams from Piedmont and Virginia last year. (Missing our teams this year!)

We built this new multi-purpose space at the end of 2019

Dec 2019

Celebration of New Multi-purpose space January 2020!

 LG Staff 2020

 Baptisms February 2020

Adoption of Jimena Sofia March 2020

May 2020

We are so grateful to the Lord for his faithfulness and to each of you who have prayed, sacrificed, given, encouraged so we can be here doing what God has called us to! 

Our Story

I was updating our story for the website and grateful for what the Lord has done and is doing in our family and ministry and thought maybe some of you would be interested in reading. This is the short version. Thankful for God's Grace! Thanks to each of you who pray for and support us! We are so grateful for our team! Much love from the Kunkel Family!

Ben & Jennifer serve as General Directors with Love Guatemala and Pastor of New Life Church Guatemala. Ben & Jennifer have 5 boys and 2 girls and have been married for almost 22 years. Before serving with Love Guatemala, Ben served as a Pastor at Indy Metro Church in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Jennifer first took a short-term trip to Guatemala in January of 2011. Through this trip God opened her eyes to the needs and opportunities to serve the people of Guatemala. But more importantly she fell in love with the people there. This love and passion was a constant thing even after returning. Through this process the Kunkel’s knew that God had a role in serving with Love Guatemala in some form. Ben then took a trip to Guatemala in June of 2011 and sensed the Lord leading us to be involved in some way with Love Guatemala as well. After much prayer and counsel they decided that God was leading them to move to Guatemala and serve with Love Guatemala full time. Through a yearlong process of many challenges God continued to make clear this was the next step for the Kunkel family.

They have now been serving for nearly 8 years with Love Guatemala. God has taught and grown the Kunkels in many ways during this time. God has made many changes with Love Guatemala as well during this time. The Lord has grown the trade schools and expanded the ministry. The Lord has provided for a 10,500 square foot Vocational Training Center where the vocational schools now operate.

In 2018 they were able to plant Iglesia Nueva Vida (New Life Church) in partnership with New Life Network. The church has grown to over 50 people with close to 70 people in discipleship groups. They have seen over 40 people baptized and many decisions for Jesus. In 2020 a Bible Institute was started in partnership with New Life Network to train future church planters and pastors. They plan to continue planting churches and training pastors and church planters in Guatemala in coordination with New Life Network. 

Family Pics and Luke's Birthday

We had some recent pics taken by our friend Jose Fares.  Here are some of the pics below.  Our first family pics without Levi. It still seems weird to not have him here but he seems to be adjusting well to living stateside. These were taken earlier this month:

Here are a few pics from Luke's birthday! (We failed and didn't take many pics)  I can't believe he turned 20! I can't be that old!

We did a little video call with family.

Luke asked for a Bibleman cake ;-) Not even sure where he came up with that idea but as always Jennifer came through!