Christmas, birthdays and family fun...

 We have enjoyed our first holiday season in the United States in several years. It has been great to be with family and friends although we have missed our Guatemalan family. Check out some of the pics and details about our holidays celebrations and birthday celebrations.

Grace's Birthday

Grace turned 4 on Dec 18th. She is a fireball with lots of energy and personality. 

Christmas Celebrations

Christmas with Jennifer's side of the family. All the cousins together at last.

Time with Ben's parents.

Our own Christmas family celebration.

More family gatherings...

Levi's Birthday

Levi turned 20 on Dec 31st. 

Developing and Comissioning Leaders

This has been an amazing time to see how the Lord is raising up new leaders, pastors, disciplers etc to lead this next phase of ministry at both Love Guatemala and New Life Church. Check a few "commissioning" times we have had over the last few weeks recognizing the leaders and pastors God has called and raised up.

A little over a week ago we finished what has been 2-3 year process for some of these guys who were commissioned as pastors. They will serve as the board of elders leading New Life Church along with Carlos Lopez. Check out some pictures from this historic day. Please pray for Josh, Eswin and Yosimar!

We also had a good meeting with our new leadership team locally here at Love Guatemala. This team will support Katy Lopez the new General Director. We shared the history of Lg, shared some things we hoped that they would carry forward in this new season and we finishe our time praying over them and empowering them for the work of leading LG in this new season.

October Birthdays, Getaway and other random stuff

 October holds two birthday celebrations for the Kunkel Family. We celebrated Jake's birthday on the 20th and Caleb's on the 9th. Caleb is 13 and Jake turned 17. See some pics below.

It's hard to believe this boy is 13. He was 2 when we moved to Guatemala.

When the boys turn 13 I take them away for a night to do some focused discipleship/preparation for teenage years. I can't believe that this is the last boy for this special time. 

Jake turning 17!

We took a night away to have some fun at a hotel with some friends.

Girls having fun on the roof. I take them on the roof almost every evening. Emma has started joining in on the fun.

Emma Turns 1!

 One year ago God completed our family (We hope;-) with Emma Jane. She has been such a joy and it was fun to celebrate her first year of life and pray over the coming years. Please pray with us that God will use her to change the world. Check out some pictures of our celebration.

She is starting to walk and repeat some words. She is loud and still gets up at night to eat with mama. 

She dug in pretty good to her cake!

She liked eating the tissue paper more than the presents!

Ministry Trip to East Coast of Guatemala

 

(Carlos, Walter, Ben, Yosimar, Jose)

We had the opportunity to take a trip to the east side of Guatemala to explore some ministry opportunities for New Life Network Guatemala. We are excited for all the connections and open doors that we find there for ministry and planting churches. Please pray for wisdom and resources to know how, when and how to walk through these doors.

David the 2nd from the left is the director of El Faro the ministry we visited that is doing some great work in that area. (It is close to a city called Puerto Barrios which is on the east coast of Guatemala just north of Honduras)

Here we are praying for a missionary couple that is working in Greece with refugees from Iran. It was a great divine connection as we look to mobilize missionaries. I hope to visit them there in Greece.

This is a sweet girl in a village we visited called El Naranjal which I will share more about below.

This is the name of the ministry where we stayed.

This is the trip to the town I mentioned above, El Naranjal. It is an 1 1/2 hr boat ride from El Faro.

This is the school that El Faro built for this community. They were starting some leadership training with this community. This is one place where we would like to help plant a church.

Introducing ourselves

Carlos was leading the leadership training as it is training he has done many times at Love Guatemala.

On the way back we made another divine connection with Quique a Pastor in Livingstone. He has a fire for his people and the Lord which was noted only after visiting with him for 15 minutes. He invited us to come back and we may have him come and share with our church too. We were praying for him here.

It is a beautiful part of the country!

This is a discipleship group that Jose and Norita started at El Faro. Jose and Norita are our friends that leave here close but go to El Faro once a month for a week and serve there in pastoral care. He went through the discipleship route with us last year and now is leading this group there in El Faro.

The pic above was a meeting we had with Laura and Miguel who I mentioned above are missionaries in Greece. This was an amazing time of hearing their story and how God is using them.

This is part of the staff from El Faro plus our four.

I am grateful for this opportunity and excited to see how the Lord uses these connections.