New Life Network Annual Meetings

 Red Nueva Vida (New Life Network) Retreat

Part of Ben's time in Guatemala was spent in meetings with Red Nueva Vida. We meet every year in a different country to share, celebrate, plan, pray and strategize for the following year.

We started our time visiting and seeing the ministry in Guatemala. There are currently two churches and two generations of disciples and churches. There will hopefully be a third generation soon. The first service was an international service celebrating the work being done globally through New Life Network. Here are some pictures of that special time:

Disicpleship before service

Servicio Global

Our friend Yeison from Colombia was ordained as Pastor

Time and service in Santa Lucia the first daughter church in Guatemala.

We had meetings Monday through Wednesday in which we learned and shared together. Here are some of the pics from that time. We started by sharing prayer requests and praying for each other.

Praying for our first missionary being sent by Guatemala to help start a new work in Honduras.

Here are some of the things we celebrated as a network during last year of ministry:

• We planted 1 daughter church in Santa Lucia Milpas Altas
• National Convention Colombia 2023
• New Churches in Growth Cycle
• Refine creative work method

• Villa Mella Church (new group)

• Finances to hire full time coordinators  for Columbia, Chile, and Dominican Republic

• Coordinator for USA, Guatemala and Europe in place

• Discipleship DNA in 2 churches

• We have made 3 mission trips

• Completed local leadership training course

• Contact with new Pastor Elido entering the network

• We started prayer time with pastors

• New church starting

• Built relationships with pastors

• Spiritual Retreats

• Recorded and edited videos for Church Planting Certificate for Institute New Life Network

• We opened 2 new regions (Plantar CRNVC, Huasco-north, Chile Chico-South)

• Recorded Certificate for Pastoral Care lessons in New Life Institute

• We opened 2 Discipleship groups

• Introduced the network to 4 Pastors/Leaders

We set goals for the coming year as well. One big goal as a network is moving into at least one new country. Please pray for these efforts!

We of course took some time to have fun together. One evening we went to Antigua and our last day together we went to Lake Aititlan.

Trip to Guatemala

 We had a great trip to Guatemala. The primary reason for trip was for Levi and Alanna's wedding. The trip also served a few other purposes. One was a way for us to hopefully close this chapter of our lives by visiting friends and places we have missed greatly. The other purpose for Ben at least was our annual meetings for New Life Network. Every year we meet together to pray, celebrate, plan and strategize for the coming year of ministry. 

Here are some pictures with our visits with friends. See next blog to see pictures and info from New Like Network Retreat.

Hanging out with our friend Eswin

Love the beautiful sunsets in Guatemala!

Planning meeting for team

Lots of play time with girls on property where we were staying. They had 300 chickens that the girls always wanted to go and see.

Trip down

Family

More play time

Feeding Center at Love Guatemala

New Life Church in Magdalena

Day before wedding everyone went up mountain to play

Weekly pastoral prayer time together.

Visit with our friends the Nortons to celebrate their daughters 15th birthday

Carlos keeps shrinking ;-)

Carlos and I had dinner at the end of our trip to celebrate all God has done!

We visited a lot more people with whom we didn't get pics :-(

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.