2024 Ministry & Financial Update

Pastoral Retreat we had in early November

Ministry Update

Ben began this year in a new role as you know. He began serving as the national coordinator for New Life Network here in the USA. His role is supporting Hispanic Pastors to fullfill the mission we have in common which is: To form and reproduce disciples of Jesus, healthy churches and faithful and prepared servant-leaders, in the Hispanic communites in the USA. 

This was and is a big learning curve for him as it is a much different context in the USA than in Guatemala. He has learned a lot and has a lot yet to learn. There are many challenges facing the Hispanic Church in the USA. (Even the term hispanic is debated if it is the propert way to describe those from Latin American origins)

But despite the challenges, we have seen the Lord begin to work among the existing churches we have as a part of the network. We have also seen a few new churches join the network and we are in process of helping a couple more churches join. One of the biggest challenges and yet big opportunities is helping Anglo churches reach hispanics and plant churches within their exsisting churches. There has been a big interest in us helping these churches with this interest. Please pray the Lord will give us wisdom in helping them. Here are a few things we celebrated with our pastors a few weeks back in our pastoral retreat. We share them so you too can celebrate and praise the Lord with us:

• 13 Commissioned Disciplers at New Life Church in Indy
• 2 Churches Joined RNV in 2024
• A Monthly Prayer Time Together was started
• A Pastoral Retreat Together (pic above)
• A New discipleship group preparing 3 churches to start discipleship in their churches (see pic below)
• 3 New churches in the process of discernment if they should be a part of New Life Network

Thanks for your prayers for us in 2024! To God be the Glory!

Financial Update

Our role with New Life Network even though we are in the USA is still a role in which we have to raise %100 of our own financial support. We began the year in a good place financially with about 3 months of support in our account but that has been slowly eaten away at and is now just over one month of support. The reason is that our monthly budget is about a $1,000 a month more than we are receiving in support each month. We would like to end this year getting out of the "red" and raise $10,000 to get our support account where it needs to be.

Would you consider a year end gift to our family to help us get to a healthy spot financially?

You can give here or mail a check to: Red Nueva Vida, 7010 E Thompson Rd, Indpls, IN 46239 (memo as Ben Kunkel Support)

Thanks as always for your prayers and support!

The Kunkel Family

"And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others." 2 Timothy 2:2

Pastoral Retreat

 We had a great Pastoral Retreat a few weeks back with the pastors we have the priviledge of serving. The theme was united in the mission of God. We really wanted to help foster strong relationships between all of us and I think we took some good steps toward that goal. I had my friend from Colombia, Remberto and also Daniel Godbey another friend who serves with the network share with the Pastors. Check out some pics of our time together below.

At our first session Jonathan Morton our president shared with the pastors too.

We had a beautiful time of sharing and prayer around a campfire.

Pastor Remberto sharing with us on how to heal from ministry hurt and to last in ministry.

Ladies and guys had some prayer and sharing times together.

We did a workshop on creating a culture of discipleship in our churches.

Heres the whole group minus Daniel who was taking the picture.

Lots of time in prayer together!

Thanks for those who prayed and supported this retreat!

September and October Birthdays

 Emma our youngest daughter keeps us on our toes. We can't decide if she is keeping us young or making us age faster. She is full of energy, life and personality. She recently turned 3. Below our some pictures of our celebrations.

She made out with the presents!

showing a little of her personality

She had her cake picked out months ahead of time

Good to have both my bro's and families here to celebrate.

Caleb also turned 15 in October. Here are some pics from his celebrations. He got two since we were in Kansas City for his actual birthday and then we invited the family over when we got back.

When we were with Jacob we also celebrated with him for his birthday, but unfortunately he was on his own for his actual birthday. 

Trip to Kansas City and Mississippi

 We were grateful for some time away during the kids fall break to go and see Levi and Alanna in Kansas City and Jacob in Mississippi. They are all doing well as you can see in some pics below. We had a fun time although it was a lot of driving.

Levi got some lovings from his sisters

This was the highlight of the trip! Luke got to ride in Levi's space car. He combined Jake's job with Space Force and Levi's job with security on campus and called the police car the space car.

Of course the girls had to get in it too!

We celebrated Jake's bday while we were there

Jake and Ben did some hiking in Mississippi

This is in Levi and Alanna's apartment.

We played some games of course

Lots of snuggle bug hugs for Jake as Emma calls them.

The house where we stayed in Mississippi was a 100 year old home.

It was nice to have Uncle Dan come over and see us too. They only live about an 1 hr or so from where we were.

Trip to San Antonio - Jake's Space Force BMT Graduation

 We had a great trip to San Antonio last week to celebrate Jacob's graduation from BMT (Basic Military Training). He did a great job and finished strong. It was great to spend some time with him and hear all about his experience. It was challenging but he did well. He is now in Keesler AFB doing his technical training. His job is satellite communications. 

Jennifer was so ready to see her son and give him a hug!

I am glad that Levi could meet us there too! It was good to spend time with him too. 

This was the first day we got to see him where he had his coin ceremony and then and special pinning ceremony afterwards where he gave Jennifer and I Space force pins.

Jake and his grandparents.

Jake marching. I think this was his least favorite part of BMT. The second day was a parade where they marched in front of us and then had a pass and review with the higher ranking officials. It is amazing how they can transform these young men and women into airmen and guardians in just 7 1/2 weeks. We are so proud of Jacob!

My cousing Aaron is in the Air Force and is stationed where Jake did his BMT so we met him and his wife Amanda for lunch when we arrived and then he came over for the graduation ceremony on the second day.

All the active duty and veterans in the group. Tony served in the Navy, Ben in the Air Force.

The whole group

The boys went down to the Alamo and river walk one evening after we took Jake back to base.

This was the coin ceremony where Jake is receiving his Space Force coin from his Military Training Instructor.

We are grateful we could go and celebrate with Jacob. It was very hot there but it was so great to be with Jacob!