a little piece of paradise

on may 13th we started on a road trip to ft. walton beach, fl - the reason was for my cousin's wedding, but we also made a family vacation out of it too! my parents, brother, sister and her husband and our family all stayed in a condo together-it was wonderful to have a nice, relaxing week with my family. the weather was great. we were able to just walk out of the condo right to the beach or the poolside-whatever mood we were in that day! the week went by way too fast-as we headed back to "real life" on the 20th!

eden loves rocky-she loves to pet him and pull on his fur-its so cute. rocky hates every minute of it but he still lets her! he's such a good little guy.

it is a sad time for our family-it has come to the point where we have to give rocky away. when it comes time to move, we are unable to take him with us. once we start traveling more it would not have worked out anyway-so we would have had to do it sometime-it's just sad to have to do it at all.

i know he will be much happier with another family that loves him and gives him the attention he deserves but we just can't give him right now with being so busy.

we love you rocky!!

moving time

the time has come - we are taking the next step, just one more closer to kenya. we are moving out of our condo into ryan's parent's basement. they have a nice finished basement with two bedrooms and a big bathroom. it is a nice little area.

so this week has been crazy busy with packing and moving. tomorrow is our official moving day when we will be moving just about everything that is left out.

we are so thankful for the generosity of the kuenkels and their willingness to allow us to live in their basement.

pics of the new place to come! :)

ryan turns 25!

on thursday, april 23rd ryan turned 25 years old. we were able to go out to eat for a nice dinner while ryan's parents watched eden.

that weekend we was able to go on a guys weekend out to springfield, missouri for a Mark Driscoll-Song of Solomon Conference. he had a great time and said the conference was amazing. so that was a nice little get-away for him

the next week we celebrated with his parents by going to one of his favorite places-Qdoba, a mexican burrito restaurant. then we went back to his parents house for dessert and presents!

i think he had a pretty good birthday! :) it's all downhill from here!

Eden's Spring Photo Shoot

Eden is just getting so big so fast! She is doing so good sitting up on her own - it's really cute to watch her.

She enjoys eating real baby food once a day-for her lunch. Although she gives a "gross" face for the first bite-every time-she opens her mouth for more!

Eden is interested in just about anything going on around her now - she watches it all. Especially our little dog Rocky-who she loves to pull the fur on-and just cracks up at his bark!

The other day we took some Spring pictures...just wanted to share a few!

HAPPY EASTER

We hope everyone had a happy Easter! It is such a special time of year-especially because of what this holiday represents - OUR RISEN SAVIOR!

We got to spend Easter with both sides of the family-it was a great time with everyone!

Just wanted to share some pictures of our family on Eden's first Easter

our first missions conference

This past week we had our first missions conference as a team. It was at our home church-Grace Baptist Church of Mason, March 22-25. It was such a special and amazing week.

GOOD OLE BRUCE
Each night Bruce O'Neal challenged the congregation. Bruce is the president of Manna Worldwide-the ministry we will be partnering with for the feeding centers aspect of our ministry. He is an amazing man and someone our team has definitely grown to love in such a big way!

HOW THIS WEEK WENT
After Bruce spoke, some members of our team took a turn to speak about a certain aspect of the team - Sunday night the Guzmans and Shantelle spoke about 'compassion', Monday night Ryan and I and Alisa spoke on 'spreading the Gospel', and Tuesday night the Boons and Brittany spoke on 'discipleship'.

Wednesday night was a little different service-our commissioning service. It was an amazing service to be in. Our team got to share our testimonies and the church voted on commissioning us. They also had to vote on the support aspect-by ballot, which came back unanimous-everyone was for it! So humbling an encouraging to know that our church is so behind us and supportive!

There was also a time of prayer. Our team went up to the front of the church and sat-facing the congregation. The officers of the church spread out and prayed with us-laying their hands on us. Then they opened up the opportunity for the congregation to do the same. It was such an overwhelming experience-so many of our church family came up to pray with us. It was amazing! We were there until about 9:30pm.


There really aren't sufficient words to express our feelings of gratitude right now. We are so blessed to have the home church and the families that we have.

So, lots has happened these past few weeks. So many great things!

THE NEXT STEPS
Our next step now is just to call churches and get connections to set up meetings to raise the support we need. Please pray as Ryan will be contacting many churches-that we will get the meetings needed to raise support and as we start traveling-hopefully later on this year.


THANK YOU AGAIN FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT AND PRAYERS!

we are official now!

We just returned from 9 days of Candidate Seminar with ABWE (Association of Baptists for World Evangelism) in Harrisburg, PA. It was a long and tiring week but it was also VERY good! This week came with lots of tests as well as many blessings.

ANSWER TO PRAYER #1
It started out with a huge answer to prayer! We have been praying for a long time what God would have us to do regarding a vehicle. Traveling during pre-field with all of our belongings and things needed for meetings at churches, as well as a family looked next to impossible with a two-door sports car! So we were trusing in God to provide-and He did! We received a phone call on the way up to the seminar that God had laid on their hearts to give us a vehicle! This was a HUGE blessing-such an answer to prayer!

A TEST FROM GOD
We had a few days set aside for ABWE to do different individual interviews; one of them being a financial interview. A few years ago Ryan started a home inspection business-which obviously had some start up costs. Well as of now, it still has not paid itself off-because of the economy and very bad market. Therefore- there is some business debt that has to be dealt with.

ABWE has its rules regarding debt-whether it be consumer debt or school debt. But there isn’t anything written about business debt-that is how we even got this far. About halfway through the week it was brought to our attention that we would not be able to be presented before the board to be approved by ABWE with the debt we have.

It was really amazing to find out that one of the financial consultants of ABWE that we were discussing the issue with woke up in the middle of the night the day after we talked to him and we came to his mind-and then he prayed for us. After much discussion it was decided that we would not be presented on the last day. This presented a major road block for us. This means we can not go out to churches and raise support until we are approved! We just had to face the fact and trust God that His timing is always perfect.

ABWE gave us possibility to be presented before the board of ABWE if we could present to them people that are guaranteed to assist us with the plan we have in place. So we did everything we could in that area-by making phone calls, sending emails, and just praying-praying-praying!

ANSWER TO PRAYER #2
Sunday night-the night before the board meeting were to take place-we got a call that answered that prayer! PRAISE GOD! He worked out all the details and provided the funding we needed to proceed to the board interview on Monday! We were definitely humbled and so thankful for that answer to prayer!

So Monday we met before the board and were accepted into ABWE! It was such a relieving feeling after everything we had been through this week-but it's all God! None of this happened because of us! It was a pretty long day after preparing for the board meeting then getting everything set up, financially, with ABWE. Praise God that everyone on Team Kenya that went to this seminar was approved!

We are official now!!

our testimony

The Kuenkels
Ryan and Jayme Kuenkel were married in December of 2005. Together they surrendered their lives to God, not yet knowing what His plan would be. They began serving God in student ministries at Grace Baptist Church, Mason Ohio.

In 2008 they were blessed with their first little girl, Eden, and have enjoyed the learning process of being parents.

Our Calling
Ryan was saved at the age of 13 and felt God’s call into the ministry at a mission’s conference two years later. Since then, Ryan has had a heavy burden for missions and even had the privilege of living on the mission field in Puerto Rico during his childhood.

Jayme was also saved at 13 years of age. One year later she met Ryan while attending a Christian high school. It was in high school that Jayme surrendered her life to God. She attended Trinity Baptist College and finished her business degree at the University of Cincinnati.

In July of 2007 God began working in both Ryan and Jayme’s hearts specifically towards missions. After much prayer, they realized that God was leading them to the mission field. Their calling was confirmed after returning from their survey trip to Mombasa, Kenya in 2008.

Our Goals
The Kuenkels are a part of a team of believers from Grace Baptist Church. Their passion is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the Kenyan people. Through the local church, they will be establishing various methods of ministries in efforts to reach the Kenyan people more effectively.

An area of ministry near to the hearts of Ryan and Jayme is to start a youth camp in the city of Mombasa. This camp will serve a variety of different purposes in efforts to reach the neglected youth in Kenya.

Please pray for the Kuenkels in their pre-field ministry as they work to get to the field of Mombasa, Kenya.