April 2005

Spring greetings from the land of eternal spring!

At this time we are thinking and praying about our future, be that here in Guatemala or back in Canada. As you know from our talking to you during our deputation, our initial commitment was for two years. A couple of weeks ago we met with the school’s director who expressed his appreciation on our work at the school. Joe Rosa, the school director, hopes we stay here until our two youngest sons, James and Jonathan, graduate. For Jonathan that would mean at least another five years. Naturally, any extension of the initial two year commitment we made depends also on you, our supporters. Are you willing to continue partnering with us in building God’s Kingdom in Guatemala?

Despite their initial misgivings of living in Guatemala and going to an attendance school, James and Jonathan are warming up to the idea of staying longer. James has made it into a group of four other boys that many here thought would not be possible. They have both made good friends at the school. Of course, they are also often talking about their friends at home as well as the friends they made during our deputation trips.

At our Christmas potluck a nurse practitioner who is serving in a village clinic, thanked the C.A.G. staff for serving at the school. She mentioned, that within the last few weeks she had witnessed three people from those villages deciding to follow Jesus. By serving at the school, we are serving the greater missionary community and thus we are serving the hands of those who serve the ones in need.

Charles is teaching a basic automotive mechanics class to the middle school for the spring semester as well. This is a “trial time” for automotive shop. If it works out well, classes, covering automotive mechanics, electrical and welding in addition to woodshop will be available for the high school students beginning next year. These sorts of electives are always in demand with the students, but depending on who is available to teach, the classes are rarely available. Automotive class has not been available for over 8 years due to a lack of someone willing or able to teach it.
Rev. Luis Pellecer, CRWM coordinator for Latin America, commented during his visit in December on Petra’s teaching of Home Economics. Luis, having grown up in the Latin culture himself, mentioned the importance of teaching children the value of work, in a culture which is built on service. In Latin America the well-to-do people hire those who are less well off to do their menial tasks like housekeeping, laundry and cooking. All of the students of business or embassy personnel have domestic help in the home, drivers to bring them to school etc., so many of these kids do not do any chores at home and are thus ill equipped for life when they leave home, making a class like home economics much more important for all students.

We are coming up to the western states this summer for a short furlough and we’d love to tell you what God is doing here in Guatemala and the needs here, as well as discussing the possibility of your continuing support for God’s work here at Christian Academy of Guatemala beyond 2006. We’ll be entering the states in New Mexico in early June, continuing up through Colorado, Montana and Idaho and on into British
Columbia by July and then back down through Washington, Oregon, California and Arizona in order to make it back to Guatemala by mid August in time for the start of the next school year. We are in the process of contacting folks in those areas. You’ve likely already been contacted by Petra but if not please send us an e-mail to
wirrell@hotmail.com so we can make sure to visit with you along the way.
For those of you in the east, we’re planning on seeing you in the summer of 2006.

Looking forward to visiting with all of you on the west coast this summer.

Charles & Petra Wirrell
serving at the Christian Academy of Guatemala