Living with uncertainty, still

The Guatemalan school year follows the calendar year, which means since we have now entered into the final quarter of 2021 we’re looking at winding things down and starting the planning for 2022.
 
There are some struggles with this though.

For one, we’re not 100% clear on when the school year will end this year. Typically the school years starts about the second week of January and runs until mid-October. This year, however, with everything going on with the pandemic, school did not start until halfway through February.
 
In fact, that time was a whirlwind of its own.

• The day schools started Puerto Barrios was reclassified from being a red-zone to being an orange zone.
  
• So the next day schools started a hybrid model whereby students were going in one day a week in person and the rest of the week they connected remotely.
• That lasted for about three weeks before the Ministry of Education decided that they would only allow schools to do any in-person teaching for those municipalities in yellow zones (we have had a red-orange-yellow-green classification system for well over a year now).
  
• So schools reverted back to being fully remote.
  
• Since then Puerto Barrios was reclassified back to being a red zone.
  
• And there we have remained since.
  

 
Because schools started 4-5 weeks later than usual they will have to finish later to make up for at least some of that time (and that’s not to mention the weeks lost last year when the pandemic started up).

We think schools are supposed to end some time in November but don’t know when exactly - and it may vary from school to school…

The other thing, then, is that we don’t know when schools will start next year. Because the year will end later than is usual, we don’t know if the holiday will be extended again, or whether there will be a push to get us back to the “normal” schedule. And that’s just considering the start date.
 
So far nothing has been said about changing the color-coded system, but there is a definite desire of many for schools to start to return to in-person teaching. Vaccinations have advanced well, I don’t know the percentages of the population, but they steadily lowered the ages that could receive them, and are now vaccinating 12-18 year olds. But plans for 2022 are not forthcoming. Will the Ministry of Education change their guidelines? Or are we looking at another year of remote learning? Will we be able to have bigger groups meet for our tutoring? Or are we going to have to keep to small groups?

There is still a lot up in the air with this, to say nothing of the other ministries to the elderly and to the smaller children, all of which are still on hold. We still have no idea when these places may be open for us to visit and minister in.
 
Please do join us in praying for clarity and wisdom in making decisions as we start to prepare for next year. If you feel the Lord shares any verses or words of wisdom or encouragement we would love to hear them :-)

Thank you for how you partner with us in this ministry