Granada Christian Education Center

Our founders and their missionary partners have been serving in the city of Granada and other local communities since 2006. The GCEC is one of many entities born from the El Puente Mission Base. The larger work at hand includes the bilingual El Puente Church (Iglesia Cristiana El Puente), located in Granada, the sports ministry and sports complex, next to the GCEC, and the long-term vision to create not only a primary and secondary school and sports complex, but a training center for all ages.

Our History

Our founders and their missionary partners have been serving in the city of Granada and other local communities since 2006. The GCEC is one of many entities born from the El Puente Mission Base. The larger work at hand includes the bilingual El Puente Church (Iglesia Cristiana El Puente), located in Granada, the sports ministry and sports complex, next to the GCEC, and the long-term vision to create not only a primary and secondary school and sports complex, but a training center for all ages.

In 2012, Charles and Sarah Kaye, founders of the El Puente Mission Base and the GCEC, felt a special calling to serve in the place of greatest need. That calling lead them and other missionary partners to the neighborhood of Pantanal, a then small but rapidly growing barrio community on the outskirts of the city of Granada. They hoped to see this community transformed and quickly saw both the need and the opportunity to do so through education and sports.

Through an extraordinary process, God lead Charles to the beautiful 50-acre piece of land that now houses the Granada Christian Education Center and the “Campo de los Sueños” sports ministry complex. The property started with a multi-use pavilion that serves as a gathering place for many forms of community outreach. In 2014, a partnership began with the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia through its Initiative reCOVER Program, a design program that focuses on the research, design development, and construction of projects that positively affect and promote safe, healthy, and sustainable communities around the world. In early 2015, we completed construction of the first classroom, housing a handful of preschool students as a pilot class.

In February 2016, our first official preschool program started with 28 students. After much work and effort, MINED granted us national accreditation for preschool and elementary education in December 2016.

Our Mission

Our MISSION is to transform lives of physical and spiritual poverty by equipping children and youth of this and future generations for “every good work.”

Our VISION is to create a physical environment, and a culture focused on lifelong learning and personal development where those whom we serve know they are deeply loved and cared for and feel empowered to create change in their own lives. We envision a place that honors local language, culture and traditions, one that is beautiful and functional and glorifies God through every human effort and achievement. We long to see an environment that welcomes the community at large, radiates the hope of Christ, and promotes human dignity and creativity.

Our Values

As a unified body of believers, we believe that God is our creator, redeemer and Lord over all, and that the Bible is his infallible word. Concerning our students, we believe that they belong to God and that it is our Christian duty to help guide them to Jesus as their Lord and Savior. We believe that Christian education is essential in teaching and equipping children to know God in every aspect of life and to enjoy him forever. We have seen great progress in the education of our students, and we hold that educational excellence occurs in a loving Christian community that respects and values every person.

Guiding our educational and outreach philosophy is our belief that God created human beings in his likeness to be in perfect relationship with him, each other, and all of creation. Sin damaged and ruptured these relationships, but God is at work restoring them through Christ. As we progress from existing for ourselves to living a life of biblical servanthood, we, along with the surrounding community, can experience the fullness of life through the peace, unity and love that God originally intended.

We believe that God has given every child in the Pantanal and surrounding communities the intelligence and creativity necessary to achieve academic and personal excellence. We hope to help our students overcome the many barriers they face daily so they can achieve their God-given potential. Because we know we cannot do this alone, we seek to do it in collaboration with families, churches, community organizations, schools, and other essential local and U.S. partners.

What We Do

Our beautiful, off the grid school is located in the neighborhood of Pantanal, one of the fastest-growing communities outside of Granada. We currently have a multi-use pavilion, an administration office, and eight classrooms and grade levels: preschool through sixth grade. Thanks to a variety of resources, we have been able to maintain a construction schedule to meet the rapidly growing needs of the school. Our plan is to add one grade level each year and maintain our strong commitment to operate a fully accredited private bilingual Christian preschool through secondary school by 2027. At the end of the 2022 school year, we will celebrate our first sixth grade graduation in addition to our annual kindergarten promotion.

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