Stories of Some of Our Graduates

Hello! My name is Brendon Chan and I graduated from Wesley Christian Academy in 2006. I joined the school in the 2nd grade where I learned to pursue a life in theatre and entertainment, thanks to Brian and Michelle Rawlins, who directed our Christmas plays. I graduated with a BA in Business Admin with a concentration of Risk Management and Insurance. I currently reside in California, USA, and worked at Disneyland for six years. Currently I work in the field of insurance, helping people who are injured on the job, return back to work. I remember all the teachers that willingly and lovingly invested in my life, gave me a Christian foundation, let me soar in my talents, help me discover who I am, etc. I want to thank Mrs. Goodyear, who walked with me and my class during our adolescent years. (Now that I have experience with kids, I really do appreciate the time and effort the teachers at Wesley spent with us.) I was looking back on memory lane and when I stumbled back onto the school’s website. I remember all the good times I had with my classmates, as our class only fluctuated a few people as the years passed. Moving to a new country and environment wasn’t easy and I want to thank Wesley for giving me the tools to stand my ground and live the way God wants us to live. It really was a place I felt like I could call home, and revisiting the website brought back really great memories I had of the school and living in the Markham area. Sending your child to Wesley could be one of the best choices a parent could make. Small class sizes, personal attention from teachers, a strong sense of community and armed with good values to help your child grow up in the world.

My name is Sharon Ngai. I graduated from Wesley Christian Academy in 2006. Since then, I have attended Unionville High School and graduated from the Arts York Visual Arts program there. During my time in high school, I developed a deep love for working with people; it was during those years that God was developing my heart for a call to children’s ministry. That call led me to pursue a double major in Honours Religion & Theology and Social Work at Redeemer University College. Having recently graduated from Redeemer, I am pursuing a Masters of Divinity with a concentration in Children’s Ministry in the near future. Ultimately, I hope to be working in children’s ministry at a church. I have passion for issues surrounding local poverty and community development, and I constantly strive to bring these passions together in my ministry work. My time at Wesley has had an evident impact on my life. The dedication of the teachers coupled with the class sizes created a sense of community among teachers and students which is invaluable. To this day, I am still in contact with teachers and students from Wesley, and I have surprised even myself at how deeply rooted these relationships are. There are many things I learned as a Wesley student that were evidently unique as I went on into high school and later, university. There are the little things; for example, to this day, I receive compliments on my handwriting to which I always accredit my Wesley teachers’ commitment to crafting my cursive letters until they were just right. There are, however, the bigger things as well. At Wesley, I was encouraged to always strive to reach my highest potential. The standards to which I was put to the test were high but never unattainable. My teachers invested time and work in order that I might realize that I am capable to do more than even I myself could ever imagine. I have carried this strong work ethic with me through high school, university and the work place, and it has allowed me to stretch myself in each of those places. Most importantly, the staff and teachers at Wesley played an important part in helping lay a strong Christian foundation I’m my life. Without it, I would not find myself where I am today.

My name is Savoula Stylianou and I graduated from Wesley Christian Academy in 2006. I was at Wesley from the first grade up until the eighth before going to Markville Secondary School. I just graduated from Queen’s University with a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in Religious Studies. In the past four years, I have been able to travel extensively in Europe and South America. This fall, I will be returning to Queen’s to complete my Master’s degree in Religious Studies, with a specific focus on Christian origins. In the future, I am hoping to study criminal law abroad, potentially in the United Kingdom. My experience with WCA is something I will forever remember with a grateful heart. When my parents first brought me in to see Mrs. Serio when I was six years old, we had come from another school where the teachers deemed me to be socially awkward, and therefore too far behind to be able to continue on with the rest of my peers. Mrs. Serio had other thoughts about that. Within three weeks of summer schooling, she had me reading and writing at the same level as my classmates, and I was able to successfully go on to the first grade. During my studies at Queen’s over the past four years, I also had the opportunity to work for my university newspaper as both a news editor and an arts editor. Suffice to say, my writing career is just one of the things that never would have been possible if it wasn’t for the intervention of Mrs. Serio and the amazing support I received from my teachers at WCA. Academically, Wesley provided a fantastic foundation for my future studies. It was at WCA where my interest in religious studies was first cultivated, an area that I have found such great fulfillment in studying. If there is one thing I am sure of, it is that Mrs. Serio and the rest of the staff at Wesley believed in me enough to get me to where I am today. More than that, they taught me how to believe in myself, and gave me the confidence and the tools to be able to create goals and strive to reach them, showing me that anything is possible if I put my mind to it. Returning to Wesley even today is such a joy because I have made lasting connections to the teachers who have each shaped who I am as a person. My whole family has remained close to WCA even since I graduated; my mom is there every day helping with lunch duties. I cannot think of a better place for me to have grown than at Wesley and it is the formative years I spent there that I look back upon so fondly. It is those memories, friendships, and life lessons that I will take with me as I continue on in my academic and personal pursuits.