Joseph and Loretta, graduates of Texas Bible College, worked in a Christian school and served as assistant pastors before they pioneered a home missions work in Texas in 1980. They received their appointment as missionaries to Paraguay in May 1986. This appointment resulted from the Bir’s long-standing global mission burden. Following their first deputation and a year of language study in Costa Rica, the Birs arrived in Paraguay in January 1989.
Joseph was the field superintendent and president of Paraguay for twenty years. He served as the area coordinator for South America’s Southern Cone, which encompasses Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, for thirteen years. He was appointed as a missionary to Peru in 2008 and now serves as the area coordinator of South America’s Central Andean Zone which includes Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru.
Loretta is involved in children’s and ladies’ ministries and teaches in the Bible school. She is the director of New Heights School which provides education to some of the poorest children in Lambaré, a suburb of the capital city of Asunción. She teaches nine weekly English classes to around 300 students. She is living the dream and calling she received as a ten-year-old girl in vacation Bible school, in a Baptist church, to be a missionary teacher.