Current Update & Prayer Needs:
Prayer Needs for Benin - June 28, 2025
Praises:
There is much JOY in Benin and Texas!
*The Lord did it again! 100% pass rate for the 6 th graders of God’s Grace for Kids! Thank you for your extra prayers when some of these students were struggling and might have not passed without the Lord’s hand upon them!!!
*Gedeon got a special gift on June 18th : he was told the surprise that Josue, Prisca and Isaac had been holding onto! He was handed a plane ticket to fly on June 23 to join his brother in McKinney, TX for 6 weeks!!! He took it well, back in 2021, when the family trip had to be cancelled at the last minute because Glory was not given her visa! But he has desired this trip ever since!
And he has no visa issue: back on Sept. 28, 2010, he was delivered into the arms of his mother in TX! So he is American by birth! This is an amazing asset, especially now, but it was all part of God’s perfect plan! God had a conversation with Josue in June, while he was in TX at Dallas Seminary for a 2 week class. God told him their baby was not to be born in Benin. And when Josue called Prisca at home, she had had the same visit with the Lord! She arranged care for Isaac with church family, flew to Dallas, unable to speak any English. She and Josue were able to connect then with Ola and Gladys, their long term friends from Benin, who are now hosting Isaac plus Gedeon! God worked out all the details for Prisca to stay with them and receive maternity care in TX for her last trimester! She and Isaac almost lost their lives 5 years earlier when she delivered Isaac in Benin! Pam asked her later, how the care was different. She answered, “I can’t even describe it, it was so totally different!!!” They were not concerned with citizenship at that point, they were just so grateful to have a healthy mom and baby boy! But Prisca’s visa expired on Nov. 1. Josue was able to join them mid-October and get all the documents together: the birth certificate, the plane tickets, the passport for Gedeon, and visa to enter Benin! Each document depended on the other, but God worked out every detail: the healthy and happy threesome flew home on Nov. 1, 2010! Thank you, Lord Jesus: this was Pam and Dave’s first year to know Josue and Prisca and their first mission trip to Benin was in July while Prisca was in the US!!! Thank you for blessing all of us so BIG then, and for every other blessing You have brought since! It has been so awesome to see Your hands at work continually, blessing all around!
*Josue and Prisca will be traveling themselves—to Spain for 4 weeks! Rebecca is hosting them: she has set up several speaking engagements at churches to share their ministry, Prisca will be speaking to a women’s group, they will each have a medical checkup. They will meet with people who Rebecca has helped get microloans from the Gemache Project in Highlands Ranch. (Josue also received these loans several times to help villages get an economic base going along with their church.) Rebecca has also found sponsors for several students who were in need while they attended God’s Grace. There will be conversation regarding the new rural school! Go God!
*Josue’s meetings with the staff (4 teachers, 1 admin asst, and 1 security guard) that has been hired for the new rural school in Hevie have gone well. They are concentrating on children ages 3-8, who will begin in Kindergarten 1 or 2, or Primary 1 or 2. No building has been found yet. The children have never gone to school before: they will need so much encouragement to take on the discipline of learning, to make their future so much different than is possible now! Praises that this much progress has been made: pray for God’s hand to bring every detail together now, as always!
*New believers in Pobe are doing well, studying their Bibles, to help them cast off all their old traditions of witchcraft and voodoo!
*All of Josue’s pastors are doing very well at this time! Praises! There is much JOY abounding!
Pray for:
*the ninth grader exam results and each other grade as well: may every student pass into the next grade, as they have done before!
*All the needs of the new school in Hevie. May the students enjoy their academic studies, as they learn about Jesus every day. May they be a witness to their families (who are not likely to be Christians!) so that their hearts will open to Jesus as well!
* May the trip to Spain be refreshing and fruitful! It will be in the Barcelona area. May there be open doors to share the Gospel, as there are not many Christians in this country!
*Isaac to get his US drivers license this week! Pray for balance in time this summer: to work at his new job which he is enjoying, to be successful in his online classes, and have great brother connection time! May Gedeon enjoy much pick up basketball and time with Ola and Gladys and their 2 boys! Pray for Gladys: may she rule the roost well for all these males, including her nephew Isaac from Togo!
*Glory: Josue will be taking her on a short father/daughter trip when she finishes her classes plus internship this summer. Next fall she will start her senior year!!! When she came to live with Josue’s family, she had no interest in school. (She is their niece, the one who cannot get a visa to the US, as she is not legally adopted yet!) It took her time to open up to this way of life, to learn to work hard for what she wanted and to desire to get an education! Lord, arrange something BIG for her for next summer when she graduates from the University!!!
* Outreaches in Porto Novo in late Sept plus in Come in November to be as successful at the recent one in Pobe! May hundreds more people accept Christ and be shared amongst the churches to that they can attend close to their homes!
*Grace Chapel Church mission team, from CO, is meeting and planning for their trip in late October, early Nov. May everyone fully commit (it looks like 12 will be on the team!) and get their down payments in on time! May they bond as they begin meeting, so they can participate in constructing a church, in Hevie, working well together under the direction of Josue’s construction team! May the whole Church be very supportive of this effort! Grace Chapel has done great things in the past for Josue’s ministry, especially completing a community development project that serves 7 villages!
Prayer Needs for Benin - June, 13, 2025
Praises:
Prisca is much better now, after her recent bout with malaria. Her strength is improving daily! She is excited for the closing ceremony for God’s Grace on June 14! Waiting time is on: how did the 6th graders do on their exams, as well as the 9th graders? Did each student pass into the next grade? Results should be available in about 3 weeks.
Josue celebrated his birthday on the 11th: he received an email that a supporting church is committed to their continued support for 3 more years! Best birthday present he could have received! He spent his day praying and reflecting on last years’ achievements and planning the expansions that God is directing him to make for this year!
The ministry is doing very well overall! May God continue to bless each pastor and his family and each congregation to grow ever stronger in their faith!
Pray for:
*may Prisca’s health continue to improve
*may there be much fruit from last Saturday’s teaching to young people: Josue empowered them to fulfill their destiny in the Lord.
*Josue will be speaking Jun 20 to a group of women, through an online zoom call. This Christian group meets once a month to talk about life and how to support each other, while they are fulfilling God’s plans for themselves. The one who contacted Josue to speak had a son in God’s Grace daycare in Josue’s living room, when the school was just starting in 2012! Praise God for His blessings to make the school what it is today, from this humble beginning!
*the right amount of rain! The rainy season has begun: may God bring the amount the crops need and may there be no flooding, as there is in so many places around the globe!
*Martha, at 84, Josue’s mom, is getting tired. Benoit stays with her full time now. Martha does still walk to her church but doesn’t do her own cooking now. May God bless her daily till He calls her home!
*Josue plans to meet with the business leaders who he shared with last week again in August: may many desire to become supporters and/or create a Rotary Club that would help Josue raise funds from across the globe, throughout Rotary International!
*Josue really wants to make time to write his book to encourage people to be financially stable. He knows it can help so many people to get their finances in order. People do not have a sense of their real needs. He has the main ideas down and just needs to flesh it out! He feels it is not about poverty alleviation but soul-winning!
*Terrorist attacks are continuing, government is still saying nothing! The current President is in his last year, election is in spring of 2026, but he is not willing to leave! May God’s will be done!
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Constuction team(s) forming!
The mission team is forming at Grace Chapel in CO! Trip is scheduled for Oct. 26–Nov. 4, to build a church for Josue’s church plant into Hevie, about 1.5 hrs out of Cotonou! Pray that this team fills from the church; if it does not, there might be a few spots for YOU to step into! If it does fill from the church, pray God will lead TUM to create another team to also build the rural school Josue is starting, in His perfect timing! Either way, may God bring each person He wants on this team or teams, so there can be the most benefit to Josue’s ministry possible! Any builders out there? Please let Pam know if you are interested! And please pray for Doreen, who would love to lead this second team: her husband’s work visa (he is a math teacher) in the US must renew by November 1, for them to be able to stay here and for her to be able to travel outside the US!
Please go to MISSION TRIPS (tab in menu at top of this page) for trip costs and preparation plans.
If you cannot go, but can help fund these projects, please let God direct your contribution! He is the Miracle Provider that will bring all of this together!
Please pray and see if God is asking you to step into this opportunity! You will never regret following His will for your life! And pray throughout the process of these teams preparing, that He will bring all of the details together for very successful projects to be accomplished! May many people in the village and surrounding area be drawn to Christ as they see Him at work through these efforts to bless them! |
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Please keep praying for the BIG three plus one!
1. Building permit: paper work to be found and granted so expansion of God's Grace Campus can occur by fall, 2025!
2. Glory's adoption paperwork to be found and granted, so Glory can legally be a member of the Akowanou family!
3. Visa appointment to be made, so that Josue and Prisca can come to the US again very soon!!!
4. Josue's personal support is not sufficient at this point. If any of you can donate a one time amount or become a regular monthly donor to this category, it would bless Josue and his family immensely! Thank you for considering! |
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