Rebecca has invited Josue and Prisca to her hometown in Spain in July, to meet supporters of the past who sponsored God’s Grace’ students! May this trip be a true gift, giving Josue and Prisca some time away from regular duties, as well as meeting many new supporters! Very timely that this offer is in front of opening the rural school in the fall! Josue is expecting 50 students to begin: all will need to be sponsored to be able to attend school for the first time!!!
Is God calling you to be one of the sponsors?
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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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Prayer Needs for Benin - June 2, 2025
Josue's ministry is on fire to share the Gospel throughout Benin! The pastors know that even the hearts of the jihadists will change if they find Jesus! Josue's network of churches goes from north to south, from west to east, and needs your support, in prayer and finances!
Also the students deserve to have an education to bring this country out of the third world, and give opportunities that will change their economic status and ability to contribute to the world!
Will you please help?
Josue's team is planning to open a rural school for the fall of 2025, modeled after God's Grace for Kids!
New staff is being hired. Meetings will happen throughout the summer to develop unity and a team spirit.
Pray for:
* 50 students to come in the fall, to have their very first chance to attend school.
* Behaviors to accept the school climate and to fully desire an education, with a willingness to work hard!
* A building to meet the needs.
* A school lunch program to develop: may families be able to contribute from their crops for a lunch to be made for each child (having a nutritious meal each day will be a radical change for many!)
* Expenses for supplies, uniforms and texts to be funded, so that every child/family that wants to attend will be able to take advantage of this world-changing opportunity!!!
Josue estimates the need to be $50,000!
Please pray and let God direct your donation to this very important cause!
Prayer Needs for Benin - May 26, 2025
Praises:
Josue’s team presented a wonderful outreach in the Pobe area last week! About 200 pastors, church leaders and collaborators met for 4 days for encouragement, prayer, and teachings from across the area. Wed, Thurs, and Fri eve crusade outreaches were shared. The first night was smaller in numbers, but the last two drew more than 1,000 each night. Over 200 accepted Christ! All of these new believers are encouraged to attend the evangelical church closest to them, rather than any particular affiliation or even one of Josue’s churches, so that it will be convenient and they will truly develop community in Christ in their village.
*Exciting news for Isaac: he has completed his second semester at Collin College with a 3.8 GPA! His only problem turned out to be a misunderstanding of exam dates: he did well on the first half of an exam, but did not know he had to return later for a second day of the test, and did not show. He talked to the professor, who was not able to “change the expectation!” Otherwise he would have had a 4.0 for this semester as well! He will continue with classes this summer as well as start a job: he will be interning with the maintenance department on campus maybe working as much as 20 hours per week, and should be able to continue this position in the fall! He is being coached by Dad, that when the first paycheck comes, to give it back to the Lord as a First Fruits offering, for all the blessings he has received in this past year!
*Glory will also be working on an internship that her school will help her arrange, to get hands on experience in food management during the month of July!
Pray for:
*May 31 will bring 2 opportunities for Josue to speak: 1200 young people are expected to gather for a meeting in the morning, followed by 100 people in the afternoon that represent the elite business community from all across Cotonou. Josue met with the director of Wycliffe about 4 years ago, who began the dream of this meeting; Josue is very excited that it is coming together! Wycliffe is currently translating the New Testament into 2 more local languages. Josue is also praying that there will be interest in this group to begin a new Rotary Club!
*God’s Grace students are finishing their last week of school classes, as the year end exams begin next week. Sixth Graders begin three days of testing on Monday; the 9th graders will have three days the following week. These are the critical government exams that a student must pass to be offered more education rather than sidelined. The school is praying to maintain their 100% pass rate for both classes! All other grades will be testing as well; last year every student moved forward into the next grade! Graduation will be held on June 14. Pray for all 250 students to move forward in their education!!!
*New rural school plans are well underway! The current staff will not be asked to transfer schools; hiring has begun for a complete new staff for the new school. There will be many planning days before the new school opens and much opportunity to develop a school “climate” expectations with the new staff members so they will be ready to open mid-September alongside God’s Grace! The administrative plates of Prisca and Dieu Donne are full!
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