UPDATE: The application to the government to be able to provide Grade 11 at God's Grace has passed! Josue and Prisca were provided encouragement that God’s Grace is really doing a great job!!! Grade 11 will start September 2025. We pray that next year, Grade 12 will be added as well.

Started in Josue’s home in 2012, with his two boys and a couple other kids, God's Grace for Kids is a Christian Day Care/K-12 School, in Cotonou, teaching students in its bright and colorful facility.  Christian principles are taught daily to all students, regardless of family beliefs, so it has become a wonderful outreach tool for Josue’s ministry!  In 2016-2017 school year, 63 students enrolled up to 4th grade as one grade per year had been added! Expansion plans have continued: for fall of 2025, 11th graders will be the top class, with enrollment up to 215 students total!  Many students speak a local language at home, so French and English are both being taught to help students progress globally.

Josue’s wife Prisca is the administrator, and the staff has grown along with student enrollment. Josue was renting only the first floor of the building in the beginning, but added the second and third as the school grew in numbers. Before the patio space was needed for classrooms, it was used to raise chickens, teaching the students how to care for them. They were sold at market, providing funds for more tables and chairs at the school.

The building had been for sale almost since the day the school started—but God provided this answer to prayer: in 2015, Josue was able to strike a deal with the landlord of this property.  If he could raise $100,000 by July 1, 2016, a contract would be written between them. That contract would allow him to pay the remaining $200,000 balance over 10 years, and Hope for Youth would own the building free and clear!  At the very end, but in God's perfect timing, the $100,000 came in!  

Sufficient funds have been raised to complete the purchase of the property next door as well, but as of March 2025, permits had yet to be released to starting construction - please pray for this to happen! This space next door will be used to expand God's Grace into high school grades and for the technical schools.

Opportunities are available to Sponsor a Student at God's Grace for Kids for $65/month (or $650 for the 10-month school year).