Alphonsine’s Story:
Our founder, Alphonsine, was born in Bouake, Cote d’Ivoire, a place where traditions are a strong part of the community life. Her dad, a prominent man, had ten children with three different women, and many responsibilities. As the chief of the Bureau of Customs in Cote d’Ivoire, he had a larger salary than most. As a leading civic figure, it was his cultural duty to support not only his immediate and extended family but many others.
For young Alphonsine, these families and responsibilities meant a limited relationship with her dad. He looked to her as the oldest to care for younger siblings, but it left questions about who was caring for her – for Alphonsine.
Alphonsine saw this lifestyle as a bitter way of organizing a family. As soon as she was old enough, she left home to study administration in Burkina Faso, hoping to one day live out her own dreams.
As soon as she was old enough, she left home to study administration in Burkina Faso, hoping to one day live out these dreams. At university, Alphonsine met a woman who told her about Jesus. Alphonsine’s life was changed.
Alphonsine went home and shared her faith with her family, but they rejected her message. Brokenhearted but undeterred, Alphonsine returned to Burkina Faso to continue her studies and got married to a young Christian man from there. They both went on to Bible school with the desire to serve God in full time ministry.
After many years have passed and Alphonsine and Younoussa, her husband have built a family together, and continue to faithfully serve in ministry she decided to go back to school to study children’s psychology in an effort to understand more of what she had lived as a young girl and what she was encountering in ministry as well.
At the end of her capstone course, the professor had the students pick at random the topic of their final research project. Alphonsine pulled a strip of paper out of the hat that read: “Street Children in Abidjan.” “How do I write about this?”, she thought. “There are no existing books or papers on this topic.”
So, she went to the streets. As she interviewed the children on street, her heart also grew stronger with the burden of sharing the gospel with them. She also could not bear the thought of leaving them on the street after sharing such a life-changing message of love with them. The moment that turned it around for her was one day as she was sitting with them outside, they brought a new child to her, the youngest she had met so far but also the same age of her youngest child. The older children introduced him as the most dangerous of them all due to his drug and alcohol use. That day she decided she could not leave them out on the street anymore.
After much searching and fundraising, Alphonsine found a large house for rent and started the “House of the Children of Glory.” Today it continues, dedicated to caring for street children and teaching them the love of Jesus and the love of a family.