Fondation du Counseling Biblique (French Biblical Counseling Foundation) seeks to bring Christ back into counselling and bring counselling back into the church by equipping biblical counselors and prioritizing the establishment of biblical counseling centres in partnership with the local, French-speaking church in Canada and around the world. To reach this goal, Fondation du Counseling Biblique offers theoretical courses towards both BA and MA Biblical Counseling degree programs through accredited French-language seminaries as well as practical biblical counseling programs through its biblical counseling training centers. Since its inception in 2018, Fondation du Counseling Biblique has been developing and rolling out all of the necessary theoretical courses for a full French-language Biblical Counseling degree program with the focus on equipping biblical counselors that will partner with the local church to establish biblical counseling centres after graduation. As the final step in developing the Biblical Counseling degree programs and as the first cohort of students prepares to graduate, a practicum course is required for graduating students. The practicum will integrate everything the students have learned over the course of their degree and provide an internship style practical application opportunity by involving the students at all stages of the biblical counseling process. The practicum also aims to help the student develop skills for collaboration, consultation and discussion with pastors and other interveners in the local church. To support students throughout the practicum, a toolkit will also be developed to enable graduates to replicate and implement the French biblical counseling centre model in their own context. These resources will encourage, structure and establish more recognized French-language biblical counseling centres across Canada and the French-speaking world by providing the necessary tools and support to get started.  Acts of Grace funds for this work will fully fund the development of the graduation practicum course as well as the supporting toolkit. Ultimately, with more French-speaking biblical counselors and more biblical counseling centres, Christians and non-Christians in Canada, and eventually the rest of the French-speaking world, will have access to more and higher quality French-language biblical counseling to help them process life's challenges.

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Impact Nations' driving passion is to rescue lives and to see communities transformed by the power of the Gospel. Impact Nations partners with leaders in the developing world to restore lives and transform communities by engaging people in practical and supernatural expressions of the Kingdom of God. Uganda is among the countries with the highest teenage pregnancies in Africa. Nearly 40% of women have given birth before the age of 18. Many of these women are uneducated, leaving them with little hope of breaking the cycle of poverty and limited opportunity to explore who God made them to be. Working with and through its local partner in Kampala, The Remnant Generation, Impact Nations is committed to helping young mothers and at-risk teens achieve a level of formal education to enable them to achieve their God-given purpose. However, many of these women are so far behind in their education that a return to primary school is no longer a possibility. With a vision to intervene in the lives of sexual abuse survivors, teen moms, and other vulnerable youth through holistic and integrated education that brings healing and restores dignity, the School of Purpose was established in 2017 in Kampala with 2 simple wooden huts and 20 students. The School of Purpose is a skills training program that teaches young women practical, marketable skills so that no girl is without hope. By 2022, the program had expanded to multiple communities, providing education and mentorship to 862 vulnerable young women. Courses include culinary arts, catering, tailoring, knitting, farming, hairdressing, soap-making, wig construction, candle-making, sandal-making, literacy and numeracy, life skills, and Bible classes. In Kampala, where proper employment can be hard to find and women often resort to selling themselves for food, Impact Nations and The Remnant Generation have a vision to provide training to hundreds of additional girls for many years to come. However, as the School of Purpose has grown, the existing structures have run out of both classroom and office space creating issues for both learners and staff. A new Education Building is needed to provide higher quality training without interruptions. This new building will include six new classrooms and new washroom facilities as well as a small showroom where students’ work will be displayed and available for sale to visitors. As part of this expansion School of Purpose will become a government-accredited vocational training facility. In addition to a clean and enjoyable learning space that communicates worth and love to these girls, certification from School of Purpose will further bring dignity, validation and credibility to the graduates who will be issued a government-recognized certificate and, as a result, will have greater and higher quality employment or entrepreneurship opportunities. Acts of Grace funds will be used to fund the construction of the School of Purpose.

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Prairie College is a private Christian college located in Alberta, Canada. For more than 100 years, the school’s heartbeat has been “to know Christ and make Him known” inviting others to be lovers of God and - as a result of discipleship - influence culture and participate in building His kingdom. To that end, Prairie's Prison Bible Encounter Program is an outreach opportunity for incarcerated individuals to earn an accredited college certificate and cultivate a relationship with Jesus Christ. Prairie is one of the only faith-based accredited college education programs in Canada delivered to prison inmates, offering an opportunity for these often “forgotten” individuals to discover or rediscover a relationship with the central figure of the bible – Jesus Christ, and influence institutional sub-culture of trauma, dysfunction, and violence. The Prison Bible Encounter Program is currently available in several men’s institutions in Alberta. This for-credit certificate program is delivered face-to-face in a classroom setting over a three year period by Prairie College faculty and staff to incarcerated individuals. Mirroring Prairie's on-campus Encounter Program, the Prison Bible Encounter Program courses include Old Testament (2), New Testament (2), Christian Life and various formational electives with 40% of the certificate courses being Bible courses. This project will tailor the Prison Bible Encounter Program to suit the unique needs of incarcerated women and facilitate the roll-out of the program at the Edmonton Institution for Women. Acts of Grace funds will be used to support the program revisions and the initial roll-out of Prairie's first ever Prison Bible Encounter Program for Women in November 2023.

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Without a plan for rehabilitation, 75% of the world’s 12 million incarcerated individuals find themselves back behind bars within five years of re-entering society. Prison Fellowship International (PFI) recognizes that rehabilitation and restoration are possible for prisoners who reject their criminal past and embrace a new narrative. To that end, PFI seeks to transform the lives of prisoners, their families, and victims through a global network of ministry partners, breaking the cycle of crime and restoring lives, worldwide, through Jesus’s love. Through PFIs volunteer-led Bible study course called “The Prisoner’s Journey”, incarcerated men and women are invited to experience inside out transformation by encountering Jesus, the Prisoner. Participants are placed in small groups of 10 to 12, creating opportunities to relate to fellow inmates as they explore the person and teachings of Jesus learning who He is, why He came, and what it means to follow Him. By watching 16 videos presented over 8 sessions, participants learn, in an interactive format, to relate to Jesus as a prisoner and hear stories from prisoners around the world whose lives have been changed through their personal journeys with Jesus. Upon completion, graduates receive an achievement certificate and a Bible customized with devotionals about the unique challenges prisoners face. The course has proven to transform prisoners from the inside out by introducing them to restorative relationship with the person of Jesus. Over 70% of course graduates choose to continue with additional discipleship training to learn how to continue their journey with Jesus. In Ukraine, there are nearly 55,000 inmates incarcerated in 109 prisons. These men and women need inner transformation to break free from the hopeless cycle of crime and incarceration. PFI’s affiliate, Prison Fellowship Ukraine will launch and roll-out of The Prisoner’s Journey to 42 prisons across the country this year. In the first year of The Prisoner’s Journey in Ukraine, 10,000 men and women are expected to participate in this Bible Study and nearly 4,700 prisoners are anticipated to graduate from the program. To support this wide-scale effort, Prison Fellowship Ukraine will train and mobilize 315 volunteers to facilitate the course inside the prisons. Acts of Grace funds will support the launch and initial roll-out of The Prisoner’s Journey in Ukraine.

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Publications Chrétiennes believes that the Gospel produces true and lasting change in the life of the believer and that healthy churches are the best way to impact the community with the Gospel. Knowing that books are an important tool that God uses to form passionate, faithful disciples of Jesus Christ and to build up of the church, Publications Chrétiennes focuses on publishing French-language books that will be effective tools to make disciples, share the Gospels, and raise up leaders in the French-speaking church. Doing ministry in the French-speaking world is difficult as often these men are working with limited financial resources and staff. Also, there are frequently only a few like-minded churches in their city meaning they can often feel isolated. This project focuses on strengthening and improving the health of the church throughout Quebec and the French-speaking world and to develop a culture of effective biblical discipleship. This multi-year grant provides funds for the French translation of 19 books specifically on topics to address the principles of healthy church development and biblical discipleship as well as for an annual conference to encourage and equip pastors and elders through provide training, relationship building, networking and targeted dialogue that works through the application of biblical truth to their Christian life and their church. It is the prayer of Publications Chrétiennes that through this project, churches throughout Quebec and the French-speaking world become embassies of Jesus by modelling the Gospel to the world and equipping their people for ministry.

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This project is part of a recurring grant that was originally approved in 2022. and will take place over the years 2022-2024.

SEMBEQ exists to assist in raising up the next generation of Christians principally in Quebec. SEMBEQ's mission is to equip pastors, chaplains, and various ministry leaders who are community-oriented, to encourage and help the local church to grow in its ability to multiply and train disciples, leaders, elders and deacons within its midst. As a context- and church-based seminary, most of SEMBEQ's courses are taught within local churches. Specifically,SEMBEQ acts as a tool of the local churches in the training of their members and leaders, primarily in Quebec and French-speaking Europe. While there are good resources available in French, these are mostly paper-based. In order to continue to effectively serve the meet the needs the church today, as especially of younger, technology-savvy generations, there is significant need for a interactive online platform that enables high quality French-language theological training with supportive coaching, mentoring, group discussions, student follow-up, as well as giving access to the various courses and required resources. This grant provides the funds for the digitization of SEMBEQs core theological courses and hosting them in an online dynamic interactive platform that allows churches to independently provide university-quality theological training of pastors, future leaders and mature disciples in the French-speaking world.

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This project is part of a recurring grant that was originally approved in 2022 and will take place over the years 2022-2023.

Tearfund Canada partners with the local church in the poorest places to bring restoration to those living in poverty and need.  In partnership with the local church, key activities include improving food security through conservation agriculture, economic empowerment through women’s savings groups, and helping communities to adapt to changing climate through Creation Care. Tearfund also desires to build up the Church long-term and believes that God’s people, as the only permanent social "agency" in the world, can be a force for change to mend broken relationships that are at the root of poverty. To that end, Tearfund underpins all of its projects with Church-Based Community Transformation (CCT), a biblical model of development that works with local churches, facilitating local church growth & outreach. CCT helps congregations see beyond their own immediate needs to identify and address unmet physical, social and spiritual needs in the wider community through their own resources.  Each church's outward expression of the holistic training received is unique as congregations determine for their own communities what needs must be met and how. Some community development programs resulting from CCT include houses and roofs for widows, care of child-headed households, community gardens and training for neighbours, farms at schools, etc. As the church more readily understands its role in loving their neighbour, CCT also acts as a catalyst for amplifying the efforts and impact of other local economic and agricultural initiatives. This grant funds all of the CCT Training in the Chamwino District of Tanzania for the next 18 months. 

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This project is part of a recurring grant that was originally approved in 2022 will take place over the years 2022-2023.