Congregation of Divine Providence

Moye saw the lack of educational opportunities for females in the rural sectors of his large parish in the Duchy of Lorraine, at that time an independent nation, speaking a form of the German language.

On 14 January 1762, Moye sent out four literate women whom he had recruited, under the leadership of Marguerite LeComte, to teach in the remote hamlets of the region what was needed for the improvement of the peoples' lives, as well as for their practice of the Catholic faith.

Moye trained them in child psychology, in order to prepare them to teach effectively and in a Christian manner, instructing all those whom they met.

[2] Feeling called to preach the Gospel in the East, Moye joined the Paris Society for Foreign Missions and went to China to do missionary work in 1771, not returning to Lorraine until 1784 to oversee the new community.

During that period, they began to expand into new forms of service, opening a trade school for boys in Lixheim that same year, as well as ones to train girls in housekeeping.

[3] During World War II, Alsace was again made part of Germany, and the sisters faced the anti-Catholic regulations of the Nazi regime, under which their schools were closed.

The sisters began to serve in the French Department of Mayotte in the Pacific region, their first presence in a Muslim country.

At present, the Sisters of Divine Providence serve in Belgium, Comoros, Ecuador, France, Madagascar, Mali, Poland and the United States.

Separating officially from the German-speaking branch in 1852, they received full ecclesiastical approval as an independent congregation in 1859.

They operate in Belgium, Cambodia, China, France, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Philippines, Switzerland, Taiwan and Vietnam.

By 1838, the local Bishop of Gap determined that, given the distance of their region from the motherhouse of the congregation, he should have an independent community of Sisters teaching in the schools of his diocese and opened a novitiate in Gap to train candidates for a local community of Sisters of Providence who were to be under his authority.

The Sisters were recruited by Claude Dubuis, the Bishop of Galveston, Texas, to teach in the rural towns of his diocese.

In answer to this call, Mother St. Andrew Feltin and Sister Alphonsa Boegler journeyed to Texas, landing in Galveston that year, arriving in San Antonio in December, where they opened their first school the following April.

They were founded by Sister Mary Benitia Vermeersch, C.D.P., who had recruited a small group of Hispanic young woman who wished to take this challenge.