Christian School to Open in Former Strip Club

A Christian school is getting ready to open in a building that used to be a strip club, reports Fox News.

What used to be the Spearmint Rhino Gentlemen’s Club in Trenton, Wisconsin, will soon become the Ozaukee Christian School (OCS).

The nondenominational school was founded in 1990, according to its website, but purchased the former strip club’s building in time for the 2019-2020 school year.

“After months of phone conversations, emails and the abundant prayers of God’s people, we were blessed with a signed purchase offer,” OCS says on their website. “We have enjoyed getting to know Mr. Peter Garrell (attorney for Spearmint) and Ms. Joann Castillo (senior executive assistant) over these many months—and praying with them as well. It is a journey unlike anything we could have imagined. It is a story that only God could write.”

OCS looked at 80 properties before finding Spearmint’s building in January 2017. OCS says Spearmint wasn’t initially interested in selling the property, but in July of that same year, the company changed its mind.

The school launched a fundraising campaign in April 2018, and since then has done multiple prayer walks at the property with staff, parents and alumni.

“Students regularly gathered to pray for the process along with a group of 140 ’email prayer warriors’ doing the same,” OCS says.

OCS Administrator Kris Austin tells WCSI that God is the one behind this redemptive transformation.

“Women were turned into objects,” he says. “To say now we’re going to transfer that place into a place where boys and girls are raised to be our next leaders with character, right? That [they] are following God. … We just think God is in the business of redemption. He redeems souls, and He can redeem and transform a building for His purposes. We just really pray for all the people who were there, both men and women, that they would know Jesus.”