Many Hands Make Light Work

Many Hands Make Light Work

Many hands make light work

This old saying portrays a picture of what ACE has experienced this spring on the ground. For the first time in years, we have been blessed with many incredible volunteer teams in a row! Ranging from families, high school students, college teams, and a great mix of young adults, they came to help us get caught up on our many outreach programs. They worked tirelessly around St. Mary at the schools, on our farm, and even preparing for some new businesses and items coming online later this year. We’d love to highlight some of the many projects they worked on.

For those of you have contributed to many aspects of the Peace House, the update is that it’s almost complete! Yes, you have heard this before, but it’s true; we just had no idea how much back and forth it takes to complete a building like this. The final touch this week was the addition of the front doors. Thanks to some friends and donors of ACE, our doors were purchased and ready for painting. Granted, we still need a door opener and glass on the side, but just looking at these doors makes all of us swell with pride.

While all that was going on the Peace House, some of our volunteers focused on the Campus right next door, where our interns and long-term volunteers stay. It has been challenged for years with popping floor tiles and cracking in the main hall and the dining room. We decided to commission a group to chop it up and remove the tile, and what we found underneath was a beautiful terrazzo floor. It’s been there since the early 90s when the house was built. Anyone know how to make it come alive again? It’s dull but has potential. Every time we get this kind of help, we are pleasantly surprised at what our teams uncover. Thank you for making the old new again.

In the last few busy months, it’s been fun to see how our Jamaican ACE staff pulled together in such a great way to work with them and each other. Ms. Foster, our Executive Director, has done an excellent job training, teaching, and coaching all of us to work as a team. Charity and Brian Zalk and family have continually increased their availability on the ground with the ACE crew. Things are going so smoothly that Allen and Marla sit back and smile, pleased at how everyone is beginning to own their own lane. Keep all of us in your prayers as everyone is learning how to operate as a team.

Teamwork makes the dream work, another old saying… and in this case, we are so grateful for such a successful and fun start to the year!

Back to School!

Back to School!

While the Ministry of Education is maneuvering the system and making changes daily, our students hardly seem to notice as they enjoy the official start of the 2023 school season. It feels great for us and for them to have a sense of normalcy finally. Smiles and laughs greeted us at our annual (again!) backpack distribution event, where we gave out book bags, supplies and books to each student in our Child Sponsorship Program. Thanks to our sponsors, the day was not only well received by the many students but their parents as well.

ACE staff seemed to enjoy the event as our own Arlene was present with her camera, taking pics of each child as they displayed their name on a sign to identify them after all this time. If you have ever had a child, you know they can grow rapidly from one year to the next – try two!! We loved to see how much they’ve changed and how ready they are for this new year ahead!

Remember all that PB&J we ask each team to bring down? Well, every student received their own PB&J to take home and share. ACE will always find a way to utilize what teams bring down, and this has been a long-standing traditional donation from our volunteers. Kids learn better when they are fed and happy, so we are starting the school year on the right foot, thanks to all of you!

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Our Community is Transforming

Our Community is Transforming

ACE’s vision from the beginning has been “changing lives and transforming communities” one person at a time. One of our most needy communities that lines our farm property is Hampstead, and one woman we met there through our sponsorship program is a testament to that transformation.

Meet LaToya Newell, a sponsored child’s mother who received a home several years ago with her four children. LaToya used to be what we call a haggler. She would buy our things from thrift shop and other shops, then flip them to make income for her and her family. Hard times fell on LaToya, who also has a special-needs child, and much of her income shut down.

Until…

ACE needed an animal caretaker at our micro-business, Green Life Llanrumney Farms. For those of you who don’t know the story about the farm, in short, it’s for ACE to incubate small agriculture businesses for our local families who are unemployed and want to work but have no training or ability to compete in the tourist trade market miles away.

That’s where Ricky comes into LaToya’s life. Ricky is one of six horses GLLF has on property to be trained to round up cattle when they get “way up in the bush” and LaToya is going to teach him! At first, she was very nervous about being close to such a big animal (her first time). But after the introduction, the bathing, the saddling, and then the riding, she’s getting to be a natural – a real “Jamaican Cowgirl,” says LeRoy, our horse trainer in St. Mary who is working with her.

LaToya said it is great therapy for getting back to the simple things that really make a day at work fun and fulfilling. It started with a sponsored child, then a family, a home, a skill, a future. Thank you, sponsors, for changing this life and ultimately transforming our community one person at a time.

 

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ACE goes DEEP and not WIDE

ACE goes DEEP and not WIDE

How many times have you heard ACE say “ACE goes deep, not wide” about the way we do life with our community? In three decades, we’ve never changed that direction of depth vs width. We can’t reach every single person in St. Mary, but we hope that those we DO reach and invest in – emotionally, spiritually, financially – will be changed for the better as they then go out to help others.

Do you remember little Orlando from Bonny Gate? We remember meeting him when he was in third grade at Jackson Primary, one of our first sponsored schools. Orlando would run up with eggs in his hand to give us from some of his wild chickens in the yard.

As you may know, that little boy grew up and became the caretaker of Pastor Kermit until he passed earlier this year, and now Orlando’s farming again.

He was one of ACE’s first recipients of a loan with which he purchased his first cow named Betsy. Orlando now owns thirteen cows and sells them to grow his other farm business – pigs. Just this month, he called and asked if we needed any piggies as his pigs Penney and Peggy both had 14 babies each.  Now that’s a record!

The farming experience has not only been educational and profitable for Orlando, but it’s been a spiritual journey as well. When Orlando first began to raise pigs, he had a big beautiful one named Tamarind.  A man in the community with a reputation for being cruel poisoned Orlando’s pig out of jealousy.  Tamarind died a horrible death, and Orlando was devastated and very angry. Years later, as the wicked man lay on his death bed, he asked for Orlando to visit him. Orlando didn’t want to go, but his curiosity got the best of him. The man asked his forgiveness.

ACE provides the opportunities, and opportunities provide life lessons and purpose. We are very proud of our young men like Orlando; no matter how many challenges pull them off the path, they get right back on and do what they are called to do. In Orlando’s case, that’s farming, which creates a business for him and food for others. Our investment in relationships runs deep, and that will make all the difference.

Please keep Orlando in your prayers as he still struggles with the loss of Pastor Kermit whom he called “father”. He still has us and we will be there for the long haul.

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Paying off the Farm

Paying off the Farm

Remember the ask ACE made to all of you the last quarter of 2021 to help us pay off the Green Life Llanrumney Farm? As you know, the farm is the place where all our micro-businesses will flourish to keep us hiring more and more Nationals. We want to keep you posted on how we are doing in raising the $700k needed by 2024.

Take a look at the graph to see how it’s going. Pretty impressive, we think. It’s also a faith-builder for ACE and, hopefully, for all of you who gave the funding to help us reach these goals. So far, with the help of many generous sponsors, we went over the $100k mark in 2021. Thank you!

If you are led to help us get to the $350k mark by summer and $500k by December, we would be grateful. After all, seeing is believing – and seeing is always a confirmation that it was completed in the supernatural world before it became visible in the natural.

Just watch what God will do this year… and it’s all good!

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28