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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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

MARLA’S MINUTE:  After 32 years, she found us!!!

MARLA’S MINUTE: After 32 years, she found us!!!

Right after the first of this month, I was cleaning out my emails, and out pops one from someone I wasn’t expecting… and what a surprise!

The email was from a young girl named Evete, a name I hadn’t thought of in 32 years! 1988 was not only the year I arrived on the island, but it also saw one of the worst hurricanes to hit Jamaica, Hurricane Gilbert, in September of that year.

I happened to be back in Atlanta when the actual hurricane hit due to a root canal I had scheduled. Who would ever credit a root canal to being a good thing, helping me dodge a hurricane? Upon my return, I was shocked to see the devastation. It was a month before the airport could be opened to receive commercial flights outside of military help. Within a short time, roads were finally opening up.

Just a few months before the hurricane, our NGO had been working in an area called Ft. George where a small church and community had needed a lot of help. I remembered a young girl and her family being so helpful to us as we built and repaired homes and churches in their community. Evete was that teenage girl.

To make a long story short, I went back to Ft. George following the hurricane, and I brought Evete a suitcase of clothing and toiletries from our group in hopes it would help in a small way. Now, after 32 years, I received an email from this woman who found me on Facebook and wanted to say thanks for that small token of love. With her permission, I’m sharing some of her email. She’s now a surgical nurse in England, married to a husband who loves Jamaica and they have two wonderful children.

“We met in 1988. I hope its you anyway. I’ve never ever forgotten when [you] came back shortly after the Hurricane and Donated a Suitcase of Clothes and Shoes to me, to share with my Friends, I will never forget.

I always thought about you, Especially since I’ve grown much older, You’ve made a Great Impact on my Childhood and that I will never forget Thank you and God Bless”

Evete hopes to come to see her family this summer… and us! We can’t wait!  You never know what an impact you can make in someone’s life by serving in big and small ways. Make your promise in 2020 to never stop loving and serving the people that God puts in your path. You might have a great story to tell like this one day!!