Marla’s Minute: A Home Run For Lashauna

Marla’s Minute: A Home Run For Lashauna

Last week, ACE had our annual Men’s & Women’s Conference in St Mary. However, unlike the past 16 years of holding the conference at Galina Breeze Hotel, we moved the conference to an outside event space, Buccaneers Jerk & Juice Centre.

When some very insightful men from Trinity on the Hill started the Men’s & Women’s Conference back in 2007, only a few people attended. Fast forward to last year, we had over 150 people attend our short 3-night event filled with worship music, a great message, and our desire to spread God’s Word to everyone.

As seasons change, so does ACE. We realized that we wanted to not only reach our friends and neighbors around the hotel, but also reach the many homes and families that surrounded Green Life Farm where Buccaneers Jerk & Juice is held. By making the move, ACE created an open-air venue just like our weekend movie night on the lawn that Buccaneers holds every Saturday and Sunday evening.

The same loyal team of adults from Trinity on the Hill in the States showed up ready to serve no matter what. Game chairs were set up, we all wore our favorite sports shirts, made popcorn, and just enjoyed each other’s company. Jeff Chandler and Annaleise Stennet led the music while everyone else joined along.

This year’s theme was all about setting a baseline, meaning everyone has a baseline they follow throughout life. Pastor Omar from Church on the Rock challenged everyone spiritually by connecting the fact that every sports game has rules and guidelines players must follow to win with the fact that people who want to know what God’s Truth is must follow a set of guidelines in order to start their spiritual journey with Christ.

One of our favorite testimonies from the conference surrounds one of ACE’s sponsor students, Lashauna. For 21 years now, Lashauna has been unable to go anywhere but her bed, house, and hospital. Although she was born perfectly healthy, Lashauna endured a medical mistake as an infant that left her crippled. 

Lashauna’s sponsors recently purchased her a brand new wheelchair that reclines and ensures she is strapped in safely. Friends of ACE were able to go to Lashauna’s home and help get her ready to attend the conference in her new wheelchair. And what can we say? She loved it! 

What’s more, her wheelchair has proven to be a huge blessing in several areas of her life. Now, Lashauna’s mother, Latoya, can take her to work a few days a week and also let her more easily be a part of what ACE is doing around the community.

Now that’s a home run!

 

The Mission & Vision of ACE

The Mission & Vision of ACE

We’ve just released our latest video detailing the mission and vision of ACE. Even after 35 years, we’ve remained focused on our four main impact areas — education, wellness, micro enterprise, and spiritual development. 

Please take a moment to watch the video below and discover what we’re currently doing to strengthen each of these impact areas.

Thank you for being a part of our mission and helping us meet the educational, physical, and spiritual needs of people in St. Mary, Jamaica. There’s always a way for you to be a part of what we’re doing at ACE. You can volunteer and plan a trip, sponsor a child, or show your support with a financial donation.

Peaceful Discussions at the Peace House

Peaceful Discussions at the Peace House

Thanks to so many donors and volunteers, we are enjoying our Thursday night dinners in our Peace House on the ACE Campus. For years, we’ve been planning and sending pictures of what we are doing to get this building ready for a weekly dinner and discussion with Pastor Omar, our employees, and our community. Now, we are fulfilling our promise, and the ACE Legacy has come full circle. Praise God!

So many of our wonderful staff at the farm, their families, as well as our child sponsorship families, are coming Thursday nights to socialize, play games like Dominos, Go Fish, and Ludo, and enjoy our usual supper — chicken, rice and peas, slaw, and a natural drink sourced from fruits and vegetables from our farm. No one ever complains about the food because Shardae, our hotel cook, finds so many delicious ways to prepare the chicken. 

An amazing couple with a heart to serve children secured ACE with a sponsorship from the Jamaica Child Evangelism Fellowship. This organization comes weekly to teach our children about how much they are loved and how important they are in God’s eyes. This is so important, since many children hardly ever hear a positive word directed at them. Thanks to the trust and relationships built through these lessons, laughter is another important and consistent element at our Peace House dinners.

Additionally, the adults who come have the opportunity to hear Pastor Omar speak. If you’ve ever attended Church On The Rock with us in Ocho Rios, you know what we mean when we say Pastor Omar has a way of filling his messages with personal stories that hit home for all of us.

This is such a huge blessing for us and our Peace House dinners, since his stories often lead to great discussions and curiosities that we’ve all heard before or have struggled with as it relates to God loving us. 

We heard questions such as, “If God made us all from one couple, then why are we different colors?”, “If God loves us all, then why does He allow so many to suffer?”, and “Why did Adam get the curse when Eve made him eat the fruit?” 

You can feel the Spirit of God resting at the table as we discuss hard topics like these and ask challenging questions about faith that many of us are afraid to ask. 

It truly is peaceful at the Peace House, and your support has helped make these moments possible by strengthening our spiritual development impact area at ACE. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for helping us make a difference in the lives of so many people as they encounter God and learn to trust Him.

If you would like to partner with us in strengthening our spiritual development impact area through the work we are doing at the Peace House, please consider making a donation and mentioning Peace House in the Donation Comments box

The common saying never fails — “God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good!”

Marla’s Minute: Generational Blessings

Marla’s Minute: Generational Blessings

Earlier this month, ACE hosted a choir group from Augusta. This was somewhat new to ACE as we are used to having volunteers coming to work, sweat and serve. What a special blessing to not only see the projects done with love, but to hear in song their servant hearts. 

During the week, one of the singers by the name of Carter came up to me one evening and asked if I remembered his big sister, Susanna, from 2010. Well, I have to say, remembering back some 13 years would be a big challenge for… well, let’s say anyone over 40, so I was honest and said no. Then he tweaked my memory with, “She was the high school student who, for her school project, took on the challenge of raising funds for the infirmary mattresses.” Immediately I knew who Susanna was!

My memory flashed back to the day when this high school senior said she wanted to make an impact through ACE helping our infirmary residents by replacing their 20-plus year-old warped mattresses. Of course, we said yes. Anyone who has served ACE pre-Covid at the infirmary understood why these particular mattresses needed to be retired and changed out for new ones. 

Susanna single handedly replaced at least a dozen mattresses, allowing ACE to take the old ones back to Galina Breeze to wash, bleach and sun them in our green space down to the pool. After all the cleaning, we gave them to children in our sponsorship program who were sleeping on the floor. 

I remember this time very well, and I looked at this handsome young man named Carter and smiled. Generational blessings. A sister that set an example for her brother to follow. Service before self.

I asked Carter if I could send Susanna a message; he smiled and said sure. As I wrote a small note to his sister – who now is married and just had a sweet baby – I thanked God that this young girl, now a mother, had such a great influence on her brother to come to ACE, and that I had the experience of witnessing that positive influence does make a difference in the family. Thank you, Carter, and thank you, Susanna.  

Marla’s Minute –God Gives Me Grace

Marla’s Minute –God Gives Me Grace

This is the month of valentines! I can recall those paper valentine punch-out cards where you write on the back and then give to your teachers and friends. They always seemed to say the same thing: “from _________ “to ________ — Would you be my Valentine?”

A special valentine arrived this month from Virginia just for me. While it wasn’t a punch-out card or even chocolate – remember, Cloud 9 is already here — it was in the form of a sole intern named Grace.

ACE has never had an iQuest intern come in the winter. Grace just graduated from James Madison College and, instead of jumping into her career, she asked if she could join us for the winter season and become our first winter intern.

Grace is my Valentine. I have been without an assistant for four months with Sarah in the states, so administration tasks have been bogging me down in the office. Grace arrived in Jamaica with a big smile and lots of energy, saying “perfect” to every request I asked her to help me with. She loves collecting data and putting it in great graphs and excel formats. She thrives in math and can count money almost faster than a machine!

Grace will be in Jamaica until April, at which time, she will return to begin her career in… well, just about anything she wants, smart enough to master anything and eager to be wherever God leads her. Thank you, Grace, for being my Valentine for these 75 days. You are a blessing, and maybe, just maybe, I can convince you to be our house mother this summer for our new iQuest signups.

Which reminds me… I’m hoping we will get some summer interns who want to grow, thrive, and serve with ACE this summer. Now is the time to sign up and get ready for a season you will never forget in Jamaica with ACE. Teamwork makes the dream work and we need you on our team!

 

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A Visit with Marla and D’Vaun

A Visit with Marla and D’Vaun

Our very own Marla and D’Vaun were featured on a recent podcast!

Thank you to TJ Mauldin for taking time to talk with both Marla and D’Vaun to hear their stories and experiences with ACE and what led them to where they are now.  If you’ve never heard them speak or even if you know them well, it’s a great reminder of how God works through us all for the good of the world around us.  Give it a listen!