community | American-Caribbean Experience

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

by American-Caribbean Experience | Dec 23, 2024 | Community, Outreach

So many miraculous things have happened at ACE in 2024 that listing them all would turn this last newsletter of the year into a novel. Instead, we decided to share highlights with pictures below, since photos tell a thousand words.

Starting with the most recent highlight, we hosted a fantastic Christmas party at the ACE office for all of our sponsor children and their families. We even had some ACE friends/donors volunteer for two weeks to help provide a lot of fun and act as Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus.

2024 ACE Child Sponsorship Christmas Party

Throughout the year, we’ve seen the hand of God answer prayers that we’ve asked for and provided help from our ACE family like you. Our 840-acre farm, where our micro-businesses begin, was paid in full. This allows ACE to focus on impacting more families and giving individuals who are within walking distance a chance to earn and provide for their families.

Beekeeper with a fresh honeycomb making honey

Another prayer answered: The ACE Mobile Infirmary program has located and started helping over 100 senior citizens around our community in great need of housing, food, love, and tender attention.

Lebert in the ACE Mobile Infirmary Program

Denise in the ACE Mobile Infirmary Program

Ezra in the ACE Mobile Infirmary Program

Pastor Lawrence in the ACE Mobile Infirmary Program

Clive in the ACE Mobile Infirmary Program

Gloria in the ACE Mobile Infirmary Program

James in the ACE Mobile Infirmary Program

Julieth in the ACE Mobile Infirmary Program

Marita in the ACE Mobile Infirmary Program

Pauline in the ACE Mobile Infirmary Program

Our leadership has been growing in leaps and bounds as Marla and Allen take more of a back seat on the ground with ACE to focus on developing and promoting ACE. Mr. and Mrs. Foster have everyone on the move, cross-utilizing jobs and introducing our hotel staff to the real “why” of service by taking them out with our ACE team to visit those neglected and needy in our community.

While the economy continues to suffer here in Jamaica, ACE is doing our best to stay ahead of the price increases with prayers of wisdom on how to spend what we receive. That is very important to us, and we never want to forget that it’s because of your generosity that we are able to make such a big difference in the lives of the families God sends our way.

Our motto at ACE is “Love God, Love People.” We at ACE believe it’s the only way to live life. We hope you feel the same way and remember that the main reason for Christmas is always about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Christmas won’t be complete without the story of why God sent His only Son to get us back to where God created us to be, and that’s to be free to live and love a God and Savior that has never left us hanging.

We wish all of you a happy Christmas and one in which you impact someone in your family or community with the good news of Jesus. The “why” behind the true holiday.

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Vision Casting Into Reality

by American-Caribbean Experience | Nov 25, 2024 | Book A Trip, Community, Discipleship, Outreach

November started with some spectacular visits to Jamaica by our ACE friends and new leaders. If you recall from our October Newsletter, ACE is literally “back to the future” with our outreach efforts. For the first time in years, two vision trips were scheduled for interested leaders who wanted to see what 2025 was shaping up to be for St. Mary and ACE.

The participants got to see and hear from our school principals and how hopeful and grateful they are that ACE is getting back into their schools and assisting with the needs of their teachers and leadership. Sponsored students are on the rise as the needs continue to grow. Our senior adults in the community were met with love, rubbing lotion on their arms, hands, legs, and feet, food, and even haircuts by Gary, the owner of Travis Salon in Atlanta. It was his first time visiting ACE, and we are sure it won’t be his last.

Edgehill, the special needs school that ACE and Galina Breeze partner with, opened their doors for all of us to hear from the teachers what needs they have, as well as receive big hugs from our many students who love to sing, play, and learn. Laura, a pastor’s wife from Mississippi who happens to be an architect, met with the acting principal about designing a computer lab for the desktops they were given from E-learn, an NGO that focuses on teaching tools for the teachers to use.

At the end of the trip, everything was good. We dodged the rain from tropical storm Sara, and our spirits were warmed from meeting so many wonderful leaders who have a heart to grow with us. All of our staff at ACE, Galina Breeze, and Buccaneers smiled over the incredible generosity of these leaders. This is really encouraging and made a huge difference to all of us, considering how much we have grown since we were there last.

How do we move forward from here? The same way ACE has moved for years — from vision to reality. It all happens because of each of you who believe in the progress ACE has made over the decades. If you were not part of the vision trips this year, that’s okay. Call us and we will fit you into one of the 2025 trips we are preparing.

A vision is just a vision unless we have the hands and feet on the ground to make it a reality. Thank you, leaders, for your time and commitment with your teammates.

We are forever grateful.

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More Appreciation & Celebration

by American-Caribbean Experience | Oct 28, 2024 | Community

We cannot express our gratitude enough for putting your all into helping ACE pay off the Green Life Llanrumney Farm. Now, ACE is able to move freely with our outreach programs, including providing neighbors in need with a place to stay.

Our friends and families came to Galina Breeze for the annual board meeting and to celebrate the farm payoff. We dedicated the property under the stars, hosted by our own Courtney Simmons. Thank you, Courtney and all of our ACE family, as we redeemed the land from centuries of pirate activities. It’s fantastic and historical.

2024 Board Meeting & Farm Payoff Celebration

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Marla’s Minute: Back to the Future

by American-Caribbean Experience | Oct 28, 2024 | Book A Trip, Community, Education, Outreach

Before COVID, ACE was rather successful in our community outreach in and around our four partner public primary schools. The model ACE created was based on “going deep and not wide.” First, we form a partnership with one of our rural primary schools in the area that lacks funds and opportunities for their students, unlike the city schools of Kingston, Montego Bay, Ochi, etc.

Second, ACE forms a 10-year minimum relationship with the principal and teachers at the school. ACE receives a list of all of the students in need of sponsorship, and the children get added to our Child Sponsorship Program. Through sponsorship, we dig even deeper into the students’ homelives, where relationships are formed with everyone living in the home. ACE can then also discover any medical, dental, or other healthcare needs of the student and their family members.

From that community, many elderly and special needs members are met by ACE volunteers and employees with a helpful and compassionate hand and heart.

All that and more came to a full stop almost four years ago with the COVID shutdown. Schools closed, infirmaries and hospitals closed their doors to visitors, and for the most part, ACE lost all progress we had spent decades building.

Then God did something fantastic! He opened a door to start creating businesses on a piece of property we now own call Green Life Farms.

For the past three years, volunteers have come to help us “work the farm.” Cutting bushes, discovering ruins, raising pigs and cows, picking fruit, and helping an old farm with history become a modern-day working property for our Jamaican community. With our food court, Buccaneers Jerk and Juice, Treasure Chest, and Cloud 9 Chocolate, we were able to survive the downturn in the economy.

During that time, many friends were probably wondering if we would ever “come off the farm” and get back to what we do best—“changing lives and transforming communities.” Even we wondered that at times. But the time has finally come.

Looking into the future and even starting right now, ACE is back in our communities with open arms from our teachers, neighbors, and infirmary patients. Unfortunately, the government-run infirmary still hasn’t opened to groups and has a strict policy of visitors. Interesting enough, we have found more “shut ins and disabled adults” living on their own and barely surviving right in our own community. So, we’ve started our own elderly ACE Mobile Infirmary (AMI) visits. That’s the silver lining behind the COVID closings of the infirmary.

ACE is now BACK to the FUTURE. We’re getting back into our schools and communities. Just this week, a family from Gainesville, GA, surprised us with a visit and built a homeless man a house, followed by our ACE Board of Directors finishing the home with paint and a single bed. If you are considering a trip down to Jamaica this coming winter or sometime in 2025, please prepare to go back to our communities, see old friends and meet new friends. We are thrilled. Yes, we like farm work, but ACE loves those relationships.

When you come down next, be sure to bring all the hugs and energy you can. We have three years to make up!

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Marla’s Minute: Paid In Full!

by American-Caribbean Experience | Sep 26, 2024 | Book A Trip, Community, Outreach

September was a month for the ACE record books. Because of the goodness of God and you, our partners, we can joyfully say that our Green Life Farm, where all the micro-businesses develop, has been PAID IN FULL!

That’s right, we no longer have a mortgage to pay on the land! For the past five years, Allen and I have been sharing our vision and heart with so many of you about the importance of having land to use as ministry outreach for the local community, like the Peace House and the ACE Office. A location where many micro-businesses can be incubated so that Jamaican families can earn a living and get out of the generation of poverty.

We are thrilled to reach this milestone, and we are so grateful to each of you that have given their treasure and prayers to this legacy campaign. We made it, and we did it together! ACE now has the foundation we needed to ensure the land is ours for generational building and demonstrating to the community just how active God still is among His people.

Please join us in celebrating these moments in ACE history as we now move forward with the Fosters at the helm of ACE. We are excited to see what else God will add to this property as a witness to His goodness. Plans are in the works to build a professional stage on the farm, where performers will be able to share the Gospel through music and talent. The greenhouse is being rebuilt to supply pure, clean food to the community, as well as hotels that have a large demand. And there’s also going to be a Green Life Learning Center for high school students who have come through our program but still need help getting up to par in reading, math, english, and the arts. This last phase of development is only possible now that the farm has been paid in full.

Thank you, friends! Truly, thank you for believing in the vision of hope and opportunity in St Mary, Jamaica through ACE. Now, let’s continue to pray for a pastor to come along at the Peace House and help guide our staff to reach the next level.