The ALA STORY

On March 23, 1980 at a 10:00am service in the hall of the Garrison Secondary School, St. Michael, a new local church was birthed.

"CHEERS BUT NO CHAIRS" reported the Nation, the leading newspaper's front page headline. Pastors Cuke, Basil Yarde and Terry Frith has rented seating for 300 but over 600 persons turned up for that first service. 

A few weeks later at a meeting in the church office located in the home of Pastor Cuke, about thirty persons came together to decide on a suitable name for the church.   A number of suggestions were tossed around  until the suggestion Abundant Life Assembly was put forward; everyone immediately agreed to this name submitted by Mrs Joy Cuke, wife of Pastor Cuke.

John 10:10  "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."  

In February 1982 ALA moved office to Haynes Hill, Bank Hall, St. Michael where we were tenants on a 5.5 acre property with a promise to purchase 3.2  acres.  Services however, continued at the Garrison School until the morning of June 1982 while we waited for accommodations in the  form of a tent, purchased in March 1982  when Pastor Cuke along with Mr. David Nicholls went to Miami with this assignment.

Services in the Tent which was designed to seat 1 000 persons began on the Sunday afternoon of June 27, 1982 and continued until we moved into a new Sanctuary on September 22, 1990.   Eight years in a tent that the manufactures said would last about three years.   The last few months before into the Sanctuary, whenever the rain fell the umbrellas went up!

In the days when $600 000 was a whole lot of money, 3.2 acres of a 5.5 acres plot of land was up for sale along with a Great House.  There was an option for a down payment of $200 000 with the balance to be paid off in seven years or an option of a $525 000 cash payment.  Due to finances, the church elected to take the first option but God had other plans.  The legal paperwork for purchasing the property was delayed as the owners had to rectify boundary marks, and by the time this process was completed two years later, the church had enough money to make the the cash payment!

Plans were drawn up to build on the sloping grounds and it meant putting down a massive structure at great cost.  During this time the furniture factory on the adjoining piece of land when into liquidation and the Bank put the property up for sale!  And to purchase the additional 2.3 acres of land and buildings would be less costly than the building in the plans.  

On August 15, 2000 , Abundant Life Assembly paid the bank the last installment.  To God be the Glory.