Showing posts with label celebration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label celebration. Show all posts

Pearl

Today is our 30th wedding anniversary which traditionally is Pearl. Now I can't afford to give Paula a pearl necklace and she wouldn't want one anyway, but what I can do is share a pearl of wisdom...

Paula has already written the most beautiful post over on Facebook, so there's not a huge amount left for me to say, but if I could offer one tip for longevity in marriage it would be this: keep God at the centre of it!

Today we celebrate 29 years of marriage which means we're getting old and yes, Paula deserves a medal for putting up with me.

Personally, it's been an awesome adventure with some incredible experiences along the way and I wouldn't trade a moment of it for the world.

I love you more than ever Paula!



Here's to the next 29!
XXXXX

Happy Birthday

I want to wish my lovely wife the happiest of happy lockdown birthdays.

It was a bit strange going out for a post-workout breakfast without Eli who was at school but the rest of us had a fun time at Dinner for 20  where we were spoilt rotten by the lovely hosts.

Tonight a bottle of bubbly will lose its cork as we continue to celebrate under these bizarrest of circumstances.

On Tuesday President Ramaphosa addressed the nation and gave churches and other faith groups the right to start meeting again in their buildings, though with strict conditions.

At the same time, he called for a National Day Of Prayer for today, Sunday 31 May.

The Gathering has made the tough but right decision to remain in exile for a while longer, but as we Gather this morning on WhatsApp we are proud to be standing with the President & the nation and answer his call to prayer for South Africa.

Today our Gathering will be entirely given over to prayer for this nation and the situation we find ourselves in.

Baptisms

At The Gathering we've been trying to have a Baptism Gathering for a while now but the prolonged drought and lack of a suitable venue were problems. However, we finally managed to baptise seven of our members last night at Waterworld in the Strand (thanks Carl & Claire!).

It was a great time of worship and celebration as each of those being baptised declared their faith in Jesus and the rest of the church rejoiced with them.

This is a week overdue but it was great to celebrate another fantastic year of The Gathering's Homework Club last Friday 23rd as we held our now annual Awards Ceremony.

It's always a joy to celebrate the kids achievements and to show their families just how well they're doing, and some of our kids are doing incredibly well.

City Elders

A few months ago I was invited to join a regular Wednesday morning prayer group for City Elders and intercessors. So having jiggeled my day around I've been going quite regularly for the last few months and have grown to really enjoy the group and the nature of prophetic prayer and the unity amongst the many ministries in the Helderberg.

I was so blessed yesterday by my Grade 4 kids at Firgrove Primary School.

I have been reading with them once a week all year and have absolutely loved the experience. I have learned so much, and they tell me that they have also - so that can only be good!! I was asked to come in today to receive a token of their appreciation.

On arrival a small group of the 170+ children came to give me a certificate, a card and a lovely plant to say thank you. One of the learners addressed me beautifully in English and expressed how they all feel about my help.

I am humbled and can't wait to start back again in 2019.

 It's so good to build relationships in our Firgrove community!

Glorious Rain

Suddenly the clouds rolled in, the sky went dark and an almighty thunderstorm unleashed itself right above us.  Thank you Lord!

After a few minutes of messing about in the rain enjoying its cooling touch (it was 35°C just after lunchtime), we grabbed every available bucket and got busy harvesting as much rain as we could. In the end I reckon we got about 200Lts, which isn't a lot but it will keep the loos flushing for a while longer.  😃

It was fun to watch Eli revel in the rain and even funnier to see him get pelted by the brief hail storm.

Twenty Years

It's twenty years ago this month that we made our first move in to overseas mission as we went to Tanzania for an initial two year stint.  Just under a year later we resigned out in the field, were treated appallingly by the organisation we were serving with and ended up staying with some Catholic Fathers at a nearby Seminary.  The last group of people I expected to be genuinely Christian turned out to have a greater concept and handle on Christian basics than the organisation we had served with.  Still, that's a long time ago and much water has passed under the bridge since then.

For our Silver Wedding Anniversary last year I wanted to give Paula a gift that would last but also one that had a cost, not a financial cost, but a personal one. So, starting on our anniversary last year I gave Paula the gift of letters. No, I didn't give her the alphabet, though it would have been cheaper, easier and a whole lot quicker. No, what it actually meant was that I committed to writing to her every day for a year, sending her a letter or a card.  Some letters would be posted, some I would hand to her and others were left somewhere for her to find. I know I missed a few days but looking at the little mountain of letters and cards I know did my best. But more importantly, it was a huge blessing to me and a great lesson, but more on that in a bit...

I have to say it was a lot of fun. It was great to rekindle the letter writing skill (we used to write to each other constantly before we got married), especially in this age of connectivity and constant social media interactions when pens are rarely required. The whole experience was enjoyable and the highlight was intentionally setting aside a few minutes each day to write a letter or card. It meant that for a few precious minutes all I had to do was think about Paula and what I wanted to say to her.

Those were treasured moments!

Coming Home

Paula wrote this on Facebook and I'm not sure I can add much to it...

"What a spectacular morning at The Gathering's new home as we praise marched from the garage and entered our new building to celebrate Jesus as a family and with a few friends! The presence of God was so beautiful amongst us and God poured out His Holy Spirit as we worshiped. [We] loved Aunty Lenora's word for the church which was so confirming of all that God has been saying and doing amongst us already and so very encouraging as we look forward strategically!

Planting a new church is never easy and doing it from scratch is tougher still, and at times it's easy to feel down and like nothing is going to plan. Those negative feelings can be especially tough to deal with when growth is slow and commitment of some is sporadic at best.

However, as one persists and remains faithful in prayer, things begin to turn and whilst I don't think church planters ever have that feeling of "we've done it" things do seem a lot more positive through faith and prayer.

Paula & I had the privilege of attending Green Shoots 5th Birthday Celebration last night.

For those that haven't kept up, our Homework Club at The Gathering runs Green Shoots Maths@Home online programme.

Our Homework Club is a complete joy to run and as an extra privilege last night I was asked to share a little about the impact Green Shoots has had on our learners and the wider community.

This has really made my day!

Jayden is the first Competition Challenge winner from The Gathering's Homework Club and we are thrilled for him.

Thank you Green Shoots for being such a brilliant partner to us.

The good news keeps on coming... as of next term we're moving from three to four sessions and this will allow us to serve 24 kids rather than just the 12 we can presently.

Thank you Lord for your favour!


Happy Birthday

I'm posting this a day late, but want to wish Joel a very happy 14th birthday.

Paula said it best on Facebook: "Today this amazing human turns 14! Happy birthday Joel! The courage and integrity with which you face life constantly inspires and challenges me and those moments when you "hit gold" and you laugh and find such joy are priceless. Keep on being all the young man that God made you to be and I pray that you blossom, flourish and fly high this year!"

Happy birthday son!

Surprise!

My Saturday began like any other regular Saturday, I'd taken Eli to football practice and after that I was expecting to have a nice quiet breakfast with Paula and my boys.  However, Paula's scheming knows no bounds and I was blissfully unaware of just what she had planned!

As Joel & I arrived at Fred & Max I noticed a lot of cars in the car park but just assumed it was a typically busy Saturday, and there's a gym above the coffee shop so that explained things. However as I approached the venue I saw a few balloons through the window and as I entered I was gobsmacked to see so many people. It took a few moments to realise that they were all there for my 50th!

I didn't think I was that gullible but I guess I'll have to work on paying more attention to what's going on around me!

Awesome Sunday

What an awesome time in God's presence at The Gathering this morning!

Paula & I had just got back from holiday so we'd asked our friends Flynn & Sally from Word Of Life to minster to The Gathering and we're incredibly grateful for their faithfulness.

We were blessed because they've just returned from a missions trip to Istanbul and we received the overflow of the blessing they had received on their trip.

Slideshow



We put this short slideshow together for our Renewal of Vows service at St. George's back in July.

The photos start back in 1985 when we started dating and go right through to this year.

We hope you enjoy it.

Silver Wedding Anniversary

We seem to have been celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary for a while now, but then again, why not?! It's quite a milestone and one the world would like to have bet against. We often laugh about the fact that someone (who shall remain nameless) gave us six months when we announced our engagement. 24½ years later we hope they feel differently.

In many respects we always believed we would hit this milestone and carry on way past it, but in other respects we're more than amazed that we've gone the distance so far.

To say that we'd have gotten this far without our faith would be foolish, all honour must go to our Lord for sustaining us!

So we've renewed our vows in St. George's, the church we were married in all those years ago. We've been to Paris for a week to celebrate on our own in style and now we're enjoying some special time at home with our boys, who think we're ancient because none of their friends' parents have been married for anywhere near as long. Oh the joys of being older parents!