Sad And Frustrated

I had one of the saddest and most frustrating conversations of my life at The Gathering’s Soup Kitchen last night.

Frustrating because it was of a theme that keeps rearing its ugly head, and sad because we the church are responsible.

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.

Homework Club

After a day of Homework Club admin, it's great to have 32 letters about to be delivered to various families in Firgrove telling them that their kid has secured a place for 2018.

It's been a great journey since we set out in January last year with 12 kids and not really knowing what the Homework Club would look like.  Here we are a whole twelve months later and we're setting off with 32 kids and looking to expand it to 48 sooner rather than later.

Please stand with us in prayer as we believe that The Gathering will grow through this outreach into the community.

Secret Weapon

I'm feeling quite overwhelmed at present.

Since The Gathering moved into the heart of Firgrove our Soup Kitchen has been steadily growing, especially amongst the elderly who were too afraid to cross the busy R102, and who could blame them?!  So, over the last few weeks many new faces have become familiar faces as people feel much safer coming for soup within their own community.

Flexibility

I was really struck by what one of The Gathering's members said recently about The Gathering's door always being open, because most people in this community are used to seeing churches being locked up and empty all week after Sunday apart from a brief spell on Wednesday evenings.