There's A Mouse In My Kitchen, What Am I Gonna Do

We have a mouse problem at The Gathering and to be honest it's getting a little tedious and I'm truly fed up with having to clear up mouse poo from all manner of places around the building every time I go in. A Tom & Jerry cartoon this is not!

The mice come in through the shop next door's storeroom at the back, but they don't realise there's a problem because they have a cat which keeps the mice pretty invisible on their side.

Quite why the mice bother coming through to our premises, and what it is they find so exciting is a mystery as all our Soup Kitchen foodstuffs are in plastic tubs as is pretty much everything else, so the pickings for them are quite slim.

Despite this however, things are getting out of hand for both ourselves and for the launderette next door.

Cream Of Beef & Tomato

It was a joy and a pleasure to make the soup for The Gathering's Soup Kitchen last night and it was a privilege to serve with our Gathering family to our regulars.

The queue was one of the biggest we've ever seen and folk were patiently waiting from before 5pm knowing that we don't begin serving until 6pm.

As ever the vibe was very relaxed and despite waiting for quite a long time, everyone was very grateful for what they received. 

I made 100 litres of Cream of Beef & Tomato soup for last night and though I say it myself it was rather good, and it certainly went down well with everyone because it was all gone in twenty minutes!

Happy Easter!

I love the local church and I especially love the expression of church that we get to call home.

The Gathering was on fire this morning as we celebrated Christ's resurrection from the grave, a cold & hard historical fact.

The worship was awesome and it was a joy to share a word laid on my heart a few weeks ago about the three times Jesus spoke to his Father from the cross, as well as giving a clear gospel presentation for those that don't know Jesus yet. 

Highlight Of The Week

The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen remains the highlight of my week.

Whilst it's always a calm and laid back affair in which the church is able to be incredibly generous to those that come for food, it's different every week and you can never fully be sure of what you might see or hear during the course of it.

Each week we get a never ending stream of tales and stories about why we should give someone more of this and someone else more of that...

Standing Together

I always think one of the highlights of church is being linked with other churches and outreach projects, supporting and encouraging one another to do our best as we serve the poorest and most vulnerable in our communities.

So at The Gathering it has been a real joy to support two Soup Kitchens in Macassar with monthly food contributions.

24 Hours In The Life Of

It was an all action night at The Gathering's Soup Kitchen last night.

Whilst the Soup Kitchen itself passed off peacefully as usual, thank you LORD! It was chaotic outside with one of the local youngsters getting herself run over causing the driver to crash in to a parked car.

Amazingly the ambulance actually turned up (they rarely do in these communities!) followed by a fire engine (why?!?) and eventually a traffic cop showed up too.

Sharing Our Blessings

What a joy and a privilege it was to be able to share some of The Gathering's blessings with the three Soup Kitchens we support (two in Macassar and the one in Chris Nissen Park).

Thanks to the generosity of My Father's House, we were able to share with each of them: 25kgs of oats, 20kgs of maize meal, 2 boxes of peanut pastes and 4 boxes of Easter eggs for the kids.

The Gathering's Next Home...

Following our prayerletter which we sent out yesterday and which can be read here, we want to explain a little more, give a bit more info to the background and answer a few questions...

At The Gathering we have never wanted a building for the sake of having a building, rather, we have always wanted a venue from which we can serve the local community from Monday to Saturday with Sunday Gatherings being merely the cherry on the cake. 

Day 730 Of Your 21 Day Lockdown

Today, 26 March 2022 marks two full years of South Africa's 21 day lockdown announced by the government back in March 2020. Back then there was a serious amount of concern about what the lockdown would entail and how it would affect us all.

Initially there was broad support for the lockdown despite the fact that before it started there had been no local Covid related deaths and infection rates were minimal. 

For One Night Only

This is heartbreaking but sadly necessary.

For the first time since South Africa entered its 21 day lockdown two years ago, The Gathering has had to close its weekly Soup Kitchen because a few of us are ill with Covid.

We've done our best to ensure that word is out, especially amongst the Macassar folk to save them the walk for food later.

There's little worse than seeing our church venue locked up with no sign of life, especially when we make such an effort to be open as much as possible so community members know where they can find The Gathering when they need us.

Seven Minute Challenge

As a church we are fully committed to the working out of the priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:5), so this morning we gave over our Gathering to a Seven Minute Challenge in which we allow members the opportunity to share God's word for up to seven minutes.

This morning Gloria, Linda and Leilani rose to the challenge. Each of them were diligent and faithful in their preparation and spoke with immense authority.

Pure Joy

I will never tire of the joy of delivering blessings to others, especially the joy of delivering food to the two Soup Kitchens in Macassar which The Gathering supports.

This month we were able to give them a few boxes of peanut pastes, rice, soya mince, jam and washing up liquid each, plus an ice cream tub full of sweets for the kids which were left over from The Gathering's Soup Kitchen lunch back in January.

Fans

It was good to finally install some industrial quality fans in The Gathering's premises this morning.

Previously we had two domestic quality fans in the front and one at the back, and to be honest they were a bit rubbish. 

So it was a blessing to be able to use some of the money left over from the Soup Kitchen Christmas Lunch to buy five new good quality fans that will do a great job at cooling us all down. It's just a shame I only got to install them at the end of summer.

Robbery & Kidnapping In Firgrove

 Please stand in prayer with the community of Firgrove as we have recently experienced a truly shocking crime.

Delivering Blessings

Pastoring a church is never easy and it comes with a lot of challenges, but it also comes with a lot of joy and blessings.

One of those blessings is the joy of getting to deliver boxes of food to four of our local primary schools, knowing that the most vulnerable children at each one will be taken care of with a meal before lessons each day.

Life really doesn't get much better than that!

Pray Continually

We are so thankful for life at The Gathering at present. 

As a church we've been praying for the spiritual growth of our members for a long time and we've seen these prayers answered spectacularly. Just this morning Errol shared a word rich in scripture, passion and practical application which greatly encouraged the membership. Seeing someone raised up in to leadership and ministry and then flying in these areas is a joy to watch.

Local Church

Since the New Year an old question has kept popping up every now and then, which is odd because we're fairly certain that we've answered the question many times before and have moved on. We also feel the answer is fairly obvious, but maybe it isn't as obvious as we thought it was. 

So, here's the question: Why do you persist with church?

Church In Action

It was gutting to get a phone call late in the afternoon yesterday informing us that the home of some of our Soup Kitchen regulars had been on fire, with the household losing everything they had.

But it was also a blessing as the community knows that in such circumstances they can turn to the church for some genuine relief and assistance.

Soup Kitchen Lunch

Our much anticipated, prayed for and planned ''Welcome to 2022" Soup Kitchen lunch was a roaring success on Sunday, and we give God all the glory for this!

As we watched the advance weather reports in disbelief, stating that Sunday was going to be the hottest day on record, we gathered people to ask God to bring the temperature down, and to specifically cover the sun with cloud from 12-3 pm, or the event would simply be unbearable for us all. 

One More Sleep

We are very excited right now as all our planning and preparation is complete and we're now just hours away from actually setting up for The Gathering's annual Soup Kitchen Christmas Lunch (which is a Welcome To 2022 lunch this year).

Printing is done, stickers are ready, goody bags have been lovingly decorated by hand and are ready to be stuffed to the top with some delicious sweets . The food is prepped and ready, so now there are just a few last minute jobs to be done as we pull it all together in the morning ready for service at 1pm.