Showing posts with label macassar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label macassar. Show all posts

Making Soup

Making the soup for The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen is (and has been for a long time) my happy place.

I really enjoy every aspect of it, and love the fact that I can pretty much switch off and just let the process unfold.

The Gathering has been supporting two local Soup Kitchens in nearby Macassar for over two years now, and we've built up a great relationship with Beatty and Mercia who run them from their homes.

So at least once a month I get the joy of delivering a load of food to each of them, and I have to say that it is a real privilege and a blessing to be working with them, supporting them and providing for them.

We were thoroughly blessed at our first Festive Soup Kitchen on Thursday, as Joel came along to photograph the event for us.

As ever, his photographs are truly stunning and he perfectly captured the heart and essence of The Gathering's Soup Kitchen.

Things are getting exciting at The Gathering as we prepare for our three festive Soup Kitchens, beginning tomorrow.

We'll be serving 200 litres of home made Pea & Ham Soup. As well as serving our regulars with the usual packet of instant noodles, each recipient will receive a yummy home baked cookie, and the school age kids will each get a goodie bag containing a few school supplies together with a some sweets.

Between the Old and New Testaments there is a 400 year gap in which the voice of God was not heard.

It must have been tough for the Hebrews to carry on in their worship with no sign of life from God.

Then the Angel Gabriel spoke to Mary and the silence was broken.

Suddenly, for those who were listening, life was full and rich with the blessings of God, and where religion may have been dry and dusty it was swept through with the awesome grace of the living God.

The Gospel

I wasn't supposed to be preaching at The Gathering this morning, but events in the week meant that it was over to me, and as ever it was a joy and a privilege to share the Word. 

During the week I had briefly contemplated giving our Gathering over to an impromptu Testimony Sunday, but decided against this because I knew we would be low on numbers this morning, and partly because I knew I was being lazy in not preparing a word.

Well before I even got up to preach, God had interrupted our Gathering spectacularly and it turned in to an impromptu Testimony Sunday with testimony after testimony being shared.

New Pans

Today is an exciting day for The Gathering as we finally got new larger pans for our weekly Soup Kitchen.

We've been making 140 litres of soup each week for a while now, and even on our quieter evenings, the soup has all gone within thirty minutes, meaning we have had to turn some folk away.

Testimony Sunday at The Gathering is always a joy and a blessing, and this morning was no different!

The stream of testimonies of God's goodness just kept flowing. What was clear is that most had been having a tough year, but each acknowledged that it was only by God's awesome grace that they had got to where they were and were blessed because of His loving kindness.

This is what church is all about!  There was such a buzz at The Gathering yesterday as we prepared soup, hosted our Homework Club and launched our first go at offering free haircuts to any men/boys who wanted. Add in to this the fact that we also took food to the two Macassar Soup Kitchen's The Gathering supports and it really was an amazing day of blessings!

Sadly The Gathering have had to shelve plans for our annual Soup Kitchen Christmas Lunch this year. The main reason for doing so is simply one of logistics, as it would be beyond our resources to cater for and accommodate all of our regulars, which would lead to some frustration and disappointment, which we would rather avoid.

Next year when The Gathering is meeting in the main hall it will be a different ball game, but sadly we need to pass on it this year.

BMW Man

One of the joys of The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen is the variety of our regulars from all different walks in life. This diversity lends a calm and light environment in which folk are chilled and happy to laugh at themselves and others.

Last night we had the joy of BMW Man as some of the others called him, and he was very proud of his converted shopping trolley, though he was a bit fed up at having lost his wing mirror in a recent crash.

Cracking On

With loadshedding now in its 16th year and showing no signs of going anywhere anytime soon, it was time to make a plan to ensure life can go on (see Take That Loadshedding!).

So yesterday for the first time we were able to crack on with The Gathering's Homework Club through the scheduled two hour blackout thanks to our mini inverter which not only charged the tablets but then kept the router and wifi running for the 2½ hours for which the electricity was off.

I may have mentioned once or twice how Thursdays are my favourite day of the week because we get to serve the community through The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen.

This is a time of tremendous blessing for us, never mind for those that come to partake of the soup, though we know they are truly blessed too.

However, lately it's been quite sobering seeing the Soup Kitchen growing and seeing how the demographic of those coming for soup is expanding.

Soup Kitchen

Last night's Soup Kitchen was another blessed evening with The Gathering.

As ever our regulars were queueing well before we started serving, though the crowd was smaller than normal due to it being payments weeks for the various social grants such as pensions.

Despite the lower number we still served 140 litres of delicious homemade soup which was well received. It also meant we were able to be very generous in filling pots and giving seconds to those that wanted.

Yesterday's Women's Day Outreach at The Gathering was spectacular and we're thankful to God for making it the day that it was. One salvation, a healing and a deliverance made it an awesome time in God's presence, and we're also thankful for His amazing answer to our prayer for electricity for the event.

Early in the morning we had a desperate call from one of our church members in the community telling us that there had been a small explosion and it had wiped out the local electricity supply. 

Not so long ago at The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen our regulars were able to hang around and enjoy several cups of soup before collecting their takeaway pot for home.

Sadly the recent growth of the Soup Kitchen means that those days are long gone and now as we use our biggest pans to make 140 litres of yummy soup, there's only enough for one cup each and a pot to take home.

Call That Work?

I'm not sure one could call what I do work given how much of a blessing so much of what I do is, and days like today are so enjoyable and pleasurable that there should probably be laws against it.

This morning after picking up a trailer I had the joy of driving through to Simon's Town to My Father's House where my dear brother Shaddie loaded my car and trailer with loads of food for The Gathering.

Blessings

There have been so many blessings to talk about recently, but I'll stick with my favourite which is seeing another young Christian being given the opportunity to serve and minister in the church.

This morning Kuda, a young Zimbabwean with a fantastic testimony of how God dramatically broke in to his life and saved him from drugs, opened our worship at The Gathering and exhorted us to put God and the needs of others above our own interests. Great stuff!

It's such a blessing and a privilege to be working in partnership with other locally run soup kitchens and feeding programmes.

Currently The Gathering supports three other regular soup kitchens; two in Macassar and one in Chris Nissen Park.

This is Mercia in Macassar with the 50lt pot of food she made for feeding some of the local kids who had been off school yesterday due to the public holiday.

Today is Youth Day, a public holiday here in South Africa in which we remember the senseless slaughter of over 100 children and the thousand plus who were injured in Soweto by the apartheid regime as the kids protested against the then new law forcing them to be taught in Afrikaans rather than their own indigenous languages.

Sadly this day is barely acknowledged in the Western world and the first time we heard of it was in 1998 when we were in Tanzania, where today is celebrated as the International Day Of The African Child. Personally I prefer this more internationally minded celebration of the day, it feels more positive and more outward looking.