The Finnie family in Blighty, December 2021
Dean and Paula pastor The Gathering together
Baptisms at The Gathering
The Gathering's Soup Kitchen in action during the coronavirus
Soup Kitchen Welcome To 2022 lunch
Serving hands - the heart of The Gatheirng
Thankful Thursdays
HOPE Home Based Care Team
Gathering Ground
Staying fit as a family
The Helderberg - The prettiest of the mountains we face
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Things began with serving 140 litres of soup at The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen which was another blessed time of serving generously. This time everyone got a cup & a pot to takeaway and some even hung around for seconds.
The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen was crazily busy last night as the 100 litres of homemade Cream of Chicken Soup gone in 25 minutes!
In fact, the soup went so quickly that no one was able to have seconds and the last six people only received a cup of soup and a packet of noodles because we couldn't fill any more pots. This was quite heartbreaking, and so next week we will be dusting off our two 70lt pans to make 140 litres of soup.
It has been said that if you can do what you enjoy for a living then it never feels like work.
Well that is definitely true for me and never truer than on a day like yesterday when I had the privilege and joy of delivering a load of food to the two Macassar Soup Kitchens which The Gathering supports.
It is always a joy to welcome a guest speaker but an absolute pleasure to welcome someone like Rose who is so anointed in her prophetic gift of ministering God's word to his children.
Today has been an immense blessing as some of The Gathering were able to go through to Simon's Town and serve at My Father's House and then join them for church at the beach ministering to some of the local homeless community that My Father's House are in relationship with through their Community Kitchen and Resource Centre.
Church at the beach was an exciting gathering and it felt like church that Jesus would have wanted to be a part of.
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!
