Outreach Weekend - Pt 1

Firstly, thank you to all of you that were praying for the weather on our outreach a couple of weeks ago, the weather turned out great despite the forecast and we are truly thankful to God for this!

It has indeed been a couple of weeks since the outreach and the reason it has taken so long to blog about it is that many of us are still blown away by the whole thing!

Mother's Day

Yesterday was a particularly special day as Tree of Life honoured all the mums amongst our family on Mother's Day.  We had a brilliant time together in church during which each mum was given a little, beautifully created posy of flowers with an attached t-light. We then got the men praying for their women, which was very special.

Garden Centre

After a good morning in Macassar I decided to call in on Michael in Chris Nissen on my way home to see how his gate is holding up and just to enjoy being with my mate.

One of the things that never fails to amaze me about our friends there is just how generous they are and this morning I left Michael's feeling like I'd been to a garden centre.

My garden is going to be looking great by next summer!

60 Years!

Sunday was an important day for Tree Of Life as we celebrated the 60th wedding anniversary of Oom Paul and Aunty Molly.

They are an amazing couple and I have had the privilege of sitting with Oom Paul a few times listening to his life stories. Forget about Kindle or any other form of interactive e-book, spending time with someone like Oom Paul is spending time with a truly interactive living, talking history book!

Meanwhile, back in April...

In the midst of playing about with the A To Z Blogging Challenge we've neglected the regular side of the blog, but it's May now so here we go with normal service being resumed.

With the five day weekend over I have to admit to enjoying the blissful peace and quiet in the office, no kids running around, making a ton of noise and being exuberant. Thankfully it's only short lived as they'll be back after lunch but the brief respite is very very welcome!

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - T

*Update* Tree Of Life is now defunct

T is for Tree Of Life

It is a complete privilege to be leading Tree Of Life and especially to be leading it with such a great bunch of guys!

Amazing Evening

Wow, what a night at home group!

We had planned to follow on from Sunday and give space for testimonies and to pray for folk. We had a great time and then at the end a visitor gave her life to Jesus. Fantastic!

Please pray for Bonita in the coming days and weeks as she begins a new life in Christ, pray too that she'll come along to Tree Of Life on Sundays and will be made to feel accepted and welcome.

Thank you Lord for a truly awesome evening!

Testimony Sunday

"They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony" - Rev 12:1

This morning our gathering was given over to sharing testimonies of what God is doing amongst us and what an amazing morning we had!

As the weeks have gone by we have watched God at work in people's lives but to actually hear some of the accounts this morning was a privilege and truly humbling.

The Widow's Offering

I've always loved the story in Mark of the widow's offering. As Jesus sits and watches the offerings being given he sees many rich folk giving lots and then along comes a widow and drops two coins into the offering. Mark 12:41-44 has the full story:

"Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.

It's Church Jim...

I've been wanting to blog about church for the last two weeks but haven't really got my head around what has happened or found the right words to describe how fantastic it has been.

Our inaugural Sunday was great and all I could say to the guys afterwards was that had I been able to plan the meeting in detail it wouldn't have gone as well as it did. Praise God for his infinite grace! However, planning and executing one meeting is easy, doing it week in and week out will be the challenge.

Tree Of Life Planted!

What an amazing privilege to be a part of the start of tree of Life church in Macassar this morning!

Thank you Lord!

Tree Of Life Church

Today is a very exciting day as Tree of Life Church meets on a Sunday morning in Macassar for the very first time.

Please join us in praying for God's name to be glorified as his kingdom is extended in Macassar.

Drum Roll Please...

Just 24 hours to go...

So this morning we're out in Macassar inviting people to join us tomorrow.

Our big prayer is that the Holy Spirit would go before us and rock up on Sunday, please join us in prayer for this.

Plant A Tree

This morning was a morning of mixed emotions for the Macassar crowd as it was our final morning as part of Love & Grace Church as we're planting into Macassar from next Sunday.

The mixed emotions are born out of the many friendships we've all built with folk in Mitchell's Plain and the excitement of moving into something new with God. We'll miss our friends at Love & Grace but we know we'll see each other again soon and we'll remain in contact with each other.

Encouraging Evening

Our life group in Macassar last night was such an encouraging and humbling time.

It was a real privilege to hear testimony after testimony of how God has moved mightily through the year to bring folk to the point of being excited about planting a new church into Macassar early next year. For some of the guys there last night this has been a torrid year, starting with the collapse of the church and the hassles resulting from it. Some have then lost jobs, had to move house a number of times, had family members die, one of our number has lost two brothers this year! Others have had to look after extended family to help out financially in tough times and one family have had a terrible time with drug dealers and all sorts of related nonsense.

Weekend Stuff

Summer seems to be toying with us at present as the weather has generally been pretty good during the week and then pretty horrid at weekends. Winter is definitely hanging on to the bitter end!

This last week and the weekends either side of it has been a good time for us as we've managed to sort out and rise above a bit of rubbish that was thrown our way and as a consequence find ourselves in a stronger position than before.

Praise God for friends who believe in the best of you!

A Tale Of Two Guys

Here's a tale of two guys I care for very much and have a huge amount of respect for and two guys who are struggling through very different but equally tough times.

As I said a few posts below Ernest has just suffered a massive stroke. Thankfully he has an amazing family around him who are taking excellent care of him. As an outsider looking in it's a real privilege to see just how well loved Ernest is. My family circle consists of Paula, my fantastic sons and my brother. Ernest had 40, yes 40 members of family by his bed the afternoon after his stroke!

Ernest Update

Thanks for all your prayers for Ernest!

Ernest was discharged from Hotties yesterday (Monday) and went home with his family. He was much stronger than he was on Sunday afternoon, sitting up, moving his arms and able to speak a little. Please continue to pray for healing for Ernest.

Ernest

My friend Ernest had a serious stroke during the night. His family are with him at the hospital and I'm just about to go and join them. Things aren't looking good for him so please pray for him.

Macassar Update

Despite the silence on the blog things have been busy and lots of things have happened which we haven't blogged about as we needed to wait for confirmation etc. Some of our biggest news will follow in another post in the next day or so but we're very excited!

This year has been a real rollercoaster ride with some scary white knuckle moments!