In the last week or two there's been a bit of friction between the Firgrove guys and the Macassar crowd at The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen and this has been heightened by the length of the queue and the fear of missing out.
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The Finnie family in Blighty, December 2021
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Dean and Paula pastor The Gathering together -
The Gathering -
Baptisms at The Gathering -
Preparing to serve at The Gathering's Soup Kitchen -
Soup Kitchen Welcome To 2022 lunch
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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
Showing posts with label macassar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label macassar. Show all posts
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
This scripture is the guiding principle of The Gathering's Thankful Thursdays, and sometimes it's easy to forget about it, so it was good to be reminded of it so starkly yesterday, a day of phenomenal blessings and heartbreak.
The blessings had begun on Wednesday when I drove over to My Father's House in Simon's Town to collect a very generous food donation from them.
Since we've taken the Soup Kitchen up to a minimum of 100 litres each week our consumption of the basics has rocketed meaning that keeping on top of it all and ensuring we have enough to prepare and serve the soup each Thursday has become a bit of a mission in itself.
Given how wet and cold it was, it was even more of a blessing knowing the The Gathering's Soup Kitchen had more than enough to make sure that no one went hungry, and everyone could have as much as they needed.
The 140 litres certainly went a long way and it was one of the few Soup Kitchen's in recent times in which we've not had to turn anyone away because the soup was finished.
Our Soup Kitchen is always a chilled and laid back affair, but everyone seemed to know there was more soup than usual and so our regulars were more than happy to take their time over being served, even if it meant standing out in the wet and cold for a bit longer than usual.
For some time now it has been a dream of mine to increase The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen to 100 litres so that we can be even more generous with our soup than we currently are. Most weeks we have been serving 70lts and sometimes just 50lts depending on how close we are to the social grants having been paid.
Over the last few weeks we've just been using our 70lt pot and a couple of times we've had to turn folk away because we had run out, and that never feels good.
So it was great to be able to be our usual generous selves and then some, as we had plenty to go around tonight and by the time the queue had fizzled out we had just a single one litre pot and a cup left.
One of the unintended consequences of the pandemic and lockdown is our involvement with other local Soup Kitchens.
We never intended to get involved with any others as we were quite happy focusing on The Gathering's own outreach.
However it has been a joy and a privilege to be able to serve and build a relationship with two local Soup Kitchens being run by two amazing ladies in Macassar.
Three years ago today I had the privilege and honour of attending Linda's graduation ceremony. It truly was an honour and a privilege to be invited knowing just how hard she worked for this and how hard life was for the seven years in which she sacrificed so much to pursue the dream God had given her.
Next month I will have the absolute pleasure, privilege, honour and joy of walking Linda down the aisle as she marries Mongezi (a great guy!) and begins a whole new chapter in her journey of faith.
I truly am blessed beyond measure!
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