Showing posts with label soup kitchen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soup kitchen. Show all posts
It seems so normal these days to just get on with life regardless of whether we have electricity or not, and we've certainly learnt to make a plan for those all too frequent occasions when the power is switched off.

On Thursday it was the turn of The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen to once again enjoy the inconvenience of loadshedding.

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!

That was a lot of carrots needing to be prepped for The Gathering's Soup Kitchen tonight...

On Thursday we had our third and final Festive Soup Kitchen in which we once again served a delicious homemade Gammon & Pea soup.

Once again the soup went down a storm with many appreciative comments from our regulars.

It has been a real joy, pleasure and a privilege to be able to treat our Soup Kitchen regulars to three special soups over the last few weeks as we've done our best to celebrate Christmas with them.

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.

Sweet Potatoes

Tonight's Soup Kitchen will be serving a rather yummy Cream of Sweet Potato & Ginger homemade soup.

After chopping 18 kilograms of sweet potato and peeling & chopping quite a lot of fresh ginger the building is smelling divine!

The soup doesn't taste too shabby either.

No, not our new home, but rather our church house...

Late in 2019 I felt God give me a word for The Gathering about putting our house in order, so in Jan 2020 we kicked off the New Year with a couple of sermons on this subject drawing from 2 Kings 4:1-7 and Haggai 1:1-15.

I'll not bore you with the details of those sermons, but suffice to say that although at that time we had registered as an NPO, we were far from compliant with the Dept of Social Development's requirements. Also, we were using songs in our worship without the proper licences from CCLI, as well as being a bit lax in a few other areas.

Exciting Times

Today was an exciting day for The Gathering as we were blessed with 23 boxes of peanut pastes from our dear friends at My Father's House in Simon's Town.

This means we can once again be generous with the pastes which have become incredibly popular amongst our Soup Kitchen regulars.

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.

Not Defeated

It was great to see The Gathering's Homework Club continue through loadshedding on Thursday for the first time ever, and it's a blessing knowing that we no longer have to turn the kids away just because the electricity is off.

Sadly only three of the kids got the message for this week, but word is out and so the next time loadshedding is scheduled for when a Homework Club is happening the kids know that we'll be ready and waiting to serve them.

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.

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.

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.

"They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony" Revelation 12:11

They - that's God's people aka you & me - triumphed over him - that's the Devil - by the blood of the Lamb - that's Jesus laying down his life on the cross - and by the word of their testimony - that's what God is doing in our lives. So basically, it's all about God, every last bit of it, and that is why at The Gathering we give over a Sunday every now and then to testimonies, and when we do it's an awesome time in God's presence!

No Cups

I love it when prayers are answered so specifically.

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.

24 Hours

In the 24 hours since I dropped Paula at the airport I've had quite a fun time of it...

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.

Today was doubly exciting because not only is it a Thursday and we get to serve our regulars at The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen,but today our Matha@Home Homework Club restarted after an almost two year furlough thanks to the pandemic.

It just felt so right to have the Homework Club operating again and the kids were really enjoying themselves and the attention they were receiving from Delena our beloved facilitator.

Crazy Busy

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.