Showing posts with label uk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label uk. Show all posts
There are a number of joys I have been blessed enough to enjoy whilst here in Blighty.

Time with family is always precious and a blessing, and to spend some of that time together celebrating the marriage of our oldest niece was just the cherry on the cake.

One of my biggest joys has to be talking to folk about my boys because they're both doing so well. They've both had some tough stuff to face and deal with and yet they've both overcome and each are in a really good place. Sometimes as I'm talking about them, I feel as if I'm making it up about how well they're doing, but then I realise I'm really not.
I was so blessed to join the Hope Church family this morning in Sevenoaks. This is the church that I was a part of when I first got saved when I was 18. 

Back then the church was known as Town Church and was meeting in people's homes and then in Bligh's Hall in Sevenoaks Town centre.
To be in England in summertime with(out) my love...
(with apologies to The Art Of Noise)

So here I am in Blighty ready for the wedding or our oldest niece tomorrow, it's going to be a lovely day and a very special occasion, I feel privileged to be here and honoured to play a tiny part in the day in walking my sister-in-law down the aisle and leading the prayers for Suzi & Luke.

Home Again

After an exciting ten days back in Blighty with family to celebrate our middle niece's wedding, Paula arrived home this morning, much to the relief of all the trousers.

The junior trousers survived and were fed, watered and made it to their various commitments on time as well as getting home again safe and sound, so I'll call that a win.

Wedding Bells

What a joy and a blessing it was to watch the live-stream from St. George's in Weald of our middle niece Bethy getting married to Shaun this afternoon.

It was great that Paula could be there too and it was lovely to see her lead the prayers for the newly weds.

The highlight of my week is always The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen, and today I am blessed to once again be making 100 litres of delicious homemade Cream of Chicken Soup.

These are the main ingredients but I'll also be adding a lot of salt, pepper, garlic, herbs & spices and some soup powder just to top off the flavour.

Today, 26 March 2022 marks two full years of South Africa's 21 day lockdown announced by the government back in March 2020. Back then there was a serious amount of concern about what the lockdown would entail and how it would affect us all.

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. 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to you all.

We've been thoroughly blessed with an amazing family Christmas (our first in 11 years) and New Year and this morning, after worshiping with the community of St George's in Weald we interred Paula's Dad's ashes in the graveyard.

This was a special time with family and was great to share with Paula's remaining Uncles & Aunts on her Dad's side. We were also thrilled to learn that his ashes were to be interred in the same place as her Mum's ashes. This truly blessed the family.

So, Christmas is done and we're entering an interesting year...

Eli enters his Matric year and is very keen to enlist in the British Army as soon as he can once his exams are over. Joel has applied for an internship and is hoping and praying he's successful. Please stand with him & us in praying for this.

In the words of Skipper the Penguin: "Smile and wave boys, smile and wave". 

Sometimes it's all you can do given that shooting people (especially politicians) is frowned upon.

R.I.P. Grandad

Most of you probably know by now that Dad/Brian/Grandad passed away yesterday morning. It wasn't totally unexpected though we didn't think it would be quite so quick. He was battling leukemia on top of dementia, so in many respects it was a blessing to see an end to his suffering, especially knowing he was a Christian and his place in eternity is assured, but we're still heartbroken by the news.

He was a dearly loved father, father-in-law & grandad and we're very sad at the thought of never seeing him again.



If you only listen to or watch one thing on Black Lives Matter, listen to our good friend Dave speaking about his own experiences in the UK.

As white people we will never need our lives to be verified in the way that Dave and so many other black people have experienced at some point. That is why we are privileged and black lives matter.

#BlackLivesMatter
Let me tell you a story...

Pink Floyd announced the release of their Later Years ensemble late last year saying it would be released on November 29.  Exciting times!

My lovely sister-in-law and family agreed to get it for me for Christmas and so began an almost 9 month saga that finally ended today when a courier handed me the parcel containing the LP.

Project Restart couldn't have gone any better for Palace as they comfortably saw off Bournemouth at the Vitality courtesy of a sublime free kick and a beautiful team goal.

My Palace made me proud as they supported Black Lives Matters on their shirt sleeves and their backs in place of their name,s and I love that they all took the knee in solidarity.

Last night President Ramaphosa addressed the nation to let us know about the reduction in regulations to Level 3 of our lockdown.

At this point you have to wonder why we're bothering given that the government have once again caved in to the loudest voices and shifted the nation to an alert level somewhere between Level 2 & 3 but not fully one or the other. And in the midst of the confusion dear old Cyril wants  South Africans to take personal responsibility for curbing the transmission of the coronavirus. Like that's going to happen! 😀😏

Following on from yesterday's post I felt the need to salute the generous heroes (locally & abroad) who quietly give to make it possible for The Gathering, My Father's House, the Night Shelter and countless others to be able to reach out to the most vulnerable and provide them with food parcels, soup kitchens, sandwiches, food vouchers etc.

The generosity is real, as is the desire by many to help in whatever way they can to ensure that the most vulnerable are cared for, particularly in provision of the most basic human need of all.

Same Storm

I came across this the other day on social media and it really struck a chord with me, and after spending a couple of days explaining to a few folk some of the realities of lockdown here in SA for many that The Gathering reaches out to and ministers to, I thought it would make a good post on here.

I have to confess to being just a little bit tired of hearing people in privileged positions (politicians and so called celebrities and a few others) telling the rest of us that 'we're in the same boat'.  They trotted that rubbish out under austerity and it wasn't true then just as it isn't true now.

We are NOT in the same boat! We are in the same storm for sure but not the same boat. How some will cruise through this storm and how some will barely tread water in the hope of surviving  are two very very different things.


... About My Home

This post was inspired by those social media posts about 10 of this or 10 of that, and I got to thinking that it was time to write a really positive post along similar lines, and what could be more positive than talking about my 10 favourite things that make my home the best home ever.

So here it is; 10 things I love about my home...
How will it all end?

I can see two things happening and I can see them happening in tandem under certain conditions.

Firstly, I think we'll get to a position where governments are almost demanding people go back to work because the world's economies simply cannot take such a massive hit.

When I was in the UK earlier this year I was really excited to talk about two future plans we had for The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen.

The first one was our Christmas Lunch for 120 of our regulars and the second was taking our soup up from 70lts to 100lts, but we were really going to need some miraculous blessings for these to happen.



I've been meaning to post this for a while so here it is.