
It's true!
For me at least, for I am at my happiest and most joyous when I'm serving at our Soup Kitchen or involved in blessing folk in some other way through The Gathering.
It was so good to be doing our Soup Kitchen again tonight, especially as it's also a sneaky way to catch up with some of our church members.
It was a slower kitchen than normal but it was great to learn that this was because the Neighbourhood Watch had been busy distributing food parcels around the community today, that means a lot of people have got food for a little while now.
I spoke on Sunday about new beginnings, but how sometimes we have to go through storms before those new beginnings, and looked at Jeremiah 29:10-12, Matthew 14:22-33 and John 16:33 (If you want to know how I used those scriptures you can watch my message in yesterday's post). The great thing about these examples of storms is that they all contained promises of God and in each of them God is with his people. So now we're having to get through a storm but when the storm is over we will be in an amazing time and place of new beginnings. We truly serve an awesome God!
This got me to thinking about how church is being conducted on Sundays around the world...
We have always been very clear that we would not home school whilst serving overseas. It's a common choice for many that do serve overseas but we've seen too many stressed and frazzled mothers (let's be honest it's always mum who does it!) to believe it's a good thing.
Sadly however, like much of the rest of the world this is no longer a choice but something that has been foisted upon us.
And so today is *officially* the start of Term 2 for both boys. To say that there's a degree of reluctance on their parts would be an understatement, though to be fair they have knuckled down in these first few minutes, hopefully that will continue.
It's all too easy to be a bit negative about the current situation, and to be honest that is quite often my default position, but there is also much to be thankful for.
This Sunday was a great example of something to be thankful for!
Sundays are for church, or at least they always used to be before the lockdown, but this left The Gathering with a bit of a headache.
Most of our pastor friends and churches we know were quite excited about their online churches which would be happening in place of their regular gatherings, and I have to admit to feeling pleased for them and a touch jealous.