Why not join us too..
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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 -
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HOPE Home Based Care Team -
Gathering Ground -
Staying fit as a family -
The Helderberg - The prettiest of the mountains we face
On Monday I underwent minor surgery on my ears, the procedure was an ear meatoplasty, which in simple terms involved the surgeon removing part of the meatus in the opening to the ear canal.
For several years now I've been battling with my hearing, especially in situations with a lot of ambient noise, but also recurring ear infections that were driving me insane.
I went to see the supposed top local ENT surgeon a few years ago, but for whatever reasons he wouldn't listen to me and said I just needed the build up of wax removing. In essence he made me feel pretty stupid.
It's a great blessing to see so much food stacked up in the church office/kitchen, especially knowing that Paula negotiated such a great deal with the shopkeeper that we got +/-1700 individual packets of noodles for the princely sum of R1.60 each (7p each in Blighty). In the local shops a cheap packet of noodles would normally cost around R5 each (22p).
What a blessing. Thank you LORD!
This picture warms my heart as it captures the very heart and DNA of The Gathering.
We don't run our Soup Kitchen as an evangelistic outreach, and we put no conditions on who can or cannot receive soup, we serve all comers.
The reason for this is that we use our weekly Soup Kitchen as a way of thanking God for all He's done for us and as such we want to share those blessings with others.
I wasn't supposed to be preaching at The Gathering this morning, but events in the week meant that it was over to me, and as ever it was a joy and a privilege to share the Word.
During the week I had briefly contemplated giving our Gathering over to an impromptu Testimony Sunday, but decided against this because I knew we would be low on numbers this morning, and partly because I knew I was being lazy in not preparing a word.
Well before I even got up to preach, God had interrupted our Gathering spectacularly and it turned in to an impromptu Testimony Sunday with testimony after testimony being shared.
So it was pure joy and a real privilege to allow two of our members to share the Word as part of our Seven Minute Challenge.
What made it even better was the fact that Jubilant had asked a few weeks ago if she could also lead The Gathering's worship on this Sunday.
Just wow!
We've been making 140 litres of soup each week for a while now, and even on our quieter evenings, the soup has all gone within thirty minutes, meaning we have had to turn some folk away.
Testimony Sunday at The Gathering is always a joy and a blessing, and this morning was no different!
The stream of testimonies of God's goodness just kept flowing. What was clear is that most had been having a tough year, but each acknowledged that it was only by God's awesome grace that they had got to where they were and were blessed because of His loving kindness.
Thankfully however, we got to enjoy the ride together and grew old together. Today these youngsters are very different people, but we grew up and old together, celebrating and embracing the changes along the way, and that has been an absolute joy.
On Thursday it was the turn of The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen to once again enjoy the inconvenience of loadshedding.
Yes, we actually have a corner of the house dedicated to just keeping various items charged and running for when the power goes off.
So far in 2023 we haven't had a single day without loadshedding, and recently we seem to have graduated from mostly being in Stages 1 & 2 to mostly being in Stages 5 & 6 which often means we get to enjoy four hours of uninterrupted blackouts at a time.
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!
We are really looking forward to doing something a little bit different at The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen this week...
Following a conversation with one of our Soup Kitchen regulars - who has recently started gathering with us on Sundays - in which he asked for money for a haircut, we got to thinking about how we could help without giving him money. The Gathering has quite a strict policy on not giving financial handouts for a number of reasons.
We are thrilled that The Gathering's Homework Club has restarted.
It's actually in its second week of the new school year and already we're full with quite a long waiting list.
We also have quite a lot of Gr7s from the local primary school asking to join so we are going to have to look at ways of accommodating them too. What a brilliant problem to have!
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.
These words from Jesus constitute my favourite Bible verse in John 16:33 (I've posted on this before here & here).
I like the fact that trouble is just part of the human condition. Jesus didn't say we were being tested or refined, nor is there a suggestion that god is a malevolent being that relishes in visiting bad upon mankind. Nope, trouble is simply a fact of life, full stop.
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.
It was looking quite sad and forlorn which just wasn't right for such a well loved piece of garden furniture, so just before we moved I set about restoring it so that it would look magnificent in our new garden, and even if I say so myself; it turned out pretty well.
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.
Eli is now walking to school on his own and really enjoying the space and freedom of it (though Paula is missing her time with him chatting in the car). Some days he also skateboards to school just because he can. He's also enjoying the freedom of hanging out with school mates or messing about on the beach on his way home, just because he can.
Just two weeks after his first attempt, and at a different testing station, Joel passed his driving test and can be unleashed on the world.
This is another step in our change of lifestyle as not only do we no longer need to do any school runs, but now Joel can sort himself out for lifts to and from work, church etc.
Thank you LORD!
This move should lead us into a positive change in lifestyle which is exciting us. We'll be just a five minute walk from the beach which will make a big difference to our mental well being, and having a sun room that spills out into the north facing garden is also a big change for us. We'll also be a bit closer to church and won't have to drive through the town centre to get there!
I always knew that the garage and my workshop would be the single biggest job in terms of packing, so I was chuffed to get it all done today.
I'm feeling quite sore all over, but it's worth it for the progress and the sense of achievement.
In our seemingly never ending quest to defeat the inconvenience of loadshedding we are always looking for ways to keep the power on so as not to interrupt our Homework Club and other church activities that are reliant upon a decent internet connection.
So it's great to have a mini UPS which can power the modem and router for our fibre connection meaning we can stay connected in spite of Eskom's dastardly tricks in trying to defeat us.
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.
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.
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.
So yesterday for the first time we were able to crack on with The Gathering's Homework Club through the scheduled two hour blackout thanks to our mini inverter which not only charged the tablets but then kept the router and wifi running for the 2½ hours for which the electricity was off.
Loadshedding celebrates its 15th birthday this October.
Yes, this country has been rolling out planned energy blackouts for fifteen years because Eskom the state owned utility is too incompetent and the ruling ANC are too corrupt to get their act together and actually resolve the issues. The main issue being the $24bn+ that have been stolen by those in power!
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.
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.
Early in the morning we had a desperate call from one of our church members in the community telling us that there had been a small explosion and it had wiped out the local electricity supply.
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.
Anyone who knows me knows that one of my great joys and pleasures in life is unicycling.
I regularly ride for at least an hour twice a week and often more if I can squeeze it into my week, and if the weather allows.
So it was a real joy when Carla said she would like to learn to ride the unicycle. She took to it quite quickly and wasted no time in applying some of her ballet techniques to help conquer the balancing side of unicycling. With just a little more practice she'll be riding with no problems.
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.
There have been so many blessings to talk about recently, but I'll stick with my favourite which is seeing another young Christian being given the opportunity to serve and minister in the church.
This morning Kuda, a young Zimbabwean with a fantastic testimony of how God dramatically broke in to his life and saved him from drugs, opened our worship at The Gathering and exhorted us to put God and the needs of others above our own interests. Great stuff!
Well that was some welcome home!
During my week in Blighty our putative electricity supplier decided to ramp up loadshedding from Stage 4 to stage 6.
What this means is that six areas in the Cape Town municipality are off at the same time but rather than being off for the usual two hours we get the joy of being off for four hours at a time. Deep joy!
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.
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.
(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.
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