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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
As many of you are aware from our recent mission education trip to Blighty, things have not been right in our church for quite a while and things really came to a head late last year when two of the elders resigned and left within a couple of months of each other. In short it boiled down to leadership issues.On our return home we heard a few things about the church, though sadly nothing from the leadership about what was likely to happen and on Sunday Grace Community Church closed up and finished.
So, we'd only been home for the afternoon and it started raining. What's that all about then?!?
Despite being fleeced of ninety quid by the thieving swines at BA for having bags over 23kgs (despite our almost 300kg allowance!) we had a long, smooth and easy journey. It's good to be back home and really pleased to be in the midst of unpacking and sorting things out.
We've had a great time in Blighty and it was fantastic to see so many friends again especially those we hadn't seen for nearly 20 years.
Apologies to those of you we didn't get to see, hopefully you might be able to make use of our spare bedroom in Cape Town sometime soon.
Today was quite a monumental occasion as we did our last mission ed' visit with St. Mary's Cheadle.
What a great way to top off a brilliant week!
It was a very busy morning giving our powerpoint presentation in two services followed by lunch and a brief talk about some of our friends in South Africa and our photo presentation. This was all topped off with a 4 hour drive down South!
We had a lovely nostalgic drive over to Sheffield on Friday - re-visiting the place of our University days, early courting places, first house, church etc. etc! We also enjoyed the beauty of the area as we arrived in some beautiful late afternoon sunshine and watched the water cascading over the Ladybower Dam.It was great to stay with friends, Tim and Liz Rose, from old CYFA venture days, whom we haven't seen for a long time.
On our travels to Sheffield along the magnificent Snake Pass we decided to go on a bit of a nostalgia tour and show the boys a few of the sites. One of the most spectacular is Ladybower Dam and to top it off the dam was overflowing which was a real privilege to see.The boys enjyed seeing Ladybower but were incredibly disinterested in the few other things we tried to show them. Kids eh!
We're really grateful to the folk who made the effort to join us for our Facing The Mountain Roadshow last night!Big thanks must go to the Markham's for so generously hosting the evening, providing plenty of food and drink whilst opening their house up without knowing just who was going to rock up or how many would.
We had a brilliant evening catching up with some great friends and it was really good to be able to talk a bit about what we're doing out in South Africa and the challenges ahead.
This week in Cheadle is turning into exactly the kind of week we've always wanted with our supporting churches.In between last Sunday speaking at St. Cuthbert's and this Sunday speaking at st. Mary's we've been busy with some midweek meetings. The joy of the midweek stuff is that we get to meet smaller groups of folk and speak a bit more candidly about the stuff we're involved with.
It's great to be back in Cheadle again and to be seeing a lot of old friends. We lived in the area from '95 for a few years before getting involved in overseas mission and always enjoyed the area, though we were gutted to learn that Haji's Kebab Shop has closed!After a long drive on Saturday it was good to decamp from the car into John and Tricia's for a relaxing roast dinner before a busy morning at St. Cuthbert's on Sunday morning.
Our visit to St. Cuthbert's was great! We shared our Powerpoint presentation in the service which was followed by a cracking lunch and our photo presentation which was well received once again.
One of the joys of our mission education trips is getting to spend time with family and friends and finally after many attempts I managed to spend an evening with my brother.A good evening was had which was topped off nicely with a visit to The Windmill for a real ale or two.
Next stop Cheadle to spend time with great friends in Cheadle and Sheffield. We're really looking forward to the next 10 days!
Things started well and just got better. The Eurostar was simplicity itself and a very pleasant ride. Arriving at Gare Du Nord was a cinch and our hotel was 3 stops away on the Metro. It also happened to be smack in the middle of two Metro stops, a 10 minute ride into town and a 10 minute walk from Sacre Coeur. Fantastic!We had a great time mooching around the city, enjoying the sites, cuisine and the wine. We'd gone just to chill and other than visiting Notre Dame weren't too fussed about seeing too much else.
We'd certainly been loaded up with plenty of advice on the best things to see and do which we totally ignored.
How we wish that more folk in life would grasp this simple analogy and accept that often in life we make it up as we go along and have to trust that we're making the right decisions for the right reasons.
As Christians we pepper it all with prayer but that still doesn't give us any superior knowledge as to what is necessarily the right or wrong way. We step out in faith, trusting...
Disney is best seen through the eyes of a highly excited 8 year old!
We had a great time with family and it was good for Joel & Eli to spend time with their cousins as this is a rare treat. I also enjoyed spending time with Bethy, our middle niece, as we made the most of the late night rides to go on the bigger rollercoasters that the others either couldn't ride or wouldn't ride.
We had a fantastic family Christmas day despite it starting at some unearthly hour! Eventually Dean let Joel and Eli open their stockings at 4am in the hope that they would then go back to sleep. Job done by about 5am but not for long! At least they were excited.Christmas dinner was fantastic as ever thanks to Lisa's great cooking (courtesy of Delia) and it was great to actually have a family Christmas dinner on Christmas day for the first time in three years.
Eli had a day of two halves as he celebrated his 5th birthday today.The first half of the day was at Grandad's where the family made a fuss of him with some great presents.
The second half of the day was spent back in Wimbledon (after the now regular trudge along the M25) where he finally got to play with his toys.
The day was then topped off with a lovely family meal at an Italian taverna in Wimbledon where genuine Italian gelato was the winner!
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