One of my passions is eating out which thankfully is shared by my amazing wife. We especially enjoy eating at a decent restaurant and our favourite local is Taste run by good friends Anton and ED, if you're in the area you must go!-
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 you may have noticed I'm using the Blogging From A To Z Challenge to blog about the things that I am passionate about.One of my biggest passions is discipleship in the local church. In a secular sense we're talking about mentoring which basically means getting alongside folk and helping them to make positive choices in their lives and walking the walk with them through those choices. In the local church context it means doing just this but also helping them to know Jesus better by helping them grow in their faith and getting to know and understand the bible.
C has to be for Crystal Palace!
My beloved football team.
One of the things I love when the England football team play is that for a while every English football fan gets to understand something of what it's like to be a Palace fan. The England team is full of potential and is not short on talent, they are capable of winning every game they play and yet they so often fail leaving the fans disappointed yet again.
B is for Bikes.My bikes are important to me as I'm passionate about cycling and I'm really proud to have passed on a love of cycling to my boys.
I have to admit to not being sure how this happened but between the three of us we have six bikes, a trail-a-bike, a few frames and a mountain of spare parts lying around the place. I guess we ought to think about sorting it out and getting rid of a few bits but if truth be told we won't and the collection will just increase.
To start at the beginning is always a good thing and so here we are on April the first blogging the letter 'A'.A is for A to Z Challenge.
For a bit more info on what this is about check out the website or go to the Facebook page.
I've decided to blog about the things that are dear to me so most of my friends will know what the letter C will be about, the rest of you will have to wait until the 3rd.
We've just been really blessed with 3 days away on Farmer Koos's farm in Montagu with Grandad and Lesley.It was great to have some time out away from the usual stresses and strains of daily life and just chill in the middle of nowhere free from the shackles of modern technology.
The best bit of all though is seeing the boys roaming freely and safely on the farm, often accompanied by a pack of dogs and getting up to all kinds of mischief. It really is pure pleasure to watch them chill!
The next growing up phase in Joel's life started today as he very reluctantly went off on his school camp! Every year the Years 4, 5 and 6 go to camp for 2 nights and it is apparently often supposed to be the 'making of them'! Joel has not been keen at all and we have had quite a few tears and do I really have to go type comments right up to this morning! So, we both survived the drop off this morning and Mum especially was pleased to see this photo taken of Joel with his mates just before climbing on the bus - even a hint of a smile - so hopefully all will be well!
Having done the Cape Epic in 2009 and achieved a few other goals on my bikes I feel it's time for another challenge. So here it is, my Nimbus 36" unicycle. The plan is to get fit enough to ride it in the Cape Argus next year 2013 to raise money for Miles 4 Smiles, a charity supported by my boys' school.
I've got a mountain to climb in terms of getting uni' fit, I need to fully master getting on it, especially in front of a crowd and I need to develop my core and thigh muscles to take the strain.
So far the furthest I've ridden on my 36er is a few laps around the school car park which is a million miles from riding the thing up Chapman's Peak or Suikerbossie.
Regardless of how tough it is I'm going to have a lot of fun along the way!
Our amazing miracle celebrated his 9th birthday today and what made the day even cooler than normal was the fact that Grandad had come out with Lesley to help celebrate. What a happy memory that he'll never forget!We've had a lot of fun which sadly was interrupted by school, though Joel did enjoy seeing his friends and being the centre of attention for a bit.
The day was made even better by getting the things he had asked for, including an mp3 player and even more Starwars Lego and a celebratory meal at Taste restaurant.
All in all a perfect day to be 9.
Joel had his birthday party a week early to accommodate a top secret event happening this Friday, stay tuned!What a joy it was as he invited his four best friends from school to join him for a meal at a local restaurant followed by a movie at home and a sleep-over.
After dinner Transformers was the movie of choice with lashings of popcorn (we're still finding it down the back of the sofa - nice!). It was quite amusing watching it with five experts on the subject of Transformers.
Wow, what a night at home group!
We had planned to follow on from Sunday and give space for testimonies and to pray for folk. We had a great time and then at the end a visitor gave her life to Jesus. Fantastic!
Please pray for Bonita in the coming days and weeks as she begins a new life in Christ, pray too that she'll come along to Tree Of Life on Sundays and will be made to feel accepted and welcome.
Thank you Lord for a truly awesome evening!
We had planned to follow on from Sunday and give space for testimonies and to pray for folk. We had a great time and then at the end a visitor gave her life to Jesus. Fantastic!
Please pray for Bonita in the coming days and weeks as she begins a new life in Christ, pray too that she'll come along to Tree Of Life on Sundays and will be made to feel accepted and welcome.
Thank you Lord for a truly awesome evening!
In conjunction with World Book Day on the 1st of March the boys' school held Book Week to celebrate reading and the wealth of knowledge available in books.All kinds of fun activities were held including DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) when the bell rang at spontaneous times each child had to stop what they were doing and read. There were competitions and dressing up as well as storytime each day. Eli guessed the quote for The Very Hungry Caterpillar correctly on Tuesday and Joel got the quote right on Wednesday which was from Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows.
It all started with a great 90 kilometre ride with my regular crowd and included a fast climb of Helshoogte which was a lot of fun! I'm really enjoying my riding again and it feels good to have lost 8kgs and be strong on the hills again. Hopefully I'll be on top form for the Cape Argus on the 11th of March. I'm really looking forward to it now.This afternoon I was delighted to be able to watch the Palace game live on local TV and it turned out to be a very good game in which we made the Hammers look distinctly average. I guess it wasn't quite a perfect day though as we only managed a draw.
"They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony" - Rev 12:1This morning our gathering was given over to sharing testimonies of what God is doing amongst us and what an amazing morning we had!
As the weeks have gone by we have watched God at work in people's lives but to actually hear some of the accounts this morning was a privilege and truly humbling.
"Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.
Just got to say what a great morning it was with Tree Of Life again.It is such a privilege to see guys who have been stifled for so long finally spreading their wings and learning to fly again!
This morning Chris brought a word and it was brilliant. What an encouragement to see folk stepping out into new things with Jesus. I've never heard Chris speak like he did this morning but I know that as a church we are going to be hearing a lot more as he flies in his faith.
Our inaugural Sunday was great and all I could say to the guys afterwards was that had I been able to plan the meeting in detail it wouldn't have gone as well as it did. Praise God for his infinite grace! However, planning and executing one meeting is easy, doing it week in and week out will be the challenge.
The new school year starts today for our boys and they're both looking very grown up in their formal white shirts.They were both really excited about returning to school and catching up with their friends. Both boys have got great teachers again this year so we're really excited to see how they are going to fly again in the year.
Joel is now in Year 4 which is quite a step up for him. Things become a lot more formal from now which should be good for him. Joel will also join the junior school camp for the first time this year, which will involve three nights away from home. The parents are very excited about this!
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