For all the dads out there...No matter what your earthly father was like, your Heavenly Father is awesome.
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Dean and Paula in Blighty, autumn 2025 -
Dean and Paula pastor The Gathering -
Our beloved Palace - FA Cup winners 2025 -
The Gathering -
Baptising in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit -
Leaders preparing to serve at The Gathering's Soup Kitchen -
Soup Kitchen Xmas 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 -
The Helderberg - The prettiest of the mountains we face
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! 😀😏
My inner nerd doesn't come out to play too often but he was given free reign over this one, which was just as well because it took quite some time to resolve.The Contact page on the blog had stopped working and so I had to remove it and insert a new one. A simple enough task once one knows which bits of HTML to edit (there are plenty of blogs out there with useful instructions too).
Anyway, having got the Contact page back up and running, the "Submit" button was really bugging me because it was too wide, but worse, the text was partially obscured.
As the prosecutor in The Trial on The Wall by Pink Floyd said: "This will not do!"
It took an age to work it out (I couldn't find any help online), and it led to many unusual looking contact forms, but eventually I hit upon changing most of the values from 100% or 100px to auto, et voila. Perfection!
We have laid our cards on the table and come out clearly in support of the #blacklivesmatter movement.For us as a family it's really very simple. Our lives in mission have for the last 22+ years been about working in various African countries, and for the last 15 years we have been a multiracial family. As such we shouldn't really need to express a view through words given that our lives speak volumes, but sometimes it's good to back up actions with reasons for those actions.
There are two main reasons why we support this movement. Firstly, as a family we have experienced some shockingly negative responses to our just being. Being in a restaurant, being on public transport or just being in other places, we have experienced prejudice and it's not pretty. Secondly, this impacts too many of our best friends for us to just ignore and leave. We see friends being discriminated against on a daily basis and it's heartbreaking and just plain wrong.
We don't often get to see the joy that a food hamper or a voucher provides for the families that receive them, and to be honest knowing that they've been blessed is good enough.However, once in a while someone just has to respond and let us know how thankful they are for the blessing they've received, and when it happens it is pure joy to hear.
What really thrilled me about this one was the fact that they had actually taken the trouble to take a pic of some of the food they were able to buy and made a point about the difference it has made for them as a family in these really tough times.
Thank you LORD!
And to think that someone actually asked me whether this particular recipient was genuine or not. I really don't care if recipients are genuine or not, as a church we give freely where we see the need and we have no expectation of behaviour after we've given. What a recipient does with that blessing is between them and God.
Go on, do something remarkable...Today is World Blood Donor Day and if you're not already a donor please give it a go. It's really easy, takes about 30 minutes and will save lives.
Don't wait 'til you need a transfusion to be convinced by the power of blood donations.
"Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes
and see how good God is"
Psalm 34:8
Thursday was a nasty day weather wise, it was very cold and very wet, there had been 49mm of rain by 9am and it didn't ease off much for the rest of the day, and the snow on the mountains just added to the chill factor. All in all, not a great night to be sleeping out rough.
But that was the reality for a group of regulars at The Gathering's Soup Kitchen. It was a bit quieter than usual because of the weather, so we had time to chat with them. We've known some of them for a few years now and we knew a few of them were homeless, but I have to be honest I was shocked to hear that two of the smarter looking guys were also now homeless. I guess I was judging them on their appearance, they certainly didn't look homeless. Shame on me!
Happy Birthday Soup Kitchen!The Gathering's Soup Kitchen began on 14 May 2015 (so we're a little late) and is now just a tad over 5 years old.
It's amazing and encouraging to see how the Soup Kitchen has grown since we first started back then and it feels a little like it has come full circle as we began serving the soup in yogurt pots and since lockdown we've been back to serving it in yogurt pots.
Having written several other posts about things I love and am passionate about, here goes one on my love of juggling and why I've never stopped since a mate taught me to juggle in 1990. This post really came about as a result of all the admin and tidying up I've been doing on the blog lately. As I was going through stuff I was surprised to discover that I have only actually posted on Juggling once previously in the 16 years this blog has been going, which is quite amazing given that it's something I really enjoy and never really stop doing.
This is heartbreaking.The hunger amongst the poorest was evident well before the lockdown began but has been exacerbated by it. As a church we've done what we can within the available resources to feed as many people as we can, and we will continue to do so.
But just as we continue, so too do the WhatsApps and SMSs from folk who are desperate for food. I think one of the realities here is that as the majority have returned to work so there's a feeling that the lockdown is all but over, when the reality is quite the opposite.
Sadly this means that the neediest and most vulnerable are being neglected or worse, sidelined.
Last night was a slower kitchen due the the social grants (disability, child support & pensions) being paid over the last couple of days, so it made sense to use our smaller 50lt pot which was a good call.We served a delicious Cream of Chicken and it went down a storm with our regulars that were able to come.
And there it is, the High Court has ruled that Level 4 and Level 3 regulations of South Africa's lockdown are unconstitutional and has given the government 14 days to respond. The High Court acknowledges the legality of the initial lockdown (Level 5) but the rest of the verdict is quite damning in saying the regulations were "arbitrary and unlawful".Many of us have been expressing this view for a while and are sick of being patronised by corrupt politicians who suddenly feel they have the moral high ground when they really do not. State Capture anyone?
After a six week break thanks to a partially slipped disk in my lower back it was good to be back boxing again today.I'm far from fully healed, but the pain is manageable and I'm being careful with some specific stretches to ensure that I don't aggravate things any further, as well as avoiding certain exercises and stretches that aren't particularly good for the back.
I'm longing to regain my fitness and go for a run again but sadly I just don't know when it will be safe to do that.
Anyway, I'm back exercising at a lower intensity which is good and it felt good to be boxing again and it was great to be boxing with Joel. I really enjoyed that Zoom session with CEY.
It's just as well too, because I could feel my paunch trying to re-establish itself.
What a joke!Having spent most of last week preparing Joel to return to school today, we were told to expect an announcement from the Education Minister on Friday evening. This then got pushed back to Sunday evening and then pushed back again until 11am today.
We then learn via a local news website that schools are only reopening for pupils on the 8th whilst teachers are back from today. So quite why two teacher friends were called back to work last week is a mystery.
On Tuesday President Ramaphosa addressed the nation and gave churches and other faith groups the right to start meeting again in their buildings, though with strict conditions.At the same time, he called for a National Day Of Prayer for today, Sunday 31 May.
The Gathering has made the tough but right decision to remain in exile for a while longer, but as we Gather this morning on WhatsApp we are proud to be standing with the President & the nation and answer his call to prayer for South Africa.
Today our Gathering will be entirely given over to prayer for this nation and the situation we find ourselves in.
During lockdown I've written four posts so far about books, which would suggest books are quite important in our house. Three of those posts were on the theme of 10 Books I Have Loved and the other post was about Lockdown Reading, looking at the books I have read in the first few weeks of lockdown. I will post Part 2 of that soon.
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