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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
It was gutting to get a phone call late in the afternoon yesterday informing us that the home of some of our Soup Kitchen regulars had been on fire, with the household losing everything they had.
But it was also a blessing as the community knows that in such circumstances they can turn to the church for some genuine relief and assistance.
Once again we're thankful to Jehovah Jireh, the LORD our provider for the abundance with which The Gathering has once again been blessed with.
This morning we received two pallets (150 boxes) of the much treasured peanut pastes that our Soup Kitchen regulars love so much.
Thanks also go to our dear friend Shaddie at My Father's House for sharing their blessings with The Gathering.
Our much anticipated, prayed for and planned ''Welcome to 2022" Soup Kitchen lunch was a roaring success on Sunday, and we give God all the glory for this!
As we watched the advance weather reports in disbelief, stating that Sunday was going to be the hottest day on record, we gathered people to ask God to bring the temperature down, and to specifically cover the sun with cloud from 12-3 pm, or the event would simply be unbearable for us all.
Printing is done, stickers are ready, goody bags have been lovingly decorated by hand and are ready to be stuffed to the top with some delicious sweets . The food is prepped and ready, so now there are just a few last minute jobs to be done as we pull it all together in the morning ready for service at 1pm.
It's a joy to be in the latter stages of getting things together for The Gathering's fourth annual Soup Kitchen Christmas Lunch, though this year it's a Welcome to 2022 Lunch.
The goody bags are shaping up very nicely and we hope they will be a real blessing to each person we serve at the lunch on Sunday 23rd.
Thanks to some incredibly generous donations we're able to go even further this year in blessing our Soup Kitchen regulars, and that is really exciting us even before the lunch itself!
Happy New Year to you all.
We've been thoroughly blessed with an amazing family Christmas (our first in 11 years) and New Year and this morning, after worshiping with the community of St George's in Weald we interred Paula's Dad's ashes in the graveyard.
This was a special time with family and was great to share with Paula's remaining Uncles & Aunts on her Dad's side. We were also thrilled to learn that his ashes were to be interred in the same place as her Mum's ashes. This truly blessed the family.
So, Christmas is done and we're entering an interesting year...
Eli enters his Matric year and is very keen to enlist in the British Army as soon as he can once his exams are over. Joel has applied for an internship and is hoping and praying he's successful. Please stand with him & us in praying for this.
Anyone who knows us well knows that books are a passion we share, so much so that when you enter our house you're greeted by two packed book cases, not to mention the others scattered around the house.
However, we tend to read very different kinds of literature. Whilst we both enjoy contemporary fiction and a little classic fiction, my personal preference leans towards non-fiction, in particular history and autobiography.
One of the joys of what we do is getting to spend time in places like Chris Nissen Park and Broadlands visiting our many friends there. It's especially fun and joyous at this time of year as we get to take some amazing blessings in to them, particularly our HOPE ladies, who have been blessed by so many friends in Blighty.
However we were shocked by L's living situation. L is an amazing lady who never grumbles and is always a genuine ray of sunshine despite the seemingly continual knock-backs she takes.
This scripture is the guiding principle of The Gathering's Thankful Thursdays, and sometimes it's easy to forget about it, so it was good to be reminded of it so starkly yesterday, a day of phenomenal blessings and heartbreak.
The blessings had begun on Wednesday when I drove over to My Father's House in Simon's Town to collect a very generous food donation from them.
Since we've taken the Soup Kitchen up to a minimum of 100 litres each week our consumption of the basics has rocketed meaning that keeping on top of it all and ensuring we have enough to prepare and serve the soup each Thursday has become a bit of a mission in itself.
We are so happy that Joel is being discipled by some quality folk at The Bay Christian Family Church here in Somerset West, and it truly warmed our hearts that he chose to get baptized with them today. It's been a joy to watch him plug in to a local church and explore his faith on his own with a church he feels safe in.
I love coming through in the morning to make a pot of tea only to discover that one, or both of my boys have been playing their instruments late in to the night and maybe even had a jamming session together.
This pic is of Joel's personal pride & joy; his PRS, and what really blesses and excites me about knowing he's once again picking up his guitar to play is that his desire to play is born out of his time spent at church and with his youth group. We just know that in that environment he is being constantly encouraged and it warms one's heart.
"Is your unicycle on Gumtree yet?"
This seems to be a common question amongst those that I've seen since breaking my arm just over a week ago, and the answer is very simple: "No they are not!" (yes I have seven unicycles) and nor will they be until such time as I'm physically unable to ride, and even then I'd be reluctant to get rid of them.
Someone even gave me a small lecture on extreme sports and how they're not of a very healthy mindset, and how at my age I don't need to prove anything anyway.
The thing is, the question and the mini lecture both miss something crucial, which is why I unicycle and why in the last 18 months I've become a lot more intentional in my unicycling, often taking my 36er out for 2+hour rides.
I'm feeling a lot happier since speaking with the Surgeon over the phone about my cast and removing it.
The cast (if you could call it that) was a bit Heath Robinson in its construction and felt very loose on my arm leaving me feeling quite vulnerable, so after chatting with the Surgeon about the wrist support I still have from when I shattered my wrist 10 years ago, he agreed I could remove the cast and use the wrist support instead, especially as it has a metal insert the full length of it for protection. This is far more comfortable and feels a whole lot more secure.
Firstly, thank you for all your prayers and kind wishes, they're much appreciated!
So there's good news and there's bad news...
The first bit of good news is that the Muni ride (Mountain Unicycling) on Saturday was a lot of fun with a great crowd of people who were also a massive help in sorting me out once I'd broken my arm.
Today is our 30th wedding anniversary which traditionally is Pearl. Now I can't afford to give Paula a pearl necklace and she wouldn't want one anyway, but what I can do is share a pearl of wisdom...
Paula has already written the most beautiful post over on Facebook, so there's not a huge amount left for me to say, but if I could offer one tip for longevity in marriage it would be this: keep God at the centre of it!
Given how wet and cold it was, it was even more of a blessing knowing the The Gathering's Soup Kitchen had more than enough to make sure that no one went hungry, and everyone could have as much as they needed.
The 140 litres certainly went a long way and it was one of the few Soup Kitchen's in recent times in which we've not had to turn anyone away because the soup was finished.
Our Soup Kitchen is always a chilled and laid back affair, but everyone seemed to know there was more soup than usual and so our regulars were more than happy to take their time over being served, even if it meant standing out in the wet and cold for a bit longer than usual.
This morning I drove through to Cape Town to pick up a second 70lt pot for The Gathering.
So this Thursday will be quite a monumental one as our Soup Kitchen moves beyond our dream of serving 100 litres of soup each week to serving 140 litres.
It feels so right to be expanding in this way to help meet some of the need amongst the more vulnerable members of our community and we hope & pray that this is a real blessing to those that come for soup on Thursday.
I've been battling to get a small bag to fit on my unicycle for a while now. I used to have one mounted on the handlebar but it broke and they don't make it anymore. So I was pleased to find a thread in the unicyclist.com forum (yes there really is such a thing) on the topic of saddlebags and unicycles.
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