10k Ride

There are a number of factors that have limited my time on my unicycles lately (laziness, the wind and a few other excuses...), so I decided it was time to stop making those excuses and just get back on with riding again.

So for the last couple of weeks I've been trying to crack off a couple of 10k rides on my Kris Holm 26er and generally I have managed it.

The joy of riding regularly is that I can feel my core getting a good workout which means that my back is less likely to cause me any grief, added to that the health benefits of regular exercise (as if Boxing 4 times a week wasn't enough!) and it's a win win.

Loadshedding And Then Some

South Africa has this ridiculous system called loadshedding in which the state monopoly power provider switches the electricity off at various points around the country for 2 hours at a time. 

Somehow they think it's all made more acceptable and manageable by having an actual schedule for this nonsense, but this schedule is adaptive depending on which particular stage of loadshedding we happen to be enjoying.

e-Sword For Android

I was very happy to see this exciting news as I opened up e-Sword on my computer this morning.

I've been using e-Sword as my go to Bible program on my computer for years, and to now have this gem on my phone is a huge blessing.

A To Z Blogging Chalenge 2022 - Theme Reveal

I will be participating in the Blogging From A To Z Challenge once again this year and I'm really looking forward to it. This will be my fourth participation having previously joined in in 2012, 2013 & 2021.

In my first Challenge (and last year's) I couldn't think of a theme so decided to keep things random, but this year, as in 2013 I have a theme. Hooray!

Sparring

It was great to be able to spar at Boxing again this morning. It's been a long time since we've been able to do this, so it was good to be at it again.

It might seem like an odd thing to be doing and enjoying (especially at my age), but there is something very satisfying, I guess almost cathartic, in stepping in to the ring to hit (and be hit) by someone else, but it really is a lot of fun, especially knowing that you both chose to be there and are keeping things under control.

Pure Joy

I will never tire of the joy of delivering blessings to others, especially the joy of delivering food to the two Soup Kitchens in Macassar which The Gathering supports.

This month we were able to give them a few boxes of peanut pastes, rice, soya mince, jam and washing up liquid each, plus an ice cream tub full of sweets for the kids which were left over from The Gathering's Soup Kitchen lunch back in January.

Fans

It was good to finally install some industrial quality fans in The Gathering's premises this morning.

Previously we had two domestic quality fans in the front and one at the back, and to be honest they were a bit rubbish. 

So it was a blessing to be able to use some of the money left over from the Soup Kitchen Christmas Lunch to buy five new good quality fans that will do a great job at cooling us all down. It's just a shame I only got to install them at the end of summer.

Robbery & Kidnapping In Firgrove

 Please stand in prayer with the community of Firgrove as we have recently experienced a truly shocking crime.

Firewood

I always get ridiculously overexcited by our annual delivery of firewood, especially when it arrives in the middle of our hottest month and it seems impossible to think that we'll actually need the heating.

I think one of the things I like best about the wood delivery is that the garage smells heavenly for a few weeks after as the wood continues to season, though this year's lot is already incredibly dry.

Delivering Blessings

Pastoring a church is never easy and it comes with a lot of challenges, but it also comes with a lot of joy and blessings.

One of those blessings is the joy of getting to deliver boxes of food to four of our local primary schools, knowing that the most vulnerable children at each one will be taken care of with a meal before lessons each day.

Life really doesn't get much better than that!

Pray Continually

We are so thankful for life at The Gathering at present. 

As a church we've been praying for the spiritual growth of our members for a long time and we've seen these prayers answered spectacularly. Just this morning Errol shared a word rich in scripture, passion and practical application which greatly encouraged the membership. Seeing someone raised up in to leadership and ministry and then flying in these areas is a joy to watch.

Local Church

Since the New Year an old question has kept popping up every now and then, which is odd because we're fairly certain that we've answered the question many times before and have moved on. We also feel the answer is fairly obvious, but maybe it isn't as obvious as we thought it was. 

So, here's the question: Why do you persist with church?

Thank You!

To those of you who helped to make this a possibility once again, we thank you form the bottom of our hearts.
 

Church In Action

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.

Truckload Of Blessings

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.

Soup Kitchen Lunch

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. 

One More Sleep

We are very excited right now as all our planning and preparation is complete and we're now just hours away from actually setting up for The Gathering's annual Soup Kitchen Christmas Lunch (which is a Welcome To 2022 lunch this year).

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.

Goody Bags

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

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.

Books I've Read (this year)

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.

You Cook On What?!?

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.