Go Make Disciples

One of the many joys in leading church, is watching the ebb & flow of church life, and how some people are planted in for the long haul whilst others are with you for just a short time.

Today at The Gathering we had the privilege of sending Delena (& her husband John) off in prayer (we prayed our best prayers), and love to begin a new life in the Eastern Cape in a town called Buffels Vlei. 

Take That Loadshedding! Pt 2

In our seemingly never ending quest to defeat the inconvenience of loadshedding we are always looking for ways to keep the power on so as not to interrupt our Homework Club and other church activities that are reliant upon a decent internet connection.

So it's great to have a mini UPS which can power the modem and router for our fibre connection meaning we can stay connected in spite of Eskom's dastardly tricks in trying to defeat us.

Knocking Things About

Yesterday was a public holiday as we enjoyed Youth Day, so Errol, Phillimon, Eli & myself took the opportunity to spend a few hours in The Gathering's new home knocking things about, taking down a wall, removing the counter and then fixing holes, followed by lots of sweeping and mopping!

Great View

In the midst of all the busyness at The Gathering's new home, it was nice to finally take a few minutes to drink in the view we will get to enjoy in the coming months.

All the jobs we were expecting to get done on Monday have now been finished, we have a shiny roller door, the front window has been replaced and the electrics have been sorted.

Food Hampers

This morning we had the privilege of delivering seventeen food hampers (in the form of grocery gift cards) to some of the neediest families in Firgrove.

We got fed up with waiting for govt to come through with their food parcels and decided to get the ball rolling ourselves.

Cracking On

With loadshedding now in its 16th year and showing no signs of going anywhere anytime soon, it was time to make a plan to ensure life can go on (see Take That Loadshedding!).

So yesterday for the first time we were able to crack on with The Gathering's Homework Club through the scheduled two hour blackout thanks to our mini inverter which not only charged the tablets but then kept the router and wifi running for the 2½ hours for which the electricity was off.

Term 3 Competition Winners

I'm thrilled to see that The Gathering's Homework Club has 15 winners in the first competition of Term 3.

Our kids are progressing nicely and are becoming quite a dominant force in the termly competitions held online by Green Shoots.

This is a real encouragement and I can't wait to hear how each of our kids has done at the end of the school year.

Soup Kitchen

It's not always clear blue skies and beautiful sunsets, sometimes the weather turns hideous and yesterday afternoon this was the precursor to some of that hideous weather.

Thankfully the storm held off until a while after our Soup Kitchen so everyone would have got back to wherever they stay safely.

Lockdown Looms

This blog is long neglected now and I've been wondering about what to do with it. Should I shut it down? Should I just leave it as a souvenir of the last few years or should I delete it and move on to other things? Then with the lockdown being announced I thought I'd revive it for now and use it to keep a lockdown diary of sorts, so here goes...

The Coming Storm...

The South African Weather Service has put out a severe storm warning as they predict the worst storm for 30 years is about to slam in to the Western Cape.

The municipality has ordered all schools to be closed for the day tomorrow and people are generally being advised to stay at home. So sadly we're cancelling our Homework Club tomorrow afternoon and our home group in the evening.

Super Sunday

The Gathering always feels like an awesome place to be on Sundays, but this morning that sense of excitement and expectation was heightened as our spiritual big sister Rose Roode came to minister to us.

It is always a joy to welcome a guest speaker but an absolute pleasure to welcome someone like Rose who is so anointed in her prophetic gift of ministering God's word to his children.

Blessing Our Sisters

This is a little mentioned part of The Gathering's ministry to the neediest women & girls in our community.

For a few years now we have regularly been collecting sanitary pads and other sanitary products to give to the neediest and most vulnerable women in the community.

Initially this was aimed at the older girls attending our Homework Club because so many teenage girls simply miss school when they're menstruating because they have little or no access to the necessary products to help.