Rough Night

"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!

Good News!

We have some great news about The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen...

As of Thursday 8th October we will be reopening our venue for sit-down Soup Kitchen. Hallelujah!

No more serving pots at the door and asking people to go straight home, now we can allow folk to linger a while, take a load off and spend time in a safe and secure environment.

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.

Madness Before The Calm

We were given four days notice of the impending lockdown and that seems to have been the cue for action for the Zombie Domesday Preppers and their attendant madness. Despite pleas not to panic buy the shelves are stripped bare with very little available in any of the food shops.

This morning Paula tried to buy stuff for our weekly Soup Kitchen and almost instantly regretted going anywhere near the shops. Thankfully we managed to scrape some bits together between us and so our last Soup Kitchen for a while will proceed. Thank you Lord!

It all leaves one feeling that April Fool's Day should be cancelled because no prank could possibly match up to the stupidity of what's going on out there right now.

Back In My Happy Place

It was such a joy to reopen The Gathering's Soup Kitchen again this evening.  My heart was so sore when we had to stop five weeks ago, so it was pure joy to be back tonight!

We knew the need was there and growing as a result of our harsh lockdown and as a result it was another busy evening serving the community we love so much.

It was also a great way to get together with a few of our faithful Gathering family, though we were responsible and kept a social distance 😉

Unfolding Tragedy

Please pray for Firgrove and more specifically her children.

Late last year we found out that two of The Gathering's Homework Club kids are leaders of rival gangs. Initially we found this quite amusing given the diminutive stature of said kids and the fact that they're only about 10 or 11 years old.

How Many Noodles?

It's a great blessing to see so much food stacked up in the church office/kitchen, especially knowing that Paula negotiated such a great deal with the shopkeeper that we got +/-1700 individual packets of noodles for the princely sum of R1.60 each (7p each in Blighty). In the local shops a cheap packet of noodles would normally cost around R5 each (22p).

What a blessing. Thank you LORD!

Flip-Flops & Blessings

One of the joys of what we do is being able to collect donations, sort them and then send them out again to the right people/places to ensure they have the maximum impact.

So recently it was great to be in touch with a local who had several boxes of brand new flip-flops left over from a recently closed business enterprise. They were keen that the flip-flops were not sold but rather would go to people who need them and would appreciate them, which is where The Gathering comes in. Sadly some of the boxes were water damaged so we've had to bin the worst of the damaged flip-flops, but we were able to rescue seven boxes of 24 pairs to be given away. What a blessing!

Sad And Frustrated

I had one of the saddest and most frustrating conversations of my life at The Gathering’s Soup Kitchen last night.

Frustrating because it was of a theme that keeps rearing its ugly head, and sad because we the church are responsible.

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!

Familiar Face

This warmed my heart today.

I've been wondering where some of our Soup Kitchen regulars are and how they're coping during this time when life for those living hand to mouth is almost impossible. So to see Roderick's picture suddenly pop up on the Facebook page of our local homeless shelter was brilliant.

This also means that if Roderick is in there safely until the lockdown is over, then at least a few others of our Soup Kitchen regulars are too, because he always travels around with the same small crew, so whilst we can't see them, we know that at least a few are safe.

If for nothing else, I'm truly thankful for this piece of great news!

Happy New Year

I've yet to see a truly positive reflection post on 2020 so I'll take it upon myself to write one...

What a year it was! 2020 started with a bang as The Gathering set about getting its house in order in terms of being fully compliant with the terms of our Non Profit Organization registration, registering with SARS for tax compliancy, obtaining the relevant CCLI licenses to enable us to use music in church legally and a few other bits. The progress we made was quite amazing and we have now submitted three years worth of verified accounts and reports to the Dept of Social Development as part of our NPO compliance. We're still waiting on SARS, but given how slowly the wheels of bureaucracy turn here, Covid or not we'd probably still be waiting.

Soup Kitchen Xmas Lunch

What a special time we had serving many of our Soup Kitchen regulars at The Gathering's annual Christmas Lunch.

Our volunteers were amazing and once again just got stuck in with our church family in making sure everything was well prepared and served.

We can't thank enough those who contributed towards the day in time, resources and money.

Shoeboxes

Today was a great day for The Gathering and our boys school; the International School of Helderberg, as the High School have been putting shoeboxes together for the children that attend our weekly soup kitchen.

Here we're receiving the first few boxes, we'll get the rest of them tomorrow and we can't wait to give them away next week when we bless our soup kitchen regulars with pizza too.

Joel and Eli are also thrilled because school finished for the year today. Hooray!

Christmas Soup Kitchen

Last night we had our Christmas Soup Kitchen at The Gathering and it was an incredibly fun and blessed time. It was great too that a few more of our members were able to be there and join in the blessing of our regulars.

Big THANKS go to the high school students & teachers at the International School of Helderberg for providing the shoe-boxes and to Pizza Cafe for the pizzas. The kids were thrilled with their presents and everyone enjoyed the pizzas.

24 Hours In The Life Of

It was an all action night at The Gathering's Soup Kitchen last night.

Whilst the Soup Kitchen itself passed off peacefully as usual, thank you LORD! It was chaotic outside with one of the local youngsters getting herself run over causing the driver to crash in to a parked car.

Amazingly the ambulance actually turned up (they rarely do in these communities!) followed by a fire engine (why?!?) and eventually a traffic cop showed up too.

Testimony Sunday

Testimony Sunday at The Gathering is always a joy and a blessing, and this morning was no different!

The stream of testimonies of God's goodness just kept flowing. What was clear is that most had been having a tough year, but each acknowledged that it was only by God's awesome grace that they had got to where they were and were blessed because of His loving kindness.

New Chairs

As we step out in faith and see The Gathering's Soup Kitchen and Homework Club growing, so we're also seeing growth on Sunday mornings which is a huge blessing!

As The Gathering grows and is blessed, so we need to step out in more faith trusting that we will see the Kingdom extended in Firgrove, South Africa and beyond.

So recently we stepped out in faith and bought 50 new chairs of which we received the first 25 this morning.

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.

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.