There's not much you can say about Greyton except... it is a little bit of heaven on earth! We absolutely LOVE it, and this holiday was made all the better because the boys were a bit more mobile. They really enjoyed going out on the roads with Dad on their bikes and even trying a bit of off-road too (it's a slippery slope!!). There is absolutely no need for a car in Greyton, which was heavenly for mum and dad who seem to spend most of their time in a car. We walked to the shop, walked to a coffee shop/restaurant, walked generally and then just lazed around in the lovely house we had rented. This was the same house we used last year and it is paradise for the boys. The garden is big and full of hiding areas, ponds, little pool etc, so they literally spent 90% of the time out there making up adventures and - well Eli anyway - swimming!!-
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 -
HOPE Home Based Care Team -
Gathering Ground -
Staying fit as a family -
The Helderberg - The prettiest of the mountains we face
There's not much you can say about Greyton except... it is a little bit of heaven on earth! We absolutely LOVE it, and this holiday was made all the better because the boys were a bit more mobile. They really enjoyed going out on the roads with Dad on their bikes and even trying a bit of off-road too (it's a slippery slope!!). There is absolutely no need for a car in Greyton, which was heavenly for mum and dad who seem to spend most of their time in a car. We walked to the shop, walked to a coffee shop/restaurant, walked generally and then just lazed around in the lovely house we had rented. This was the same house we used last year and it is paradise for the boys. The garden is big and full of hiding areas, ponds, little pool etc, so they literally spent 90% of the time out there making up adventures and - well Eli anyway - swimming!!
The story was about a girl (the ucirsive one) who eventually gets killed by Davey Jones, but before that she meets a pirate and Woody & Bullseye, whilst a Krakken wrestles with a lion.
...how does your garden grow?One of the fun parts of enjoying the first spring in a new home is discovering just what is in the garden. Our garden was an overgrown jungle when we moved in and it didn't appear that much was going on at all, apart from the marijuana plant in the middle of the lawn!
However as Spring has well and truly sprung now we're seeing some good stuff in the garden.
Joel finally got to bring Davy Jones home just in time to take away on holiday. He's really chuffed with his efforts and I personally think he's done a brilliant job. The attention to detail is great and it genuinely is his creation from design to construction, nothing was done without his complete approval. In fact, he was so fastidious about the design that it took two days and many many attempts to finally get the hat right.
The house is in the good hands of Charmaine who's house-sitting so Rosie will get a break from the boys whilst being well looked after.
So, phones off, computer off, adios Blog, Facebook, Twitter et al for 10 days. Fantastic!
Once a week whilst studying at All Nations our tutorial groups were posed with a conundrum under the guise of Mission In Practice. There were rarely straightforward answers and more often than not no real answers at all, just plenty of discussion, some good arguments and the occassional chance to wind someone up for a laugh!So here's one for today..
I joined Joel in class today to help with the final stage of his puppet making. Each of the children had to design a puppet, work out what they needed, get the materials (plenty of running around for Mummy!) and then make the puppets. So today's stage was finishing off the puppets and the parents had been asked to come and help and I was the only Dad there.
We missed the National Arbor Week last week but may just have made ammends this week.
With a bit of help from my mate Rod we've just planted four indigenous trees in the garden. I love trees so it's a real privilege to be able to plant some and especially to plant indigenous trees that are in harmony with the environment.
Still we've got a great evening lined up as we'll be out enjoying a good meal with good friends as we celebrate Jo With The Blue Car's 40th birthday. It should be a lot of fun!
Bring on the next 19!
A few previous posts about our anniversary.
Having said that, I do think there's a place for exercising a degree of common sense and looking at the 'scaffolding' being used by these plasterers on the house being built at the back of ours, I would suggest this might be a good opportunity for applying said common sense!
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the whole issue of church and what it is or what it shouldn’t be and what we as Christians should and shouldn’t be doing.A case in point at present is the whole media circus around a tiny church of 50 and their idiotic pastor. Either he’s a marketing genius who has got himself known all around the world or he’s a lunatic. Either way there's very little of the grace of God in his interviews etc. Anyway, he’s not my main topic here and he’s already had way too much publicity so back to the question in hand.
Two things I’ve read lately have come back to bug me and the more I think on them the more I feel they are simply wrong. It took me a while to come to this conclusion because one of the comments came directly from a church leader I have massive respect for and the other came from a leader in the same church.
Yesterday we realised another dream as we were able to take 3 ladies, from the 3 different communities in which we work, to visit a local empowerment project, Learn to Earn. It is based in the largest township outside of Cape Town (around 1 million people!). Their motto is 'a hand up, not a hand out', which we love -that is the only real way to empower people.They offer courses in sewing, cooking, woodwork, computing, graphic design and admin skills to the unemployed, asking them to contribute 5% towards the cost of the course (ie: approx £20 to £40).
The rest of the gang have been fine throughout, suffering only the vagaries of a very grumpy dad and husband but they seem to put up with me well.
His attention was then fully grabbed by AC/DC's Back in Black.
When he'd finished he brought over his picture and proudly announced that he's going to get the red guitar when he's older and play like the man in his school uniform.
He makes me so proud!
Thankfully, we don't judge people on appearances but rather by what we see in their actions in life. This lady is truly a hero to us!
After church on Sunday most of us trotted off home for a decent dinner, maybe some roast vicar with acidic gravy followed by the obligatory kip on the couch.
It would be really easy to do just such a series on the likes of the amazing George Műller, Hudson Taylor, C.T. Studd or Jim Elliot to name a few that come to mind. However just about all that can be said about these heroes has been said and I'm not pretending to have any new insight into their extraordinary lives. If you're interested in the lives of some of these heroes and church history generally pop over to the Church History Blog by Lex Loizedes, it's a great read!
We had a lot of fun today as we went into Cape Town and spent ages in the South African Museum and Planetarium. The guy on the door gave a knowing smile as the boys shouted "DINOSAURS!" and ran off to the dinosaur gallery. Guess where we spent most of our time.
the boys were inspired to ask to go to the museum again after watching Night at the Museum 2, it's a really good fun film and certianly fired up their imaginations.
Afterwards we strolled up to Long Street which is full of great cafés and pubs and we had a cracking lunch.
Today was very special as the HOPE home based care team, prospective carers and spouses of some of our patients received customised home based care and HIV/AIDS training from Nicky Welsh. This is something that Paula has been wanting for over a year now and it has taken this long to 'pin down' Nicky and make the most of her excellent training skills!! We had loads of fun as well as refreshing (for some) our knowledge and skills base and having the ability to further customise the training for our final session next Friday.
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