Grey Water

We've taken a big step forward in recent days in terms of harvesting as much of our grey water as possible.

The first picture shows the attachment for taking water from our bathroom to the garden, it's just waiting for the hose to be connected.

The pics below are of our slightly Heath-Robinson method of harvesting the water from our washing machine and dishwasher.

Table For Four

Our weekly soup kitchen was brightened up no end last week by these cheeky little chappies who brought their own table and chairs so they could enjoy their soup in a civilized and comfortable manner.

Joel and I couldn't stop laughing at the way the older girl kept bossing organising the other kids.

It's great to know that they feel comfortable enough to do this.

A Gentle Distraction...

This is the South African Post Office's latest offering of local stamps and I have to say they are very nice.

They're also quite educational given that I only knew of and seen three of these species of kingfisher.

Hopefully they are also a nice distraction from all the name calling and labeling on social media in the wake of last week's election result in the US of A

President Trump

"History repeats itself

Has to

No one listens."

Steve Turner, Poet.

So what has this picture on the right got to do with Trump winning the US presidential race?

Urgent Prayer Request

We posted earlier on Facebook about Linden, one of our church members who was stabbed late last night. We now know that he was stabbed three times, twice in the shoulder and once in the neck which severed the femoral artery.Linden is currently in ICU and is being operated on at some point this afternoon.

Sadly this incident has been brewing for a while because the family live next door to an illegal shebeen that started operating about a year ago. The family have tried many times to have the shebeen closed but without success, despite it being there illegally!

Last night at gone midnight Linden asked the few stragglers at the shebeen to leave because he had to be up for work at 4am this morning. All we know after this is that a few of the stragglers rounded on him and stabbed him.

Church + PowerPoint = Chaos

This reminds me of some of our Roadshow visits down the years.

One of the best was on the Wirral many moons ago. We had been clear with the church as to what we needed tech wise, back then it was as simple as an overhead projector, and the church had promised all would be fine. On the day there was no OHP so we had to pass our acetates around the congregation whilst we spoke. Priceless!

On another not so distant Roadshow, we were in a church where the vicar (an ardent Mac fan) decided to overrule the tech guy and interfere with the PC and our PowerPoint. Needless to say it didn't go well. 😂

I'll probably get told off for this but I don't really care I'm used to it.

Laughing All The Way...

We had a great evening on Tuesday night as The Gathering hosted a marriage enrichment evening using Mark Gungor's Laugh Your Way To A Better Marriage.

We served pizza and cool drinks with the video and settled back for a lot of laughs and some brilliant teaching.

We've been wanting to do this for a while but getting all of our couples together has been virtually impossible, so we went ahead with most of us there and we're so glad that we did.

Keep Taking The Tablets

Thankfully tablets have moved on a bit since Moses' time. So today is a very exciting day as we took delivery of our first six tablets ready for our Homework Club starting in January.

With Precious confirming that she wants to be our facilitator it's all feeling very real and very exciting.

Drought Just Got Serious

South Africa's drought just got a whole lot more serious for those of us down in the Western Cape with Level 3 water restrictions coming into force as of today. This means we have to make a minimum of 30% savings on our water consumption and for those that fail the financial cost will be quite big because all tariffs are increasing from the 1st of December.

Our consumption is so low already, thanks to the measures we've put in place, that making a 30% saving is just about impossible, but it does mean that other than using grey water we won't be watering the garden this year. It will be interesting to see how the garden looks next June!

For those of you of the praying persuasion, please stand with us in prayer for this drought to be broken.

Church Leadership Seminar

Being part of the Hillsong Network is a great blessing to us and we love joining Hillsong for mornings like this one yesterday.

It was such a blessing to hear Jentezen Franklin speaking a very simple but powerful message about Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and the fact that he did it so as to avoid causing Judas any shame or embarrassment. That's grace in action and the total opposite of religion.

School Assembly

This morning we had the privilege of speaking at Joel's high school assembly about The Gathering's Soup Kitchen.

Paula put a proposal to the school about them getting involved in our Christmas outreach by providing pizza for everyone at the kitchen and gift boxes for the children that attend.

The school have responded brilliantly and after Paula spoke so well (with the PowerPoint slides) at the assembly this morning, the Student Council are meeting later today to sort out exactly how the students will respond.

Homework Club

Hot on the heels of gaining our NPO registration we've had a great morning meeting with Green Shoots to talk about and plan for our Homework Club starting in the new school year in January. We'll be using their Maths@Home programme which is very exciting.

We're clear on our hardware needs and hope to have this all sorted in the next couple of weeks, we've got our internet connection sorted, so now we need to identify our facilitator, get some training in place and sort a few policy and admin procedures.

In the next few weeks we'll also start identifying which of the kids that come to our weekly Soup Kitchen will be best served by joining the Homework Club and then we'll be ready to rock n' roll in January.

Please do join us in praying for God's provision in every way.

Thank you LORD!

Registered NPO

As of today, The Gathering is a registered NPO (Non Profit Organisation) here in South Africa.

This is a massive answer to prayer, thank you for standing with us in praying for this.

Thank you LORD!

Café Church

When I arrived at The Gathering's premises on Thursday afternoon I was feeling fine, but when we left at 6:45 after our soup kitchen had finished I was limping quite badly on my right leg. I have no idea what happened to my leg or why it started hurting, but it was very painful.

On Friday morning my leg was feeling OK again and I gave it no further thought until the afternoon when the pain was back with a vengeance. The pain was like an electric shock running down my leg but deep inside the leg. That night I couldn't sleep at all, so in the morning Paula took me to see a GP.

NPO Registration

Finally, after months of waiting, frustration and endless emails I've managed to resubmit The Gathering's Not for Profit Organisation (NPO) application.

Our previous application was knocked back but no one at the Department for Social Development thought to tell us why!So, this time we've used their template for our Constitution (so if they knock it back again I'll be apoplectic annoyed). We also have more than the minimum number of required Officers in the organisation, so it's looking hopeful this time.

According to the website the application should take 28 days, yeah right so we wait with baited breath...

Surprise!

My Saturday began like any other regular Saturday, I'd taken Eli to football practice and after that I was expecting to have a nice quiet breakfast with Paula and my boys.  However, Paula's scheming knows no bounds and I was blissfully unaware of just what she had planned!

As Joel & I arrived at Fred & Max I noticed a lot of cars in the car park but just assumed it was a typically busy Saturday, and there's a gym above the coffee shop so that explained things. However as I approached the venue I saw a few balloons through the window and as I entered I was gobsmacked to see so many people. It took a few moments to realise that they were all there for my 50th!

I didn't think I was that gullible but I guess I'll have to work on paying more attention to what's going on around me!

To The Gathering With Love

Whilst on our recent FTM Roadshow Tour in Blighty we asked if a few friends and supporters would mind to speak to our folk back at The Gathering.

This is the result and it was greatly appreciated by all at The Gathering!

Awesome Sunday

What an awesome time in God's presence at The Gathering this morning!

Paula & I had just got back from holiday so we'd asked our friends Flynn & Sally from Word Of Life to minster to The Gathering and we're incredibly grateful for their faithfulness.

We were blessed because they've just returned from a missions trip to Istanbul and we received the overflow of the blessing they had received on their trip.

Happy 50th

I've always had a fear that one day someone is going to realise I shouldn't be where I am doing the things I am, but I also feel that until they catch up with me I might as well carry on and see what I can get away with.

Part of my plan has been to put this meme into action and I think I might just have pulled it off, but don't tell anyone.

Sadly however, I think JM Barrie was right when he said "All children, except one, grow up". So  this is a big year for me as I turn 50 and have been married for 25 years, and if turning 50 isn't proof of growing up then being married for 25 years definitely is.

Still, I'm not going to stop trying to behave as my inner child wants to, but don't tell anyone!

Happy Days

The corruption of our boys is almost complete as Dean's plan for them to have as misspent a youth as his slowly comes to fruition.

We've had some fun evenings and some great meals out but tonight at The Hungry Monk was fantastic.

We're having a great time away and as ever we're having a lot of fun in Greyton, our happy place!

Topsy Turvy Kingdom

I was stood outside The Gathering's premises recently when this rather nice Bentley pulled in to the service station for fuel. Like everyone else, I stood and admired such a beautiful car but then I stood back and watched the bigger picture unfold.

But first, a bit of context...in South Africa it is against the law to serve yourself at a fuel station, you must be served by one of the attendants. It's a nice touch and the attendants normally go beyond their basic duty and clean your windows and offer to check your oil and water, invariably this leads to a nice tip for the attendants.