The Finnie family in Blighty, December 2021
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
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
After an exciting ten days back in Blighty with family to celebrate our middle niece's wedding, Paula arrived home this morning, much to the relief of all the trousers.
The junior trousers survived and were fed, watered and made it to their various commitments on time as well as getting home again safe and sound, so I'll call that a win.
"They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony" Revelation 12:11
They - that's God's people aka you & me - triumphed over him - that's the Devil - by the blood of the Lamb - that's Jesus laying down his life on the cross - and by the word of their testimony - that's what God is doing in our lives. So basically, it's all about God, every last bit of it, and that is why at The Gathering we give over a Sunday every now and then to testimonies, and when we do it's an awesome time in God's presence!
Today was an exciting day in the life of The Gathering as we had our second ever gift day for our building fund.
Having spent the last few weeks teaching in to the Biblical principles of giving, this morning I shared a short encouragement from 2 Corinthians 8:1-15 on the Grace of Giving as demonstrated by the Macedonian church as they faithfully gave to help their brothers in Christ in Jerusalem.
Things began with serving 140 litres of soup at The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen which was another blessed time of serving generously. This time everyone got a cup & a pot to takeaway and some even hung around for seconds.
Today was doubly exciting because not only is it a Thursday and we get to serve our regulars at The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen,but today our Matha@Home Homework Club restarted after an almost two year furlough thanks to the pandemic.
It just felt so right to have the Homework Club operating again and the kids were really enjoying themselves and the attention they were receiving from Delena our beloved facilitator.
Whether you pick this book up because your magpie instincts are drawn the joyously attention grabbing cover, or because the subject matter piqued your interest; be prepared to enter a London you know little if anything about. A London that is riveting, absorbing and at Tom's hands, totally accessible, even if in reality most of it isn't.
This popped up on the socials, and eleven years on it's funnier than ever.
Quite how they could claim that "the bible guarantees it" is a mystery given that Jesus himself said "But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven".
This billboard was plastered in the middle of the Helderberg for months, but funnily enough it disappeared very shortly after 21 May 2011.
The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen was crazily busy last night as the 100 litres of homemade Cream of Chicken Soup gone in 25 minutes!
In fact, the soup went so quickly that no one was able to have seconds and the last six people only received a cup of soup and a packet of noodles because we couldn't fill any more pots. This was quite heartbreaking, and so next week we will be dusting off our two 70lt pans to make 140 litres of soup.
These are the main ingredients but I'll also be adding a lot of salt, pepper, garlic, herbs & spices and some soup powder just to top off the flavour.
