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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 -
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HOPE Home Based Care Team -
Gathering Ground -
Staying fit as a family -
The Helderberg - The prettiest of the mountains we face
Good Friday saw Tree of Life getting together with our family of Church of Love & Grace and Simon's Bay Christian Church for our first ever conference.The theme was The Master's Plan which was highly appropriate for the Easter weekend.
I've never spoken at a conference before so was very excited by this opportunity but also a little nervous, especially about speaking in front of around 100 people.
The bible underpins our faith and is the building block for church life at Tree of Life.
This is our personal collection of bibles (there are a few missing scattered around the house and car) in the office just above my desk. We have goodness knows how many versions in at least 6 languages. Some are used a lot more than others, though increasingly I use e-Sword which is a brilliant bit of bible study software!
Truth is an interesting concept. In itself it's very simple but we like to complicate it, just look at how many theories of truth are out there and how many thousands of years they have been discussed. All this does is reduce truth to the point that society will tell us that there is no such thing as truth, saying 'one man's truth is another man's lie'. But in reality truth remains very simple.
Truth is defined as an accord with fact or reality, or fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal.
Truth is the opposite of falsehood and lies.
I recently sat with Joel and talked about one of my sporting heroes, Lance Armstrong and how his entire world of success, fame and celebrity was built on lies. Joel knows that as a keen cyclist I'm upset about the Armstrong story and he also knows there are two groups of people I hate in life: thieves and liars. I hope that using the story of Armstrong my boys will grow to respect truth and favour it.
Truth is defined as an accord with fact or reality, or fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal.
Truth is the opposite of falsehood and lies.
I recently sat with Joel and talked about one of my sporting heroes, Lance Armstrong and how his entire world of success, fame and celebrity was built on lies. Joel knows that as a keen cyclist I'm upset about the Armstrong story and he also knows there are two groups of people I hate in life: thieves and liars. I hope that using the story of Armstrong my boys will grow to respect truth and favour it.
It was a great time of worshiping together but it was also a humbling time for us as Dean was appointed as lead elder of the church. We really feel humbled and privileged to be tasked with this role and we're very excited about where God is leading us and what he is doing.
It's back to school for the boys as the school year began this morning.We can't quite believe it but Joel is going into Year 5 and Eli into Year 3. Our babies are definitely no longer babies.
We're really excited for them for the coming year as they've both got good teachers with both of them being committed Christians.
After Joel's awful year this year he's got a teacher who's already seen him at his best and likes him. Eli is going into a class with a teacher we've known for some years now and Joel had a great time with.
Let the adventures begin.
When mum and Joel decided that they were going to go and see The Hobbit at the cinema we asked Eli what he would really like to spend the morning doing. With no hesitation he answered that he would like to make something!So dad and Eli spent the morning going to the salvage yard, buying some wood for R5, coming home and getting out the hammers, nails and power tools - heaven for Eli! He quickly decided that he was going to make a table and chairs for his two Build a Bears formerly known as Ron and Jackie after some lovely friends of ours in the UK and now (apparently) known as Ron and Harry seeing as one of them is ginger - therefore Ron Weasley - and the other must therefore be HP himself!!
I just heard the sad news that my friend Ernest died this morning. Ernest had been battling after a number of strokes and had his sixth major stroke just a couple of weeks ago. Sadly in the last day or so he took a turn for the worst and passed away this morning.Thankfully Ernest was saved so we can rejoice in that. Also, he has the biggest family I have ever known and they've been amazing in supporting him, caring for him and loving him.
Happy 7th birthday to our amazing boy!Eli is such a joy and a total blessing to our family and we love him dearly.
Having had his party a couple of weeks ago, Eli's had a quiet day at home playing with his new toys and completing his 500 piece jigsaw. He's also very proud today of his brand new unicycle which has seen a bit of action today.
Now we're looking forward to our birthday tea at Eli's choice of restaurant tonight. So that'll be a massive bowl of spaghetti bolognese then!
Or maybe not.
Thankfully Dad's Army was a comedy and Private Frazer's catchphrase never amounted to anything. I guess it's the same with all these predictions by the likes of Camping and misinterpretations of the Mayan calendar, they provide for some great comedy.
Sadly after the Mayan farce we have to wait until 2018 for the next comedian's prediction to be proven wrong. Someone called F. Kenton Beshore reckons the world will end between 2018 & 2028.
We love this time of year because we get to distribute hampers etc on behalf of the church and others.This year we'll be distributing these sixteen hampers amongst our church families so we're just tidying them up and putting on a Christmas card from church so there's no doubt as to where they are from.
God is good!
They had so much fun doing it and on being unable to decide who should top the tree off with the angel they chose to do it together.
Nice one boys!
There are many examples of women in leadership in the bible and just as in life, some of them were great and some not so, but that's one of the strengths of the bible, it reflects so much of the reality of life.So while some churches turn their noses up at women in leadership or get distracted by voting on the issue we choose to get on with it and allow the women amongst us to blossom and flourish as God intended.
On Tuesday we celebrated Eli's 7th birthday with his party. His actual birthday isn't until the 21st but with the summer holidays beginning a lot of his friends will be away so a party would be a bit thin on the ground if we waited 'til then.Much fun was had by his friends and Eli loved having his class mates over to play for the afternoon.
Mummy was also very clever with the party food, ordering 10 burger meals from a local takeaway which saved a lot of hassle.
Having done as much research as I could really be bothered to I was amazed that none of the articles talked about the pain and discomfort involved, most just seemed to take a fairly lighthearted "get over it" attitude.
I was left exhausted and in a lot of discomfort in the first week and the pain hasn't fully gone yet.
Take a look at this pic of our trampoline which was picked up by a single gust and thrown about six metres through the air onto our gazebo frame and garden table. The gazebo frame had already been damaged by the wind so just in case there was any doubt about it the good doctor totalled it with the trampoline.
Today we had the privilege of attending the boys' school awards ceremony, held at the Somerset West library.It was a great time and we were very proud of our boys!
Eli's class teacher commended Eli for "Never backing down or saying no to a challenge". She has certainly got the measure of our boy!
Joel got an extra certificate for his "Diligence and hard work in guitar". In fact Joel's guitar teacher has been so impressed with his progress this year that he has been invited to play to the old folks on Friday when the school choir go to entertain them.
Our afternoon of donation sorting turned into an afternoon of mixed blessings.We ended up with three boxes and a bin bag full of crap which will be going to the landfill. Happily though we've ended up with a couple of boxes and a few bags of decent toys and clothing which will be a real blessing when we take them into Macassar and Chris Nissen in the next few days.
We love this time of year!
Why? Because the number of donations we get locally increase exponentially and we're able to bless folk in Macassar, Chris Nissen, Broadlands and sometimes beyond that.
We've spent quite a bit of time sorting through donations over the last couple of weeks and it looks like we'll have a bit more sorting to do yet.
Further to my rant below about the census taken last year here in South Africa I came across this today.Initially I thought it had to be the work of some mischief maker getting busy with Photoshop but on visiting the official website I downloaded the original and it is indeed free of any Photoshop jiggery pokery.
Look more closely at sum number 3 and see if you can work out the right answer.
The Cape Leopard Trust have been doing some sterling work in the Boland area logging details of known leopards, as well as using camera traps and physical traps to monitor the health and distribution of these splendid creatures in the Cape.
What a privilege too to know that some of the routes we mountainbike on we also share with some leopards.
Given how the media likes to sensationalise stuff and focus on the negatives the article leads with the grim statistic that the black majority are paid six times less than their white counterparts.
On Friday we joined with Every Nation here in Somerset West for their conference. They were hosting a guy called Marc Dupont who despite looking like a skinny Robin Williams was very good. We were particularly taken with his exposition of the name El Shaddai meaning God who is able to do that which you can't do for yourself. That is definitely our experience!
Our boys' school is having its bi-annual production at the Playhouse Theatre in Somerset West this week and for the first time Joel has one of the speaking roles as the Policeman. Part of his role is to lead the other policemen including Eli.I managed to sneak a photograph (yes I turned the flash off) which isn't very good but it does at least show Joel with his truncheon and Eli (3rd from left) disappearing under his bobbies helmet.
It was a great evening and we're very proud of our boys!
"This Sunday we had the privilege of joining with our family at Church of Love & Grace in Mitchell's Plain to baptise three of our members together with eight of theirs.
We had an amazing time in God's presence with one of our member's granddaughter being saved. Hallelujah!
In the midst of our gathering we also honoured Martin & Mercia who celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. Martin was then involved in baptising his youngest daughter who had given her life to Jesus just last Sunday.
We thank God for an awesome time in his presence and look forward to doing this again very soon!"
It really was great to watch people stepping out in obedience to Jesus and to honour family in the same gathering.
So we were on our way out last night and decided to pop into Macassar to see a couple from church to deliver something they had been waiting for for a few weeks. When we arrived in the monsoon like rain the house appeared to be in total darkness so Dean went to the door to knock and could see the light of the TV flickering through the window. It's always a joy to spend time with our family members and this visit was particularly special because of the delivery.
The house was in total darkness apart from the telly and the couple wouldn't put a light on because the stark choice was TV for the evening or a light on for a few minutes. After we'd been chatting for a minute we were aware of the floor moving, it was alive with children under duvets and blankets trying to keep warm whilst watching the telly and half the kids belonged to the neighbours.
The house was in total darkness apart from the telly and the couple wouldn't put a light on because the stark choice was TV for the evening or a light on for a few minutes. After we'd been chatting for a minute we were aware of the floor moving, it was alive with children under duvets and blankets trying to keep warm whilst watching the telly and half the kids belonged to the neighbours.
Today is Heritage Day, also known as National Braai (BBQ) Day with seemingly millions of South Africans across the country braaiing. Many of our friends in Macassar and Chris Nissen were getting in on the action.To celebrate we spent the day with some Zimbabwean and Ugandan friends with Eli being the lone South African amongst us!
We had a great afternoon chatting and chilling and occasionally chasing one of the eight boys we had between us. They certainly mad it a very lively afternoon!
To celebrate our twenty first wedding anniversary we had a very pleasant couple of nights away in the stunning seaside town of Kalk Bay on the Cape Peninsula, somewhere we've been wanting to explore for sometime.To finally get the chance to mooch around the place sans enfants was a real blessing and we'll definitely be back sometime soon.
Twentyone years ago our dear friend Richard pulled out all the stops on the organ and gave it some welly as he struck up Tocatta in C by Zipoli as the love of my life began walking down the aisle.I have been incredibly blessed by the fact that shortly after 1.30pm Paula said "I do" and I'll be forever grateful to her and to God for the amazing time we've had together ever since.
To marry someone special is great. To marry your soul-mate is fantastic. To spend a lifetime with the love of your life is simply awesome!
Once again it was a bit of 'weddings R us' as Paula was chauffeur for the bride and Dean was the official photographer.
We had a lovely day and a lot of fun and were totally spoilt by our dear friends from Simon's Bay Christian Church who laid on an amazing day.
One of the great things about leading a church is getting to decide what is and isn't important in the life of the church.
One thing I've always believed strongly in but rarely seen modeled is leaders praying together. I've seen leaders all consumed with the business of leading but rarely seen leaders praying for the sake of praying.
I realise business is important but prayer is way more important than the mundane!
One thing I've always believed strongly in but rarely seen modeled is leaders praying together. I've seen leaders all consumed with the business of leading but rarely seen leaders praying for the sake of praying.
I realise business is important but prayer is way more important than the mundane!
This morning I had the privilege of going into school with Eli's unicycle so that he could demonstrate how to ride it to his classmates for show & tell.I get a real thrill out of seeing Eli riding his uni' but to see him ride it with a crowd really made my heart glow. It was great to hear Eli's classmates heaping praise and compliments on him, I think my favourite was hearing one of the lads telling the teacher "He makes it look so easy!".
If we were writing this post a year ago, our conspicuous absence from the blog would have been because we felt unable to speak of the things that were going on.
Thankfully we've moved on from then and the simple reason for our conspicuous absence has been the sheer amount of stuff going on and not being able to keep up with it all.
Our last proper post was about our outreach back in June and here we are in August about to do another outreach this coming Saturday.
Thankfully we've moved on from then and the simple reason for our conspicuous absence has been the sheer amount of stuff going on and not being able to keep up with it all.
Our last proper post was about our outreach back in June and here we are in August about to do another outreach this coming Saturday.
Some great news for Joel..He's just participated in the local Eisteddfod again and improved on last year's showing by getting Cum Laude for his prepared reading.
Joel chose to read two pages from The boy In The Dress by David Walliams and really went to town on his characterisation. Even the judges commented on this and the humour he managed to convey.
We are so proud of him!
If you managed to catch up with Paula at one of her recent Facing The Mountain Roadshows in Weald or Cheadle you will have seen our latest DVD offering.
If you didn't manage to catch up with Paula, shame on you you can watch the film right here from the comfort of your own computer screen.
We hope you find it helpful as you uphold our ministry here in Macassar in prayer.
So get some popcorn, put your feet up and enjoy the next 16½ minutes.
We had such an amazing time at our celebration meeting two weeks ago!It was a real family time as Tree Of Life were joined by Love & Grace from Mitchell's Plain and Simon's Bay Christian Church from Simon's Town.
Graham's team from Mitchell's Plain lead the worship, Shaddie brought a great word and Tree Of Life organised the celebration and lead it. It's such a blessing to be involved in churches working together for the extension of the Kingdom!
Firstly, thank you to all of you that were praying for the weather on our outreach a couple of weeks ago, the weather turned out great despite the forecast and we are truly thankful to God for this!It has indeed been a couple of weeks since the outreach and the reason it has taken so long to blog about it is that many of us are still blown away by the whole thing!
I've lifted this straight out of the school's weekly newsletter:"MILES FOR SMILES
THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
THANK YOU!
Through the combined efforts of the International School of Helderberg and Macquarie Securities South Africa, we raised a phenomenal R71878.70 [almost £5700] for Operation Smile South Africa!
Over the last 5 years we have raised almost R200 000-00 for Operation Smile.
An update for those of you who sponsored our boys in their Miles For Smiles ride a few weeks ago.Our local rag the District Mail ran this article today with a lovely photo of Eli in it.
We're planning to do quite a big outreach next Friday and Saturday as we have another celebration meeting in Macassar on Sunday morning with our friends from Mitchell's Plain and Simon's Town. We have a few events planned, one of which will be to pamper ladies in the community by doing their nails, hair and make-up whilst serving them with coffee and a muffin.
Eli and Joel had such a blast this morning at what has become their school's annual charity event. They were so proud to ride for Operation Smile in their Miles for Smiles cycle ride. They were particularly thrilled because the school is hoping to crack their target of raising R50,000 for much needed cleft palate operations for children this year and between them they have raised just under R2,000. Thank you so much to all you who so generously sponsored the boys, it really made a difference.
In 2001 during some of Zimbabwe’s darkest days we drove from Harare to Cape Town, it was mainly for holiday purposes and a bloomin' good one it was too, but we also had to leave Zim' for a while due to the mess there. It’s a long story!
While we were in South Africa we had a great time and met some fab people, some of whom we went on to work with when we moved to SA three years later. I remember at the time having a number of conversations with folk about the Zim' situation and was asked the same question a few times.
I could leave this as a wordless post with just the photos and most of you would guess who I would be talking about.My boy doesn't stay still for long, though the telly is teaching him to pay attention for increasing amounts of time. Not sure if that's a good thing or not?! Anyway, beyond the world of the electronic babysitter, Eli is one incredibly active young man and constantly looking for
Percy Thrower I am not so where Eli gets his desire for a bit of gardening is a mystery but one that shall be capitalised upon.A while back he asked if he could grow some tomatoes and somehow he managed to sweet-talk mummy into taking him shopping for seeds etc.
That was a couple of months ago and today Eli has eleven very healthy looking tomato plants which he actually grew from seed.
So this afternoon he was über excited to see that one of his plants has two small green tomatoes on it. Bless him, he had no idea what they were because they were so small and green, apparently "they don't look like the ones in the packets".
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