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.JPG)
HOPE Home Based Care Team
Gathering Ground
Staying fit as a family
The Helderberg - The prettiest of the mountains we face
We had one of our best afternoons in a long long time as we joined Melvyn & Yolande and several other church members for a seafood potjie at their home in Macassar.
One of the real highlights of living far from friends and family is when they come to visit! We have recently enjoyed a bit of whirlwind visit from good friends John and Tricia who hail from one of our partner churches in the UK. Joel was particularly excited to be seeing them as he well remembered their house in Cheadle as being the one where the airplanes fly over every 30 seconds!
Despite the silence on the blog we're still alive and very much kicking. We hate it when we don't keep the blog up to date but sometimes things happen in life which are just not appropriate to be shared in a public way so it's best just to say nothing. All we will say is that the last few weeks have been very tough as we grapple with issues which have been bubbling for some time and whilst we're prepared to put the past behind us and move on others aren't which is tough to deal with.
Joel has had a brilliant Birthday and was delighted to get so much Star Wars stuff. He got two bits of Star Wars Lego including Darth Vader's Tie Fighter which was a much coveted pressie! He also got a Darth Vader costume, some Star Wars action figures and a Star Wars lunch box thanks to some great family & friends!
Happy Birthday to our amazing 7 year old Joel!
It's Book Week at school this week so everyone gets to dress up today as a favourite book character. Joel chose Flat Stanley whilst Eli is Harry from Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs so he's gone to school replete with a bucketful of dinosaurs feeling very proud of himself.
Joel was a bit gutted when he arrived as so many of the kids were dressed as Ben 10 and other TV characters but Mummy pointed out that they'll all be immediately disqualified from the judging when prizes are awarded for the best and most imaginative BOOK characters. He cheered up no end at that news!
We don't seem to go to many weddings these days so when the occasional invite comes along it's really good fun to go. Today we were guests of the groom's parents who we've got to know quite well through church. Dean also spends some time each week with Ernest which he really enjoys. Ernest recently had quite a major stroke but looking at him in the pictures one would never know. God has performed an amazing miracle of healing in Ernest's life!
Today was a really satisfying and rewarding day in which I can't help but feel tremendously blessed by God.
Through Facebook I recently 'reconnected' (don't you just love social networking speak) with Vanessa a friend from my days at Town Church Sevenoaks. I've known Vanessa since 1984 but last saw her sometime in the late 80's. Paula knew Vanessa from Girl Guides and being baby-sat by her. So after many many years we met up again in Cape Town of all places.
Poor Joel, we would really value your continuing prayers for him please. Paula took him back to the orthopaedic doctor today ever hopeful that the cast would be removed and that would be the end of that story! He straightaway asked for an X-ray and Paula and Joel went on to wait 2 hours for the same (bit like being back in the UK?!!). Upon arriving back in the doctor's office with a very tired, bored and hungry boy, we could see straight away that the bone in Joel's arm has in fact bent causing the bowing in the photo. This was so disappointing when just 2 weeks ago, the X-ray showed a considerable straightening in the bone. The doctor immediately started to talk about surgery and then got cold feet and decided to seek a second opinion from another surgeon friend. After 10 minutes on the phone in Afrikaans, they decided to try and persuade Paula to hold off on the surgery as this would be big trauma and it is 90% likely that the arm of a 7 year old will right itself with bone growth within a year.
