To Be Continued...

It was with a little tinge of sadness that we served our last Soup Kitchen in The Gathering's current home. although we're not officially in our new home until the 1st of July we'll be serving next week's Soup Kitchen from there.

The sadness however is far outweighed by the sense of excitement, not just amongst The Gathering's members but our Soup Kitchen regulars are seemingly just as excited. As we were telling the guys about next week they all told us that they already knew about our move, which means the local grapevine is working well.

We also hosted our last Homework Club for this term and the kids were a little gutted to realise that it won't be running during the school holiday. We're definitely sensing an opportunity for some kind of holiday club in the Summer holidays.

Great View

In the midst of all the busyness at The Gathering's new home, it was nice to finally take a few minutes to drink in the view we will get to enjoy in the coming months.

All the jobs we were expecting to get done on Monday have now been finished, we have a shiny roller door, the front window has been replaced and the electrics have been sorted.

Shortest Day

Today is the shortest day of the year (so you lovely northern hemisphere peeps get to say goodbye to the sun tomorrow 😉) which means the sunrise was unusually late and this gave me the opportunity to get two lovely snaps of it.

This one was taken from our drive as I was about to take Joel to school. By the time I got the camera I had probably missed the best of it but the sunrise still looked pretty cool.

Busy Week Ahead

Today should be quite a big day in the life of The Gathering's new home. With just under two weeks until we start Gathering there, there is a lot to be sorted out.

It all starts today as the landlord is having a roller-door fitted so that should be security sorted. This should also mean that the Coca Cola sign for next door's shop be removed as the landlord has told them to get a smaller one sorted. Once this is done we can put our own sign up.

Knocking Things About

Yesterday was a public holiday as we enjoyed Youth Day, so Errol, Phillimon, Eli & myself took the opportunity to spend a few hours in The Gathering's new home knocking things about, taking down a wall, removing the counter and then fixing holes, followed by lots of sweeping and mopping!

Hardworking Hands

I've been wanting to take some photos of The Gathering's Soup Kitchen to show the children at Eli's school as a thank you for their hard work making sandwiches each week, and to try and challenge them as we show them that not everyone has a privileged background.

Rather than patronise folk with the usual full on photos, I wanted to capture their hands receiving soup and sandwiches and I have to say I'm very pleased with these.

The Gathering's New Home

We've got the keys and we're in, thank you LORD!

Now a lot of hard work begins before our first Gathering in our new home on the 2nd of July. I've spent about an hour compiling a long list of jobs and now I need to get a timetable together so we have a plan of action to get it all done in time.

We're On The Move

Last week I met with the landlord of the vacant shop in Firgrove and we shook hands on the lease and this morning we've met with his lawyer and have signed the contract, so from the 1st of July The Gathering has a new home.

Thank you LORD!

Can't Vote

Once again it's election day in the UK and once again we're both excluded from voting.  I get that we've lived outside the UK for too long, but here's what I really don't get: South Africans living in the UK who meet the residency criteria (that's lived in Blighty for more than three months) are eligible as Commonwealth citizens to vote in the UK, but there is no reciprocal agreement, meaning that despite living out here for 14 years and being a Permanent Resident for 5+ years we cannot vote in any South African elections!

A Random Post

Here are a few random photos from the last week or two which I wanted to post but didn't get around to.

The first couple are of our Soup Kitchen which is growing massively now that winter is here. The fact that we were regularly feeding 40+ people through summer was quite something, but now we're feeding 70+ and still more new people are coming each week.

The Coming Storm...

The South African Weather Service has put out a severe storm warning as they predict the worst storm for 30 years is about to slam in to the Western Cape.

The municipality has ordered all schools to be closed for the day tomorrow and people are generally being advised to stay at home. So sadly we're cancelling our Homework Club tomorrow afternoon and our home group in the evening.