Soup Kitchen Quandry

Not so long ago at The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen our regulars were able to hang around and enjoy several cups of soup before collecting their takeaway pot for home.

Sadly the recent growth of the Soup Kitchen means that those days are long gone and now as we use our biggest pans to make 140 litres of yummy soup, there's only enough for one cup each and a pot to take home.

Fantastic Family Friday

Anyone who knows me knows that one of my great joys and pleasures in life is unicycling. 

I regularly ride for at least an hour twice a week and often more if I can squeeze it into my week, and if the weather allows.

So it was a real joy when Carla said she would like to learn to ride the unicycle. She took to it quite quickly and wasted no time in applying some of her ballet techniques to help conquer the balancing side of unicycling. With just a little more practice she'll be riding with no problems.

Gymnogene

Over the years we've had some special visitors to our garden, and this afternoon it continued as we had the  pleasure of seeing a Gymnogene or African Harrier Hawk flying over before settling in to the neighbours oak tree. The hawk sat there for quite a while, even ignoring the protestations of many songbirds which tried to get it to move on, before taking off to join another hawk in flight.

Call That Work?

I'm not sure one could call what I do work given how much of a blessing so much of what I do is, and days like today are so enjoyable and pleasurable that there should probably be laws against it.

This morning after picking up a trailer I had the joy of driving through to Simon's Town to My Father's House where my dear brother Shaddie loaded my car and trailer with loads of food for The Gathering.

Blessings

There have been so many blessings to talk about recently, but I'll stick with my favourite which is seeing another young Christian being given the opportunity to serve and minister in the church.

This morning Kuda, a young Zimbabwean with a fantastic testimony of how God dramatically broke in to his life and saved him from drugs, opened our worship at The Gathering and exhorted us to put God and the needs of others above our own interests. Great stuff!

Loadshedding

Well that was some welcome home!

During my week in Blighty our putative electricity supplier decided to ramp up loadshedding from Stage 4 to stage 6.

What this means is that six areas in the Cape Town municipality are off at the same time but rather than being off for the usual two hours we get the joy of being off for four hours at a time. Deep joy!

The Joys Of Blighty

There are a number of joys I have been blessed enough to enjoy whilst here in Blighty.

Time with family is always precious and a blessing, and to spend some of that time together celebrating the marriage of our oldest niece was just the cherry on the cake.

One of my biggest joys has to be talking to folk about my boys because they're both doing so well. They've both had some tough stuff to face and deal with and yet they've both overcome and each are in a really good place. Sometimes as I'm talking about them, I feel as if I'm making it up about how well they're doing, but then I realise I'm really not.

All My Life You Have Been Faithful

I was so blessed to join the Hope Church family this morning in Sevenoaks. This is the church that I was a part of when I first got saved when I was 18. 

Back then the church was known as Town Church and was meeting in people's homes and then in Bligh's Hall in Sevenoaks Town centre.

Close To The Edit

To be in England in summertime with(out) my love...

(with apologies to The Art Of Noise)

So here I am in Blighty ready for the wedding or our oldest niece tomorrow, it's going to be a lovely day and a very special occasion, I feel privileged to be here and honoured to play a tiny part in the day in walking my sister-in-law down the aisle and leading the prayers for Suzi & Luke.

Serving Together

It's such a blessing and a privilege to be working in partnership with other locally run soup kitchens and feeding programmes.

Currently The Gathering supports three other regular soup kitchens; two in Macassar and one in Chris Nissen Park.

This is Mercia in Macassar with the 50lt pot of food she made for feeding some of the local kids who had been off school yesterday due to the public holiday.

International Day Of The African Child

Today is Youth Day, a public holiday here in South Africa in which we remember the senseless slaughter of over 100 children and the thousand plus who were injured in Soweto by the apartheid regime as the kids protested against the then new law forcing them to be taught in Afrikaans rather than their own indigenous languages.

Sadly this day is barely acknowledged in the Western world and the first time we heard of it was in 1998 when we were in Tanzania, where today is celebrated as the International Day Of The African Child. Personally I prefer this more internationally minded celebration of the day, it feels more positive and more outward looking.