2024 Feast of Tabernacles: Mossel Bay, South Africa

Mossel Bay experienced another inspiring and blessed Feast, despite a slightly lower attendance of about 140 people. This included 13 visitors from the United States and Canada.

As always, messages were good, special music inspiring and fellowship in abundance. There was a concerted effort this year, particularly from our young people, to be more involved in serving and participating, and part of our youth discussion and activity emphasized UCG’s vision statement and Ephesians 4:16, “from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” This demonstrated how true it is that the Feast, when approached with the right attitude, is truly what you make it.

And to further encourage fellowship, we once again had open-house evenings, hosted by our festival elder and his brother. Here, on any evening without a planned activity, ALL are invited to a meal, fellowship and lively discussion. And much there was!

A great way to meet people, particularly our international visitors, was something new we introduced to South Africa this year: mystery dinners. Participants signed up either as a guest or a host, and the coordinator decided whom they would spend the evening with.

We were blessed with great weather just when we needed it for our numerous outdoor activities, such as daily morning fellowship walks along a beautiful stretch of white sand beach, a family picnic and “braai” (a barbecue, but better), an open-air dinner overlooking the bay, a game drive at a nearby game farm and a visit to a family strawberry farm with the largest natural maze in the southern hemisphere. We truly have been blessed to have such an abundance of activities available in a beautiful part of the country.

We also enjoyed numerous indoor activities which encouraged interaction and getting to know one another.

A welcome evening activity included a hilarious challenge of teams coming up with a problem and then presenting the most complicated solution possible. There was our lively-as-ever musical evening and hymn sing-along, seniors’ lunch and ladies’ tea, and as always, the bingo evening, enjoyed with much laughter by all ages.

We’ve always been fortunate to have beautiful flower arrangements for our stage decor, and this year was particularly inspiring, with an incredible display of indigenous flowers centered around our national flower, the protea.

What a wonderful blessing from our loving Father we have in the Feast of Tabernacles. Only upon experiencing it do we realize how much we need this opportunity to reconnect and refocus in an increasingly distracting and troubling world.