Good morning, today we are blessed to have Dr Gary Wills and Mike Santer from the UK, as well Hou Jian and His family.
Pastor Roger Peterson addressing the church.
Hou Jian was a Buddhist, when arriving in Cape Town, to learn English and study more than 7 years ago. He was invited to a church service by Craig Dumont, a friend from University. Hou Jian however was reluctant, because in China it is believed when people lay hands on you, in prayer, you will die. He then decided to come to the service, and was touched by God in a Mighty way.
HOu Jian and his family being Welcomed to our Church.
One evening at Impact Direct’s office while praying over Hou Jian, Pastor Roger Peterson got a word of God that Hou Jian will lead his family to Christ over the telephone. Hou Jian’s mother who had heard of his conversion to Christianity, was afraid that he would die, went to a Buddhist monk, to pray for her son, the Buddhist monk then told her that her son was at a safe place and told her about a gray haired man that is looking after her son and that he is at a safer place than he has ever been, that put her at ease.
Hou Jian then led his mother to the Lord over the telephone, along with his entire household.
They had planted many churches in China, even building a church in a poor village, with over 2000 members.
Today Impact Direct Staff attended a Business Breakfast at Granger Bay Restaurant organised by New Trends and Outlooks a business owned by two young men Kyle Jonck and Jason Martin.
The aim of this breakfast is to get business men and women using the power of social media therefore the two guest speakers was no other than Marlon Parker that spoke about “Important Jumps for the future of your business” fish where others are not fishing.
Marlon Parker at Business Conference 2020
The other speaker was Dave Duarte a Digital Media and marketing educator in Cape Town and his talk was around “Marketing 2020″ He shared so many interesting facts regarding marketing and social media.
Dave Duarte at Business Conference 2020
“As we go forward, I hope we’re going to continue to use technology to make really big differences in how people live and work.”
Sergey Brin
Jason Martin(19) Had been a drug Addict since my Father past away in the year 2001, for his life was hard as a young lad. His mother could not provide for him, all clothes he wore was broken, life was tough. He only family member finishing his education and establishing a business
Since he accepted Jesus His Life went from better to Better, Strength to Strength Today he’s set free of Drugs named; Tik (Methamphetamine
), Dagga (Marijuana), Tobacco and Alcohol he is now 4years free of it and fall part of a team called the Impact Team. Jason now an ICT Student at College of Cape Town.
Kyle Jonck (20) An Economics student at Unisa.
Grew up in Mitchells Plain, in a dysfunctional home.
This did not keep him behind, he never indulged in any form of drugs
He decided to take on the business world, looking forward to the future in expectation
of accomplishing goals
New trends & outlooks started with two youngsters from Bridgetown Athlone .Kyle Jonck and Jason Martin met at the Impact centre ,they decided to start a business conference ,with the aim of empowering the youth ,business leaders ,entrepreneur and people wanting to start their own business.
Impact’s Director, Roger Peterson has gone to the UK to visit our sister church’s in Salisbury, Red Hill, South Hampton and Bromley.
He will be there for 3 weeks going around to churches about what’s happening at the Impact Center and building on an already strong relationship, which started 10 year‘s ago when Apostle Roger went over on a mission trip to the UK.
Because of that trip, we have had many friend’s of the UK coming to SA, to avail themselves to the underprivileged communities in South Africa. We’ve had many positive stories coming from theses trips.
We will keep you posted on Apostle Roger Peterson’s trip to the UK.
Friday The seniors, were spoilt to a lovely day of pampering and honouring.
Impact Direct and Social Development came together and hosted the HONOURING of the senior’s, honouring off the senior’s is very important to Impact Direct.
The day consisted a heart wrenching talk on Dementia, done by Bobby Judzen of Dementia SA, who’s wife also suffers from a form of Dementia.
The day ended with the pampering of the senior’s feet and hands as well as checking of the blood pressure and weight.
Today impact Direct was blessed with a visit from a spokesperson from St Luke’s Hospice, Eleanor Ruiters who has worked for St Luke’s for 10 years.
She spoke about the myth’s that come with St Luke’s, some people think that when you go to St Luke’s you going there to die.
“You draw strength from the patient’s, who still has that zest for life, who still not giving up on life” Eleanor said.
St Luke’s Hospice provides palliative care
to people who are approaching the end of their lives. A team of skilled professional staff
and volunteers improves the quality of life of these patients through early identification, impeccable assessment and treatment of
pain and the other physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs of the patients and their families. This is given, irrespective of the
patient’s ability to pay for the service.”
St Luke’s started working in the in patient care field in 1982. At this time the St Luke’s Hospice offices were situated at the Vincent Palotti Hospital in Pinelands. Then they were moved to a home in Trill Road Observatory but it became obvious that the premises were too small and with the help of the Lombardi Family Trust in 1985 the present Kenilworth property was acquired.
“I enjoyed the talk, and learnt a lot about St Luke’s, learning that it‘s not always when you going to die that you need to go there. I don’t need to give up on life, but be positive an d live life to the fullest” a senior said.
Today the Impact staff treated the senior’s to a lovely movie, Not Broken Easily a movie based on a novel from T.D Jakes.
‘Dave and Clarice have been married forever; yet the things that they do not know about one another could fill up a small house. That is the basic problem in their marriage. They have grown apart over the years, rather than together. How many marriages are the same way?
The upper class African American couple who find that their marriage has fallen into disrepair right before their eyes. Neither one of them seem to be able to acknowledge the truth of the matter. They have gotten used to acting like nothing is wrong until they are involved in a near-fatal car crash and Clarice is seriously injured.
As David fails miserably at his attempts to take care of his wife; he finally admits that he no longer feels needed. Her lack of neediness and her inability to trust him with her fears is at the core of their problems. Suddenly; the wonderful life that they have built is no longer enough. The house, the cars and the material possessions are no longer fulfilling because they both realize that they have lost that loving feeling between them.’
“The senior’s loved the story and said they want their kids to watch it, and related to the story as well.” said Gloria Brooks, Impact Staff member.
The staff was happy that the senior’s enjoyed the movie, perhaps it could become an usual event.
Every Monday and Wednesday, Impact Direct host kids from Kewtown Primary, a school adopted by Impact Direct, which is situated in the less fortunate area of Athlone.
The kids who’s ages range from 10 to 13, have been coming to Impact Direct for the past 3 years, the brain child of Pastor Jenny, who saw the need in the community to show kids that they are not unloved.
Kyle Jonck who has been involved since the launch, while juggling studying for his B.Com in Economics, has fostered a wonderful relationship built on trust with the scholars.
The program teaches the kids about life skills, honouring, listening ,communication, respect, obedience, loving one another as well as educational material such as reading, maths, spelling. A meal is also provided.
Today was one of those days where we will be taking the Advice Support service to another level in collaboration with 4 other Non-profit organisations and supported by Department of Social Development. The Substance Abuse Mobile Counselling pilot project will investigate the use of cellphones as a counselling and support medium for people who are impacted by substance abuse.
All the NGOs came together today for the oficial launch of the mobile counselling pilot and having a group of people working together, coming from different backgrounds was amazing to experience as the dream and vision for establishing many of these Reconstructed Living Lab spaces across South Africa are moving towards becoming a reality. Although all the mobile counsellors from the various organisations came together for the launch at the Impact Centre, the group will be working remotely with the support hub being at the birth place of Advice Support Network at IDM’s Impact Centre.
With all the excitement in the air and representatives from different organisations coming together through the purpose of using cellphones for social change seeing the impact the session of the launch had on those in need of support was incredible. During the first two hour session of the pilot, 103 subscribers made contact with us and 2034 messages were sent to people in need of support in the area of drug addiction.
The best part of this good start is that it is only the beginning as we will see more lives be reconstructed through people and the use of technology.
In collaboration with the Department of Social Development and Impact Direct Ministries, the RLabs team hosted the world’s first Mobile Counselling Course to a group of particpants from various Non profit and Community based organisations. The focus of the training was to empower these organisations to make use of mobile phones as part of their counselling services. The training was managed by our mobile counselling specialists who covered a wide range of topics over the three days ranging from the “Art of Mobile Counselling” to “Confessions of a Mobile Counsellor”.
The new mobile counsellors were also introduced to the system that will be used for the mobile counselling activities. The excitement by the participants and orgsanisations involved was a clear indication that using mobile counselling as part their support services to clients could add value to their service delivery. This is especially the case for organisations working with youth who use mobile phones daily for engagement with friends and family. The training was only the beginning of the journey and the next few weeks we have to roll it out to schools that could benefit of Drug Mobile Counselling Services.
After 2 weeks of intense training with participants from the community in the area of HIV/AIDS awareness, the awards ceremony for all the hard work they’ve done. The workshop was hosted by Rene Parker and Claudine Charles of Impact Direct and some of the topics covered by the participants were:
- Sex and Sexuality Life skills Orientation
- Reproductive Organs
- Condom Line-up and Safer Sex
- Nutrition, Positive Living
- STI’s HIV/AIDS Risk Factors and Body Fluids
- HIV/AIDS Sensitive Language
- The Immune System. Role play, opportunistic infection and viral loads
- Patient’s Right Charter
- Spiritual Care, and the Dying Persons Bill of Rights
- Legal and Ethical Issues
- Prejudice and Discrimination
- The Need for Education
- The Effect of Poverty
- HIV/AIDS and Power
- Violence against people living with HIV or AIDS
- Different kinds of law
- The Sources of Law
- The Bill of Rights
- Confidentiality
- HIV Testing and Confidentiality
- The Right to Medical Treatment
It is wonderful to see the community being empowered and how the participants are sharing their knowledge with those in need.
