Lakewood Nursing Home Salem Village Nursing Home
Rosewood Care Center Paradise Park Assisted Living
Rosewood Care Center Paradise Park Assisted Living
Something to think about: What does it mean to give more than 100% of you?? ? Have you ever thought about it or have you ever made a commitment to give 100% of your life to serving the Lord.
I received this from a friend and thought it was very interesting. If the alphabet were represented by numbers, that is, A = 1, B = 2, C = 3 and on through the alphabet. Every letter in the alphabet would be represented by a number and once you have spelled out the word using the numbers, you would then add the numbers together to get the total. Hardwork and knowledge would get you close to 100%. Knowledge actually adds up to 96% and hardwork adds up to 98%. If you spell the word Attitude, it would actually equal 100%. But even with all the ” knowledge”, “hardwork” and your “attitude” you are still not over 100%, however, the “Love of God” will put you over the top. Spell out “Love of God” and you will be at 101%.
It doesn’t matter how much knowledge we have or how hard we work, or even the attitude we have, without the “Love of God” where would we be. Only through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will our lives make a difference as we serve Him. My commitment for 2009 is to keep a right attitude, a clean heart, and use the knowledge He has given me and through our hardwork as we labor in the mission fields wherein He has called us, to share the Love of God with everyone we come in contact with.
As I have personally experienced His Blessings the past 3 ½ years, it makes me want to work even harder the next 3 ½ years to see even greater things happen for His Glory. Like Jabez, I pray that the Lord will continue to Bless this Ministry and that He will enlarge our territory, that His hand would be upon us and that He will keep us from evil. I believe that is the heartbeat of each one of our people that work in this Ministry.
What an exciting month we have experienced with all the Nursing Homes. December is always a busy month, singing Christmas carols and passing out gifts. It's such a Blessing to see the residents faces light up and see how happy it makes them when they receive a gift. There is no greater joy than that of serving others and as we give the gift to each of the residents, it reminds us over and over of the greatest gift that was ever given, when our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, gave His life that we may have eternal life through Him. “He paid a debt He didn’t owe, because we owed a debt we couldn’t pay”. All because of the “Love of God”.
We had great attendance at all the Nursing homes this month and great participation. The First Baptist Church choir sang the Cantata “Christmas is a Birthday” at Lakewood and Salem Village. We had about 75 residents and volunteers attending the services at Lakewood and approximately 80 at Salem Village. We gave almost 200 blankets and sweaters away between all the homes, as well as, seniors or shut-in outside the homes.
We had un-expected participation in our service at Salem Village. What we thought was going to be a problem, turned out to be a Blessing. A black children’s choir from Christ Temple church in Joliet was suppose to perform at 1:30 at the home and they did not arrive until 2:30 which is the start of our service. I invited them to sing only 2 of the songs they were prepared to sing, at the beginning of the service and they did a great job. They sure have a way of expressing themselves, it was really good.
We also had good attendance at Rosewood and several visitors, relatives and friends of the residents, attended the service. We had a full house. We always have a small crowd, approximately 10 or 12 residents, at Paradise Park as it is a small Assisted Living home with a maximum capacity of 16 residents in each home but there are 4 homes. We walked around and visited all the homes and gave out gifts to the Memory Care residents. It was a great service.
To all of you who helped us during the month of December, “thank you, thank you, and thank you”. We appreciate you all so very much. I wish I could list every name but will not do that for fear of leaving someone out. Thanks to all of you who helped with the sweat shirts, buying, cutting, sewing whatever your part, we thank you. For all who sang in the cantata and with the worship team or sang special music or played an instrument, we thank you. For the devotional and the preaching, we thank you. For those who helped with hauling in the equipment and all the boxes of blankets and sweaters, especially during the one Sunday when it was so cold, windy and icy, we thank you. For passing out program, pushing wheel chairs, serving refreshments, whatever your part, we thank you and most of all God loves it when we are all busy doing His work. What a Blessing it is.
As the Ministry continues to grow, we are seeing more and more people join us and we are so happy to have you. You are making a difference and each one of you bring a special talent that fits right in. It doesn’t matter how large or how small your talent is, when you use it, God will multiply it for His Glory.
The story was told of a young woman who attended a church service one night when she felt the tug of God at her heart. She responded to God’s call and accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior. The young woman had a very rough past, involving alcohol, drugs and prostitution but the change in her was evident. As time went on she became a faithful member of the church. She eventually became involved in the ministry, teaching young children. It was not very long until this faithful young woman had caught the eye and heart of the pastor’s son. The relationship grew and they began to make wedding plans. This is when the problem began.
You see, about one half of the church did not think that a woman with a past such as hers was suitable for a pastor’s son. The church began to argue and fight about the matter so they decided to have a meeting. As the people made their arguments and tensions increased, the meeting was getting out of hand. The young woman became very upset about all the things being brought up about her past. As she began to cry, the pastor’s son stood to speak. He could not bear the pain it was causing his wife to be. He began to speak and his statement was this; “My fiancée’s past is not what is on trial here. What you are questioning is the ability of the blood of Jesus to wash away sin. Today you have put the blood of Jesus on trial. So, does it wash away sin or not”.
The whole church began to weep as they realized their mistake and had judged to quickly. Forgiveness is a very foundational part of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. If the blood of Jesus does not cleanse the other person completely, then it cannot cleanse us completely and we would all be in a lot of trouble.
PLEASE NOTE: All contributions to our ministry should be made payable to “Sonshine Outreach Ministries”. You can mail your gift to SonShine Outreach Ministries, c/o Joyce Mancke, 509 Rhonda Dr., Lockport, IL. 6044l. Your gifts are tax deductible and you will receive an end of the year statement.
Our schedule for January is as follows;
Lakewood Nursing Home, Plainfield – Jan. 4th @ 2:30 p.m.
Salem Village, Joliet – Jan. 11th @ 2:30 p.m.
Rosewood Rehab Ctr. –Joliet -Jan. 18th @ 2:00 p.m.
Paradise Park, New Lenox –Jan. 25th @ 2:00 p.m.
Everyone is welcome to come and join us, we need your talents. You will make a difference and God will bless you for it.
Respectfully submitted by Joyce Mancke
Contact Information: jmancke@sbcglobal.net
Telephone number: 815-351-7659
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