MARCH 2009 NEWSLETTER AND APRIL 2009 CALENDAR

Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me. Matt: 25:40

Lakewood Nursing Home Salem Village Nursing Home Rosewood Care Center

Sunny Hill Nursing Home Paradise Park Assisted Living

The years come and go swiftly. They are truly like a vapor, you see it for a moment and then it’s gone as quickly as it came. Once again it is time to reflect on the past and give Praise and Glory to God for all He has accomplished. March will end our 4^th year in the Nursing Home Ministry and April will be the beginning of our 5^th year. Some people reminded us many times how burned out we would become and warned us not to get involved in more than one home. Others encouraged us and supported us faithfully. We have had all kinds of comments over the past 4 years, some we stored away in our hearts to reflect on them often, others we try not to remember. It’s truly been a great 4 years.

During these past years, we have never had to worry about volunteers, God has always provided laborers and we have a wonderful team of people and the neat thing about it all is, they all have a servant’s heart. We have never worried about money, our needs have always been met and we have been able to purchase a P.A. system, a piano keyboard, a printer, music stands, 2 four wheel carts and a file cabinet. We give out gifts at Christmas time. This past year we gave out over 165 sweaters and blankets. A small box of sugar free candy is presented to the residents for their birthdays along with a Happy Birthday tract. Just another way to get a tract in their hands. A carnation is given to all the ladies on Mothers Day.

The Newsletter is now going out to approximately 175 people each month. Worship services are held in 4 Nursing Homes and 1 assisted living home.

Eleven residents have received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and I have had the opportunity of presenting the Plan of Salvation to many people, including one atheist. I have held the hand of residents as they took their last breath and stood by many of the families as they mourned the loss of their loved ones. The hardest part of the ministry is seeing residents die and go out into eternity without Jesus.

Most all of the material things that I have purchased over the past 4 years have either been tossed or they no longer have the same value they had when I purchased them. Some of the things, I don’t even remember, they never meant anything to me, it was just something I thought was important at the moment, but the past 4 years have provided so many Blessings. Blessings that cannot be purchased and they will last for eternity. They will never get tossed out into the garbage and no one can take them away, they have an eternal value.

They have brought joy and happiness that material wealth cannot provide and I can truly understand how we will Praise and Glorify Jesus for eternity when we get to heaven. I am so humbled and grateful for all He has done for and through this Ministry and all the Blessings He has given each one of the Ministry team. Our lives have been changed forever and for His Glory. I pray each day that I can see people as Jesus sees them and I can love as He loves. My prayer is that we will always be found faithful, serving Him.

March was a great month; the attendance was really good at all the homes. We always have good attendance and participation at Lakewood. The residents there really enjoy the service and would like for us to come every week. Many of them know the songs and they sing along with us and Barb Brennwald is so faithful to play the piano each month for us. We have had some great comments about her beautiful playing.

We had several outside visitors at the service at Rosewood this month and lots of great comments from the residents. Jerry Miller brought his Banjo and did a special number along with Dr. Kent on the piano and it was great. The Trio, Karl Darley, Kim Brinkman and Margie Valade always do a great job singing with Lisa Brinkman on the piano. Lisa plays piano at Salem and Sunny Hill for us. They are all a real asset to the team.

We moved our clocks ahead to day light saving time on the second Sunday and I was so tired that day, I kept thinking, if I am this tired, the residents will probably be worse and we may not have very many at the service and much to my surprise, when we arrived, several ladies were waiting for us and a couple of them said, “we thought you would never get here”. They were anxious for the service to start and it was a great day. We had several outside visitors attend the service also.

We have completed our second month at Sunny Hill and it is going really well. We had about 45 residents and visitors attend the service. Lots of great comments. Lots of good music and devotionals. Gloria Lee joined us this month and sang, “How Great Thou Art” and Midge Pittman did a great job with the devotional.

Kevin Valade, Tony and Robin Pasderetz are a big asset to the team. Kevin does a wonderful job visiting with the residents and that is such an important thing, making them feel like someone cares. Robin sings with the worship team and we need all the singers we can get and Tony is an answer to prayer, helping load and unload all the equipment. It is beautiful how we all work together and just fit in wherever the need.

Paradise Park had a great service with record attendance as well. Jonathan and Amanda Fuller and Judy Pine are working with the youth at that home and they are having great services. The young people are using their talents with music, singing, piano, guitar or whatever the talent may be and the residents love it. What a Blessing to see our youth involved in this type of service. Praise the Lord.

Southern evangelist Vance Havner gives us the real key to keeping to our task and finding joy. He said “We are not just looking for something to happen; we are looking for Someone to come”. As we look forward with great anticipation to His coming back, our prayer is that we will stay busy and stay focused on what he has called us to do, and that is, to Serve Him, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

ALERT!!~~:

Beginning in April, we are planning a Sunday night sing, every 4^th Sunday at First Baptist Church, 800 Thornton St., Lockport. at 6:00 p.m. Come and bring your talents or share a testimony with us of what God is doing in your life. Perhaps you just need to fellowship with God’s people. This singing is a great time of fellowship and we invite everyone to come. We will have refreshments after the singing; after all, real Baptist fellowships always involve food.

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 April is as follows;

Lakewood Nursing Home, Plainfield – April 5th @ 2:30 p.m., Salem Village, Joliet – April 12^th @ 2:30 p.m.

Rosewood Rehab Ctr. –Joliet - April 19th @ 2:00 p.m. and Sunny Hill, Joliet –April 26^th @ 2:30 p.m.

Everyone is welcome. Come join us, we need your talents. You will make a difference and God will bless you for it.

Respectfully submitted by Joyce Mancke jmancke@sbcglobal.net. 815-351-7659

FEBRUARY 2009 NEWSLETTER AND MARCH 2009 CALENDAR

Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me. Matt: 25:40

Lakewood Nursing Home Salem Village Nursing Home
Rosewood Care Center Sunny Hill Nursing Home
Paradise Park Assisted Living

I don’t believe we have ever experienced a month like we have just had in February. So many good things have happened; I hope I can fit it all into the Newsletter. Regardless how much we have already grown since we started four years ago, I keep praying the prayer of Jabez, that God would Bless us and enlarge our territory and He continues to answer in ways that we cannot comprehend.

For some time now, we have been praying about a Ministry at Sunny Hill Nursing Home. We have had several people ask us to come, and our answer has always been, “we will be happy to come if God works it out so we can”, thinking in our minds that it would be impossible to take on another Nursing Home since we have four already and there are only four Sundays in a month, however, we must never under estimate what God can do. We continued to pray for His Will to be done and we let Him know our heartbeat and our willingness to go where ever He sends us and isn’t it just like Jesus, to make it all work out.

I was praying about this one day when the Lord revealed His answer to me. Amanda Fuller and her son Rhys along with the Cherry Family and Judy Pine, our pianist, are a very faithful part of the Ministry team at Paradise Park and what a Blessing it would be if the Lord just used them to continue on with the services there. Amanda has always had a soft heart for this home. She and her husband, Jonathan, also work with the youth at their church and they could get the youth group involved and what a Blessing that would be. So I prayed “Lord you have given me the answer so I am assuming you have already spoken to Amanda”, and with that in mind, I picked up the phone and called her and before I could say a word, Amanda says, “I was just getting ready to call you”. I think we would like to do the services at Paradise Park” and I simply said “Thank you Jesus”.

He always works it out. We never want to cancel services at any of the homes that we have started, however, we were sure God was calling us to Sunny Hill, and the key to it all is, you never jump ahead of God, you just ask Him and He will work it all out for you. What a mighty God we serve. The amazing thing about it all, Sunny Hill just had a church cancel their ministry on the same Sunday afternoon that we would have available to come. Our first service was on the 4th Sunday of February and we had a wonderful service. After the service, a gentleman wanted to talk and I sat down beside him and he said, “I have a weight in my chest and it’s so heavy” and I prayed with him to receive Christ. It was a good day and it was a re-affirmation that God had opened these doors and made it all possible.

We had a great service at Lakewood in Plainfield on the first Sunday with almost 60 people present. The residents there really look forward to our coming and they wanted to sing a song for us this month. They sang “You are my Savior” to the tune of “You are my Sunshine” and what a Blessing that was. So many times you do Ministries like this to be a Blessing to others and you feel like you walk away receiving all the Blessings. It was great to hear all the residents singing. Our own Ministry team, Nellie and Joe Anglin sang a special number and Karl, Margie and Kim sang a special number so we had some really good music this month, good preaching and good devotional.

We continue to have the services in the Dining area at Salem and that seems to be working out well. We don’t have to haul the equipment so far and we don’t have the elevator problems that we use to have. Despite the fact that Rosewood had a lot of sick people this month, we still had a good service. Each one of the homes has their own personalities and it never gets boring. We look forward to seeing the residents that we have become so close to and we have them at each of the homes.

We have changed our weekly visitation at the homes, instead of going to Salem each week; we are visiting each individual Nursing Home the week prior to going there on Sunday for the service. That allows us to visit all the homes and get to know all the people and it allows us to reach out to so many more people. We pass out lots of tracts and brochures. Our visits are never the same, some visits are really good and we can talk about Jesus with just about everyone we meet. Others days we just listen or pray with residents who are sick, depressed and hurting. We never know from one week to the next what God has in store for us, we just ask for wisdom and His perfect Will to be done and we pray that He will lead us to the ones who need us that day.

I want to share with all of you, another outreach the Sonshine Ministry has decided to do, and that is to support 2 Missionaries whose Ministries have become dear to our hearts. Since so many of you contribute to the Ministry, I want you to know who these Missionaries are.

First of all, Bob Holmes, the One man Volleyball guy, visited our church last year and he has a Ministry of going into the schools and playing volleyball with the various teams, and he usually always wins, and then he preaches at a rally, to a group of young people on how to “beat the odds” against drinking, suicide, drugs and sex. He has had over 30,000 kids raise their hand for salvation since 9/11. He has an incredible ministry but desperately needs supporters. We have agreed to give him $50.00 per month so we can be a part of this great Ministry. (You can personally support this Missionary for as little as $10.00 per month).

Secondly, Tom Graef and his family are going to Romania as missionaries. This family visited our church last year and we fell in love with them. They not only presented their heartbeat for going to Romania at our church, but they helped us in the Nursing Home service in the afternoon. They have been a real Blessing and inspiration to us. They are currently working with youth in their church and are leading many to the Lord. We pledged $50.00 per month for support to this wonderful family.

The mission and heartbeat of the Sonshine Outreach Ministry is to lead people to a saving knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. There are so many people in our world who live in darkness and have no knowledge that Jesus saves and can give them a new life in Him. While our ministry is mainly with the Nursing Homes, we are also thrilled to be a part of the Ministries of these two Missionaries who are leading so many young people to the Lord. We are very wise stewards of God’s money and feel it will be multiplied many times over as we give to these Missionaries.

I praise the Lord that He is using this ministry to reach out to so many people and it continues to grow and we are humbled that God is using each one of us as His servant.

Beginning in April, we are planning a Sunday night sing, every 4th Sunday, 6:00pm Come bring your talents.

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 March is as follows;
Lakewood Nursing Home, Plainfield – Mar 1st @ 2:30 p.m.,
Salem Village, Joliet – Mar 8th @ 2:30 p.m.
Rosewood Rehab Ctr. –Joliet -Mar...15th @ 2:00 p.m.
Sunny Hill, Joliet –Mar. 22nd @ 2:30 p.m.

Everyone is welcome. Come join us, we need your talents. You will make a difference and God will bless you for it.

Respectfully submitted by Joyce Mancke
EMAIL: jmancke@sbcglobal.net

Telephone: 815-351-7659

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