Saturday, November 22, 2008
OCTOBER 2008 NEWSLETTER
Rosewood Care Center Lakewood Nursing Home
October was a good month, good services at all the Nursing Homes, good attendance, lots of Blessings that only God Himself can give and we enjoyed a wonderful dinner/fellowship with lots of good singing. Thanks to all of you who came and also to those who participated with special music. Many thanks to those who helped with the dinner or brought food or drink. We appreciate ALL of you. We couldn’t do all we do without “U” and we appreciate so very much, your encouragement. There were nine churches represented so you can see how spread out we have become.
We also appreciate each one of you who are so faithful in giving every month. Your support has allowed us to do more for the residents and even the elderly who are sick at home. Whether you are a resident or a shut–in at home, everyone enjoys a visit, homemade cookies or just knowing someone cares and will be praying for them. If you know of someone who has a need and you think a visit from one of us will help, just let us know.
The past three years, we have given out “lap blankets” to all the residents during the month of December and we have approximately 60 on hand for this year, which were either donated or left over from last year. (We gave out 99 blankets last year). Instead of buying more blankets this year, Barb Durham, suggested a wonderful idea to us and, that is, to buy the fleece sweat shirts and cut them down the middle and sew a border down each side making a sweater out of them. Thanks Barb, we love your input. We purchased 110 sweat shirts at $4.50 each, which was a great sale, and we have 11 or 12 different colors. Thus, we have about 8 ladies sewing and singing as we go. How exciting is that. We will give the residents a choice this year between the blankets and sweaters. It is so exciting to see God working in our lives and the Ministry. We purchased the shirts in October and we are almost done with the sewing, we have had so many volunteers that said, “I want to help”.
He not only provided the volunteers to do the sewing, He provided the money to buy them. We had spent approximately $350.00 on the Chili/sandwich fellowship and the sweat shirts cost $500.00 plus we bought material for the borders and that really brought our bank account down, however, we are a people of faith and without a doubt, we KNOW that GOD will provide.
After the dinner/fellowship was over and we announced our plans to buy sweat shirts, the word got around and money started coming in from all over. We received over $1,100.00 in October. Praise the Lord. I believe with all my heart that God is using this Ministry and I am so grateful that He allows me to serve Him in this way. I’m humbled when I see Him working through the lives of His people and in the lives of others. It’s not work, it’s a privilege to serve the Lord and to tell others about our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Its ALL for HIS Glory.
I think of the story of Jesus healing the blind man. He touched his eyes and asked him, “Can you see at all?” The man looked up and said, “I can see people, but they look like trees walking around”. So Jesus touched his eyes a second time – and then he saw men as Christ saw them. I pray with all my heart, that God will give each one of us a “SECOND TOUCH” that we may see people as He sees them, that we may love as He loves and that our nation will come back to God and our churches and its people will experience a real revival.
We had a new Activity Director at Lakewood in Plainfield this month and she is wonderful. The Worship Team sang “I Saw the Light” and she had the residents singing and clapping their hands. (We had approximately 45 residents present) She also brought us a list of residents with Birthdays. We had 13 birthdays to celebrate and, as you know,
We give out sugar free fudge to all residents with birthdays. It is nicely sealed in plastic wrap and placed in a small gift box with our name “SonShine Outreach Ministries” engraved on top of the box.
A “Happy Birthday Tract” is also included. It’s the first time we have ever had an Activity director bring us a list of birthdays and make it easy for us to recognize the residents who are having birthdays. WELL, guess who forgot to bring the candy?? ? I was really beating myself up, not realizing that it all happened for a reason and God knew it all ahead of time. I kept apologizing and promised the residents that I would make a special visit to all of them who had birthdays in October.
During my visit to the Home to make good my promise, I wasn’t there long until I understood why it all happened the way it did. Despite the fact that I made a mistake, forgetting the candy, God had a plan all along. I had some of the most incredible visits and was able to share the love of Jesus with so many of the residents. I came away from the Home that day, thanking God that through all my human errors and faults, He can use me for HIS Glory to serve others. It was a wonderful day.
PLEASE NOTE: All contributions to our ministry should be made payable to “Sonshine Outreach Ministries”. You can mail them to c/o Joyce Mancke, 509 Rhonda Dr., Lockport, IL. 6044l. if you are a member of First Baptist Church of Lockport, and would like to give through the church, just indicate on your offering envelope the amount you want to designate to the ministry. All other gifts should be made payable to Sonshine Outreach Ministries. Your gifts are tax deductible and you will receive an end of the year statement.
Our schedule for November is as follows;
Lakewood Nursing Home, Plainfield – Nov. 2nd @ 2:30 p.m.,
Salem Village, Joliet – Nov. 9th @ 2:30 p.m.
Rosewood Rehab Ctr. – Joliet - Nov. 16th @ 2:00 p.m
Paradise Park, New Lenox – Nov. 23rd @ 2:00 p.m.
Please 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 jmancke@sbcglobal.net. 815-351-7659
Friday, October 3, 2008
SEPTEMBER 2008 NEWSLETTER
Salem Village Nursing Home Paradise Park Assisted Living
Rosewood Care Center Lakewood Nursing Home
Just a little humor…..Two elderly ladies had been friends for many decades. Over the years, they had shared all kinds of activities and adventures. Lately, their activities had been limited to meeting a few times a week to play cards. One day, they were playing cards when one looked at the other and said, “Now don’t get mad at me….I know we’ve been friends for a long time….but I just can’t think of your name! I’ve thought and thought, but I can’t remember it. Please tell me what your name is.” Her friend glared at her. For at least three minutes she just stared and glared at her. Finally she said, “How soon do you need to know?”
I can relate to those two ladies. The past few weeks have been so busy; I can hardly remember my own name. Trying to balance all the responsibilities of home, children, grandchildren, church, choir, Nursing home services and visitation, as well as, all the quarterly tax reports and payroll of Verlin’s cleaning business and the continuous care of his mom who has cancer. Then on top of that, we haven’t been successful in selling a house we own and so desperately wanted to sell, so we had to get it ready to rent which created a lot of work.
This morning when I got up, after going for my 2 mile walk, which I do every morning, I started thinking about the many things I had to do today, and how they were stacking up, one on top of the other, and after praying about it all and asking the Lord to help me get it all accomplished, the answer came. Although, He didn’t answer the way I was expecting Him to, my heart was telling me to set all the chores aside and go to the Nursing Home. Someone needed a friend to pray with them today. (I visit regularly on Thursdays, but today was Tuesday). When I arrived at the Nursing Home, one of the residents had just lost her sister and she needed a friend. I sat and listen to her talk about her family and about growing up with her sister as a child. We discussed several verses of scripture and we prayed together. We talked about life and we talked about death and what it will be like when our time comes to go home to be with our Lord. To see Him face to face where we will be rejoicing and praising Him forever and forever. No more tears, no heartache and no more pain. We shared a very special time together. I left her room to go visit another resident and realized she had just died and I was able to spend some time with her roommate. After leaving her room, one of the nurse’s aides came running up to me and hugged me very tightly and ask me to pray for her and her family. After the day was done, I then knew why the Lord said, “Go, someone needs you today”.
I arrived home shortly after noon and all the chores that had to be done today, started falling in place and I simply prayed, “Thank you Lord, it’s been a good day”. I’m so glad I listened to the still small voice and obeyed because if I had not listened, I would have missed the Blessings.
We are looking forward to the coming months. The holidays will soon be approaching, we are making plans for presenting some special music during the holidays for the Nursing Homes and we are already buying Christmas gifts to pass out during the month of December at all the Homes. We will be announcing our plans for the coming months at our October Fellowship and will provide more information in our October Newsletters.
If you are not involved in the Nursing Home Ministry, you are missing out on all the Blessings. Please consider joining us. We appreciate all the volunteers. Thank you all so very much.
Many Thanks to Pastor Palmer and Pastor Steve Holdren for giving the devotional at the Nursing Homes during the month of September as Karl took a much needed break. It was great and we enjoyed you being with us.
Also, Thanks to Tricia Holdren and daughters for special music presented and to Nellie Anglin and Jennifer for singing the song that Jennifer wrote. Kim and Margie did a beautiful job singing. It was all very special.
We welcome Karl back, all rested and ready to go. It’s not easy to be committed to every Sunday of the month and we realize from time to time, we all need a break. It’s much better to take a break then get burned out and not come back at all. We continue to thank the Lord for all of you who are so faithful.
There was an old deacon in a church who often prayed and when he did so, he would always pray, “Lord, prop us up on our leanin’ side”.
After hearing him pray that prayer many times, someone asked him why he prayed that prayer so fervently.
He answered, “Well sir, you see, it’s like this….I got an old barn out back. It’s been there a long time, it’s withstood a lot of storms, and it’s stood for many years.
It’s still standing…but one day I noticed it was leaning to one side a bit. So I went and got some pine poles and propped it up on the leaning side so it wouldn’t fall.
Then I got to thinking about that and how much I was like that old barn. I’ve been around a long time.
I’ve withstood a lot of life’s storms. I’ve withstood a lot of bad weather in life, I’ve withstood a lot of hard times and I’m still standing too.
But I find myself leaning to one side from time to time, so I like to ask the Lord to prop us up on our leaning side, because I figure a lot of us get to leaning, at times.
Sometime we get to leaning toward anger, leaning toward bitterness, leaning toward hatred, leaning toward a lot of things that we shouldn’t. So we need to pray, “Lord, prop us up on our leaning side, so we will stand straight and tall again, to glorify the Lord.
Many times we are like Jonah, we don’t blatantly turn our backs on God, and we just get on a ship going in the opposite directions.
We can make a difference in our daily walk if we “EXERCISE DAILY AND WALK WITH THE LORD”.
PLEASE NOTE: All contributions to our ministry should be made payable to “Sonshine Outreach Ministries”. You can mail them to c/o Joyce Mancke, 509 Rhonda Dr., Lockport, IL. 6044l. If you are a member of First Baptist Church of Lockport, and would like to give through the church, just indicate on your offering envelope the amount you want to designate to the ministry. All other gifts should be made payable to Sonshine Outreach Ministries. Your gifts are tax deductible and you will receive an end of the year statement.
Our schedule for October is as follows;
Lakewood Nursing Home, Plainfield – Oct. 5th @ 2:30 p.m.
Salem Village, Joliet – Oct. 12th @ 2:30 p.m.
Rosewood Rehab Ctr. – Joliet - Oct. 19th @ 2:00 p.m
Paradise Park, New Lenox – Oct. 26th @ 2:00 p.m.
Please 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
Email: jmancke@sbcglobal.net.
Telephone: 815-351-7659
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
AUGUST 2008 NEWSLETTER
A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law and four year old grandson. The old man’s hands trembled, his eyesight was blurred and his step faltered. The family ate together at the table, but the grandfather’s shaky hands and failing sight made eating difficult. Peas rolled off his spoon onto the floor. When he grasped the glass, milk spilled on the tablecloth. The son and daughter-in-law became irritated with the mess. “We must do something about father”, said the son. “I’ve had enough of his spilled milk, noisy eating, and food on the floor”.
So the husband and wife set a small table in the corner. There Grandfather ate alone while the rest of the family enjoyed dinner. Since Grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a wooden bowl. When the family glanced in Grandfather’s direction, sometimes he had a tear in his eye as he sat alone. Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he dropped a fork or spilled his food.
The four-year old watched it all in silence. One evening before supper, the father noticed his son playing with wood scraps on the floor. He asked the child sweetly, “What are you making?” Just as sweetly, the boy responded, “Oh, I am making a little bowl for you and Mama to eat your food in when I grow up”. The four year old smiled and went back to work. The words so struck the parents, they were speechless. Then tears started to stream down their cheeks. Though no word was spoken, both knew what must be done. That evening the husband took Grandfather’s hand and gently led him back to the family table. For the remainder of his days he ate every meal with the family, and for some reason, neither husband nor wife seemed to care any longer when a fork was dropped, milk spilled, or the tablecloth soiled.
On a more positive note, I’ve learned that, no matter what happens, how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.
I’ve learned that, regardless of your relationship with your parents, you will miss them then they’re gone.
I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same thing as making a “life”.
I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.
I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.
I’ve learned that if you pursue happiness, it will elude you, but, if you focus on your family, your friends, the needs of others, your work and doing your very best for God, happiness will find you.
I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.
I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one.
I’ve learned that every day, you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch - holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.
I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn.
We experienced lots of Blessings during the month of August in our Nursing Home services. Despite the fact that we were a little short handed at Lakewood, we had a wonderful service. Dorothy, a resident of Lakewood, sang with the worship team and also sang a special with Karl. Karl and Margie sang a special and they always do a nice job. The people at
The second Sunday, services were held at Salem Village and the residents are still talking about it. Lynda Downey, Ruth Johnson and Elaine Neuse brought the children from their Sunday School Class from
We also had a Missionary, Thomas Grief, and his families, who are headed to
Illiana Ponce played a piano special which is always beautiful.
We still serve cookies and tea at Salem and the residents continue to ask for more and more cookies. Something homemade is really special to them.
We had a full house at
THE DATE IS SET: October 4th @ 5:00 p.m. We will be having a dinner/singing fellowship, like the old time Camp meeting we had the end of last year. You do not want to miss this fellowship. We had seven churches represented at our last meeting and we had a wonderful time. Many people have asked us to; please have another one, so we are listening to you. Please come and bring your talents of song, musical instruments and testimony.
We will have chili and sandwich rings, just like last year. It is not a fund raiser; however, we need to offset the cost so we will have a box for you to drop in your contribution to go toward the expense of the dinner.
PLEASE NOTE: All contributions to our ministry should be made payable to “Sonshine Outreach Ministries”. You can mail them to c/o Joyce Mancke,
EXERCISE DAILY, WALK WITH THE LORD.
Our schedule for September is as follows;
Rosewood Rehab Ctr. –
Please 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, jmancke@sbcglobal.net. 815-351-7659
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
JULY 2008 NEWSLETTER
The months are flying by so quickly, it’s hard to believe August is already here. We had great services during the month of July, especially in the homes where the children participated. We have so many comments from the residents when the children come; it just brightens up their day. Thanks to Jacob Miller who sang a special number at Salem Nursing Home, you did a great job Jacob and we look forward to hearing you again. At Paradise Park we had three special performances. Hannah Cherry did a great job playing a special number on the piano, Rhys Fuller sang and, as always, he did a beautiful job and Sam Lutchman played a violin special and it was beautiful. We are looking forward to hearing you all again. What a blessing when our children are involved and have a heart to serve.
The story was told of a bunch of tiny frogs who arranged a running competition. The goal was to reach the top of a very high tower. A big crowd had gathered around the tower to see the race and cheer on the contestants. The race began…..but No one in the crowd really believed that the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower. The crowd talked among themselves saying, “It’s way too difficult”, “They will never reach the top” or “Not a chance they will never succeed”, or “The tower is to high”. One by one the tiny frogs began collapsing, many of them grew tired and gave up as they continued to hear the crowd shouting, “It's too difficult, and no one will make it”.
All the tiny frogs had given up except one and he continued to climb until he reached the top of the tower. All the other tiny frogs wanted to know how he had found the strength to succeed and reach the goal??? It turned out….. that the winner was DEAF!
The exciting thing about going to new levels or new heights is, “We have never been that way before”. It’s all new. As a result of that, we need greater dependency upon God to lead us. When we need greater dependency upon God, we began to pray more and read His word more. It is so important that we walk close to Him and lean not upon our own understanding, but in all our ways acknowledge Him and He will direct our paths.
If you want your life full of joy, contentment, and perfect peace, Dr. Henry Blackaby writes in his book, “Experiencing God” – “Find out where God is moving and join Him”
The Nursing Home Ministry has been one of the greatest Blessings of my life. I am so glad that we live by faith and not by sight. If I had looked ahead in time and saw the big picture of what God had called the Ministry team to do, perhaps I would have been like the tiny frog and thought of all the negatives that could happen and the big job ahead and lost my strength to go forward but I thank God that when He calls you to do a service, He also sustains you.
When God leads you to the edge of the cliff, (regardless of what the situation is) trust Him fully and let go. Only 1 of 2 things will happen, either He’ll catch you when you fall, or He’ll teach you how to fly!
I thank God that He is teaching me every day, how to fully lean on Him.
PLEASE NOTE: All contributions to our ministry should be made payable to “Sonshine Outreach Ministries”. You can mail them to c/o Joyce Mancke,
EXERCISE DAILY, WALK WITH THE LORD.
Our schedule for August is as follows:
Rosewood Rehab Ctr. –
Please 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 jmancke@sbcglobal.net. 815-351-7659
Saturday, July 5, 2008
JUNE 2008 NEWSLETTER
“I want that one”, the little boy said, pointing to the runt. The farmer knelt down at the boy’s side and said, “Son, you don’t want that puppy, he will never be able to run and play with you like these other puppies would”. With that the little boy stepped back from the fence, reached down, and began rolling one leg of his trousers up. In doing so, he revealed a steel brace running down both sides of his leg attaching itself to a specially made shoe.
We enjoyed a short month during the month of June, having two Sundays off.
PLEASE NOTE: All contributions to our ministry should be made payable to “Sonshine Outreach Ministries”. You can mail them to c/o Joyce Mancke,
You can also check out our “blog” at; http://www.sonshineoutreach.blogspot.com/
Rosewood Rehab Ctr. –
Please come and join us, we need your talents. You will make a difference and God will bless you for it.
