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

GREAT TO WATCH - AN INTERVIEW WITH GOD

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JANUARY 2009 NEWSLETTER AND FEBRUARY 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 Paradise Park Assisted Living

Sometimes a spoken word just does not cover it. . . . you just burst forth into singing. David, the psalmist, knew how to sing. His sin had been great, his repentance sincere, and his forgiveness complete. Naturally it follows that he would be filled with rejoicing. In Psalm 13:5 David says, “I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation.” His confidence in God coupled with God’s response to his struggles led him to remember that God is faithful and good. No one sees, knows, and cares like the Lord. There is no substitute for getting in “tune” with God and His purposes. It would be impossible to know how many difficulties we avoid just by singing the Lord’s song of full salvation.

There is an attraction to the joy-filled life. Those under the pressure of this world of sin can see the contrast and be drawn to the example they see. What an opportunity to tell them of One who can give them full forgiveness and newness of life.

One of the residents who attended the services at Paradise Park was amazed at how happy our Ministry team is. She told me a couple of times, “I just can’t get over how happy all of you are”. I think that is one of the best compliments you could give our Ministry team because it is an example of what Jesus Christ really means to each one of us. The joy and happiness just radiates from each face. We have an amazing team of people, so full of love and encouragement to one another. I can not say enough about our group. I have never seen a team of people that fit together so perfectly, like pieces to a puzzle, and I believe with all my heart, that God brought us all together to work in this Ministry for His Honor and Glory. There is such a sweet, sweet spirit when we are together.

Betty Tan and I visited the Lakewood Nursing Home last week and we gave out “sugar free candy” and “happy birthday tracts” to all the residents with birthdays in January. The little box has 3 pieces of candy in it and they are so proud of that little box, it’s like we have given them an expensive gift. It really opens the door to tell them about the greatest gift that was ever given, the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. We spent about 40 minutes with one of the residents sharing the plan of salvation. She was frustrated and angry about things that are happening in her life and I shared with her, how much Jesus loves her and even though she did not pray the sinner’s prayer, she was very interested in what we were saying. I will meet with her again.

Another gentleman was sitting in the hallway just outside the doorway to his room and he was so sad. His wife shares a room with him and she was sick. I stood by his wheel chair for a long time and just listened to his stories, the stories of his life, the good years that have quickly passed and now the struggles that he is facing. Their children do not come to see them very often, nor seem to care. Even with all the health problems he and his wife are going through, he is concerned about his children and wants to see them so badly. I prayed with him and will be going back to see him again.

As he was talking, I couldn’t help but think about how much God cares for us and how He loves us, and I thought about how He would like for us to talk with Him more often, to pray, to read His word and draw closer to Him, and yet, so many times, we are like this gentleman’s children, we are cold and we go our own ways. May God have Mercy on all of us.

Our services are working out well with the new meeting place at Salem. We have moved from the Sunken Garden in the Lower Level to the main floor in the dining room. It is so much easier for the residents. They don’t have to walk as far and it is much easier for us hauling in all the equipment. We are also having more visitors now that we are on the main level. They come in to see their loved ones and while they are waiting for the elevators, they hear the singing and several have asked if they could come to the services. We had several visitors last month and that is exciting.

God continues to work all things out for His Glory and the Windows of Heaven are open and the Blessings just keep on coming and for all this we give Him all the Praise and all the Glory. Before sending His disciples out as witnesses, He commanded them to wait for the promised Holy Spirit. Herein is the secret to victory over the world, the flesh and the devil. There is no lack of power while the Spirit abides in his fullness. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens each one of us.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phone? What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets? What if we flipped through it several times a day? What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it? What if we used it to receive messages from the text? What if we treated it like we couldn’t live without it? What if we gave it to our kids as gifts? What if we used it when we traveled? What if we used it in case of emergency? I believe that is the way God intended it to be. He wants to be first in our lives.

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 February is as follows;

Lakewood Nursing Home, Plainfield – Feb 1st @ 2:30 p.m.
Salem Village, Joliet – Feb 8th @ 2:30 p.m.
Rosewood Rehab Ctr. –Joliet -Feb.15th @ 2:00 p.m.
Paradise Park, New Lenox –Feb. 22nd @ 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
Email: jmancke@sbcglobal.net
Telephone: 815-351-7659

BERNIE LUTCHMAN INTERVIEW WITH SEAL AMERICA'S TRAVELLING PRAYER MINISTRY THROUGH 50 US STATE CAPITOLS - SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS; SEPTEMBER 20, 2008

DECEMBER 2008 NEWSLETTER, AND JANUARY 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 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

NOVEMBER 2008 NEWSLETTER

Lakewood Nursing Home Salem Village Nursing Home

Rosewood Care Center Paradise Park Assisted Living

The month of November was a challenge to say the least and the devil tried so very hard to destroy our joy and our desire to continue on but “PRAISE THE LORD” he did not succeed. We are committed to serving our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. With Him on our side, we cannot fail.

When we arrived at Lakewood Nursing Home, the first Sunday of the month, we were unloading all the equipment, (we have 2 four wheel carts full of equipment) and we heard an announcement come over the speakers that was loud enough for us to hear outside by our vehicles where we were unloading. They were making an announcement to all the aides, asking them to bring all the residents to the dining room for a piano recital by a group of youth and it was to be held at the same time that our services were to begin in the same dining room.

The bottom line to the story is, Nursing Homes have a hard time keeping employees and they had recently hired a new Director and she knew nothing about our Ministry, thus she scheduled the recital. It didn’t take her long to figure out that she had made a mistake as several of the residents were very upset because we were unable to have the service. One of the homes has had 5 new directors since we started 3 ½ years ago. Most of them do not know the Lord and often do not appreciate our Ministry. SonShine Outreach Ministries has actually stayed at the Nursing Homes longer than most of the employees. We sometimes feel like we are working with foreign missions.

The second week, we were at Salem Village Nursing Home and the Director there decided we did not need heat and she had maintenance turn it off. The residents were not happy because it was too cold for many of them to come to the service. Our attendance was about half as many as we usually have and we had to cover a few of them with blankets. Those are the ones who really appreciate the Ministry and are committed to it.

The third Sunday at Rosewood Care Center was good. We had good attendance and we were privileged to have Lisa Brinkman join our Ministry Team. She sings and plays piano which is a Blessing. Thank you for coming Lisa, we need you. By the third week, we also needed the encouragement and it was great to be blessed with Lisa joining our team.

The fourth Sunday, at Paradise Park Assisted Living, was a great service and we had great attendance, but we were all very sad. One of our very biggest supporters, Ruth Doctor, had just dropped dead on Monday before the service and we missed her so much. She was always there to greet us when we arrived at the home and she always made sure she attended every service. She was a very special lady. We get attached to so many of the residents and they are like our family. It hurts when they leave us, but we Praise the Lord, that we know some day we will see Ruth again. She loved the Lord and we know she is home now.

Well despite all the trials and little problems that happened in November, the Blessings by far, surpassed all the disappointments. Praise the Lord, its great to be a child of God and know He is watching over us every minute and every hour of the day. I serve the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; we can’t fail when we are on the Lord’s side. I’m so glad He loves me and cares for me and even with all my failures and disappointments to Him, He still looks beyond all my faults and supplies every need I’ve ever had. Hallelujah!!! What a Savior. I love Him so much.

December will be a great month. We have a lot going on at all the homes in December. It will be a very busy month but an exciting one. First Baptist Church choir, along with several other volunteers from various churches, are planning to sing the Cantata, “Christmas is a Birthday” at the Nursing homes.

The sweaters are done and ready to pass out. We have 110 sweaters and approximately 65 blankets to give out. The gifts are only given to the residents who attend the services. Gospel “Christmas” tracts are passed out with the gift. I have already received word from one of the homes that our attendance will be larger in December because they know they are receiving a free Christmas present.

That’s o.k. I’ll be happy to give them two gifts if they will give me the chance to tell them about Jesus and His love for them which is the greatest gift they will ever receive.

A young preacher was walking with an older more seasoned preacher in the garden one day and feeling a bit insecure about what God had for him to do; he was asking the older preacher for some advice. The older preacher walked up to a rose bush, handed the young preacher a rosebud and told him to open it without tearing any of the petals. He looked in disbelief at the older preacher and was trying to figure out what a rosebud could possibly have to do with his wanting to know the will of God for his life and ministry. But, because of his great respect for the older preacher, he proceeded to try and unfold the rosebud while keeping every petal intact. It wasn’t long before he realized how impossible this was to do. Noticing the young preacher’s inability to unfold the rosebud without tearing it, he began to recite the following poem:

It is only a tiny rosebud, a flower of God’s design; but I cannot unfold the petals with these clumsy hands of mine. The secret of unfolding flowers. is not known to such as I, GOD opens this flower so sweetly, Then, in my hands, they die. If I cannot unfold a rosebud, The flower of God’s design, Then how can I have the wisdom, To unfold this life of mine? So, I’ll trust in Him for leading, Each moment of my day. I will look to Him for His guidance, each step of the Pilgrim’s way. The pathway that lays before me, only my Heavenly Father knows. I’ll trust Him to unfold the moments, just as He unfolds the rose.

May we run the race with patience, knowing that God is the author and finisher of our faith?

PLEASE NOTE: All contributions to our ministry should be made payable to “Sunshine 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 December is as follows;

Lakewood Nursing Home, Plainfield – Dec. 7^th @ 2:30 p.m.

Salem Village, Joliet – Dec. 14^th @ 2:30 p.m.

Rosewood Rehab Ctr. –Joliet -Dec.21th @ 2:00 p.m.

Paradise Park, New Lenox –Dec... 28^th @ 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