UYWI08

This week our youth outreach staff are at the Urban Youth Workers Institute conference in southern California. We know they are excited and, those of us remaining at the office, are also excited for them as they are renewed your ministry and encouraged by others in ministry.

This well-made video gives you a better idea of the Institute's mission and the intention of this week's conference.


Voice of Hope from UYWI on Vimeo.

You can visit the Urban Youth Worker's Institute here.

A Peak Into Club 2-5-2

As the school year winds down, it goes almost without saying that our after school programs are beginning to wind down as well. (We have quite the line-up of summer programming, but that's for another entry.) Peering into the multipurpose room yesterday during Club 2-5-2 - our tutoring program - you'd see no sign, though, of any type of wind down. Rather, things were seemingly winding up as Dave Clark, Pete Blodgett, and their fine team of high school and college volunteer reached back into their past and pulled from a stash of Awana games. I can't say there was any great Biblical meaning or academic tie-in, just an opportunity to stretch those legs and see who could run fast. I couldn't help but grab a few snapshots of all the excitement.

Pete, Dave, and Aron (front to back) show the kids how the relay is played.

"Come on, faster!"


Team picture.


Looks like they've got a system down.


Prayer to close out the night.

A Process Report on Sunshine Cove

Dear Friends,

I am excited to be able to give you an update about what is happening with our summer ministry.

As you know, we have been blessed to own and operate Sunshine Cove Christian Camp for many years and this has been our focus for ministry during summer. Over the past year, however, we have decided to no longer operate our own facility and have wrestled with how to go about transitioning the facility to new ownership.

I am grateful to be able to tell you that Sunshine Gospel Ministries will remain in partnership with Sunshine Cove and will be sending campers to the Cove again this summer. During the past few months we have been negotiating a process that we expect to result in Sunshine Cove Christian Camp becoming a separate entity, operating as a new independent ministry.

This new partnership arrangement will allow Sunshine to expand what we are doing this summer here in the city. Each year the youth in our community face struggles of the urban context scarcely imaginable to most. In just this past week Chicago’s urban communities have dealt with more than 35 shootings – about half have been in our community and those that immediately surround us.

As we wrestle with what effective urban youth ministry means this summer, we realize that God is calling us to have a more profound neighborhood presence. With this in mind we will be providing 8 weeks of youth technology programming (TECHcamp and After School Matters programming) as well as 6 weeks of Summer Blast (this in addition to our overnight, residential camping at Sunshine Cove). We will also continue our Bible studies and youth outreach events, reaching hundreds of kids here in our community.

We depend on your partnership and are grateful for your role in bringing the hope of the gospel and the hands of Christ to our community. Please partner with us generously this summer in both financial support and in prayer. Your financial support will allow us to increase the number of youth that are able to attend camp – Summer blast, TECH camp, and Sunshine Cove. Standing with us in prayer will enable you to surround us with spiritual protection extending to the physical well-being of our youth, their families and our staff.

Thank you for your prayer and financial support!

Joel on behalf of the Sunshine family.

P.S. If you would like to learn more about about ministry or, would like to give to our summer camp outreach, visit our new website at www.sunshinegospel.org

A New Look

Your eyes are not deceiving you; Sunshine, in fact, has adopted a new brand identity! Sunshine has worked closely with designers at Headstand Media to use color, line, and shape to better communicate with you.

While our outreach efforts are concentrated in Chicago’s Woodlawn, Washington Park, and Bronzeville neighborhoods, our relationships and partnerships reveal our desire to see the city broadly impacted and renewed through ministries of discipleship, mercy, and justice. We do this through building relationships, teaching and mentoring, developing life skills, care and advocacy in our community.

Ministry mission and vision statements tend to evolve over a long period of time, and Sunshine is no exception. Regardless of our programs specifics, however, our lengthy ministerial experience has only reinforced what we know is Jesus Christ’s commitment to shalom, translated peace, between people groups, in homes, in churches, and in neighborhoods.

We believe our new brand best communicates our desire have a reciprocal relationship and influence with our greater community, with parents and children involved with our programs; and with local churches, college students, volunteers, and contributors…this includes you! Our logo, our website, our blog, and our newest literature were designed with you in mind. Our website and our blog, in particular, were created to be informative, interactive, and easy to navigate.

We hope you will spend a few moments browsing our new website and will check back periodically for new stories, event and program listings!

Program Update

Technology Center

Our technology center continues to be one of the greatest means for us to meet our neighbors and provide the service of free access to computers and Internet as well as basic and intermediate classes in Microsoft Office applications and Internet living.

Since we first moved in to our 500 E. 61st Street building in January 2007, we have seen nearly 500 people taken advantage of our Internet Cafe. Of this number, nearly 150 of those have been from the start of this year. These numbers include those individuals who have stopped by only once as well as those individuals who stopped by several times each week. Also, an increasing number are utilizing our paid services of printing, copyin and faxing. It seems our friends are spreading the word around the block and to their friends.

Classes for adults continue to be warmly received and well-attended. Morning sessions are being held in basic computer literacy and Microsoft applications. Students are currently making their way through the functions of Microsoft PowerPoint. Thursday evenings the Center offers class on Online Living. A weekend training in job readiness, which includes teaching in resume building, will be offered to area residents.

Our high-school apprenticeship program in Home and Small Office Computer Networking, in partnership with the city's After School Matters initiative, has also continued to be a success. We have offered this particular semester-long apprenticeship a several times, and each time, the student's personalities make teaching the class a unique, dynamic experience.

Youth Outreach

Our tutoring program - Club 2-5-2 - used the Chicago Public School's Spring Break last week to go on field trips to the DuSable Museum and Chinatown. The Club 2-5-2 store was also opened. The students enthusiastically spent their Sunshine Bucks, which they'd earned through hard work which resulted in improved academic achievement, as rewards for their hard work. In the process of earning Sunshine Bucks and establishing the Store students have an incentive to learn and improve upon the basics of banking.

Teens who have been apart of our Friday afternoon discipleship studies took time over Spring Break to visit colleges. They took tours of Wheaton and the University of Illinois in Chicago where they learned more about the programs, courses, and extracurriculars of the universities. In weeks past, the students also toured Moody Bible Institute and were able to sit in on a classes, attended chapel and stayed in the dorms.

Bridge Builders

We are entering our third week of Bridge Builders urban immersion trainig during college's spring break weeks.

We have hosted groups of 46 and 43 the past two weeks from several universities. This week we had an additional 10 participants join us for a total of about 35 students. It's a lifechanging experience for the student participants.

One student wrote:

"The sessions were eye-opening and very informative. The information was presented in an effective and organized way that had a huge impact on me. [Bridge Builders] completely changed my heart for the poor, the homeless, and other cultures. My idea of ministry has been altered by these sessions and my heart is burdened deeply by the issues we have discussed."

Comments such as this one encourage us and we hope they'll encourage you too.

So we have another busy week of ministry, work projects, and Bible study coming up. Please pray that God would really be at work in the heart and minds of all involved and that our time spent would be of real benefit to those we serve both from the community and from outside.

A Marked Difference

Written by Pete Blodgett, Sunshine's Youth Pastor

Late one Thursday afternoon I was at the height of frustration. See, Club 2-5-2 (our tutoring program) is structured with "stations" - stations in reading, math, writing, technology, etc. At that moment my frustration was mounting, I was overseeing the tutoring station where students were working hard on improving their typing. Well, all except one. For some reason, one student, who I'll call "D.L.", insisted on typing "his way".

His way meant using two fingers to punch the keys - a way he was quite comfortable with. He was equally as comfortable with the slow pace of his way. (Perhaps some of you have similar stories with teaching your children.) I had tried everything to get him to do it "right": incentives, pleading, even punishment. Nonetheless, each week his stubbornness persisted, he continued to ignore me, and he typed his own way.

I soon found that if I pushed him too hard, he would shut down completely, making the matter even worse. He would hang his head and refuse to respond to anyone. He started using this shut down technique at any station that seemed too hard. The situation, clearly, wasn't getting any better and in time, I wasn't the only tutor who was frustrated by D.L.'s behavior.

Fast-forward a couple months and you'll find a new D.L. He enjoys every part of Club 2-5-2, even the technology station. He is more willing to work at stations that may seem hard at first, and his behavior has seemingly turned around completely. He has even started encouraging other students when they want to give up. As you can imagine, this is the change that we hope to see in every student.

None of us know exactly what brought about the sudden change. We do know that the D.L. who signed up for tutoring in September is not the same D. L. that returned from Spring Break. Perhaps he's simply grown in confidence. Perhaps it's an answer to prayer. Or, the likely scenario that it's a combination of both.

Not only is D.L. improving academically, but his character is being strengthened by the godly influence of our college tutors. He is starting to grow into the man that God wants him to be!

2008 Legacy Conference

We serve a God - Jesus Christ - who is about the redemption of ALL things. Hip-hop is NOT excluded. Because of this, folks at Sunshine are apart of a team which will host the next Legacy Conference here in Chicago in August. It will once again be a three-day conference this time from August 14-16. We are still trying to lock down the location, however many of the same speakers/teachers have already committed for this year: Paul Washer, Shai Linne, Lecrae, Flame, Tedashi, Trip Lee, Azriel, and more.

You can also check out the web site at www.legacy-conference.org