When God calls, He provides

God blessed my family last year by sending myself and my youngest son Samuel to India on a mission trip. My sister Brenda and her husband Steve have been serving the wonderful people of India for over 7 years now and we were able to join them in their service. It was wonderful to see them in action as they loved on the children at Kids Home Orphanage, met physical needs of the poor, widows, lepers and lost as we gave out clothes and food, offered free medical treatment and shared the gospel. It gave me such joy to minister as I sang and spoke wherever we visited. This year our 17 year old son, Levi will be joining Samuel and I. We will be leaving around December 15th and plan on spending Christmas with them in India. This will also be our first Christmas with my mom in Heaven. My dad will be traveling to India with my niece Rachel and her sweetheart Michael to join us. We will be helping organize and participate in the Kids Home Christmas celebration before we begin other team ministry activities.

This is Levi

These are my wonderful parents. Miss my mom so much!

There will be 10 on this team this year, including Ruth Ann Rowen and Denise Mendenhall. We plan to teach Bible lessons to the children as well as crafts, games, and singing wherever we minister. Last year I was the guest speaker and singer for a Ladies Tea outreach and we are excited to participate in another of these. My sister said that there was a lot of positive response to this and she is looking forward to organizing another of these for the English speaking ladies in the area. We will also be able to help the local pastors as we support them in their ministries as we come along side them. We will be helping a village pastor with a church building project both financially and physically. Poverty is so prevalent in India and there are so many still who have not given their hearts to Jesus. It is wonderful to have this opportunity to put Matthew 25: 34-40 into action as we minister to those our Heavenly Father holds so dear. We will be having a fund-raising event at First Church of God on Saturday, October 24th at 6 pm. If you would like to join with us in our effort to reach the lost and minister in India, please join us. We will be having a dinner and pie auction. Our goal is to raise $5,000 for the projects the team will be doing, besides travel expenses (approximately $4,000) The Townley family will be sharing both about the ministry as well as sharing their music. Please reserve your seat as a guest for a delicious Indian dinner by calling Lisa at 736-8774. If you would like to donate a pie for the auction please let me know. We already have people volunteering to buy and cook all the food for this event. God is GOOD!! Thank you! Blessings in Christ, Lisa Townley

Fusion Youth Gathering

One of the things I love about how God has led our family to be involved in music & leading worship is to see our boys (who are now young men) stepping up to the plate and leading or playing at different churches, youth groups, & events. This school year, Levi- age 17 and Nathan- age 15 have been asked to be a part of the band that leads worship for the youth of our city. Fusion is a youth event that meets twice a month. Once a year they have a big all night party called Fusion 3D. Tonight Nathan is playing keyboard and Don is playing drums.

We only have three boys at home now. Levi is on a rotating worship team at Freedom Church playing bass guitar or box drum, and sometimes plays bass or guitar at Community Baptist Church (CBC). Nathan is playing piano at CBC every week and loves it. Samuel who is 11 years old plays drums at Spirit of Life church in Los Molinos where Don plays keyboard and I lead with singing. I absolutely love to enter into the presence of God as I lead the congregation to worship and adore the King of Kings!

It's about time!!

We put this blog on hold for a while, but now I feel led to get back to keeping it up. So much has happened since we launched our first tour! I think we will just catch up from our current life. Let me introduce you to our first grandchild! This is Jacer Steven Townley. He was born 8 months ago, on January 19, 2015.

He is so fun, and full of expression! Caleb, our second oldest son, and is wife Kyrie live in Redding, Ca. Caleb is working on getting an engineering degree. Kyrie's family is from Orland and they recently moved to Malaysia to be missionaries. We get to spend time with Caleb & his precious family every week or two. It's amazing how fast time flies! Jacer is now crawling! Click on the video to play. =)

What a joy to be a grandma! I've always loved children, but this is a special treat from the Lord! Blessings in Christ, Lisa Townley

FUN DAY Saturday the 19th of June.

Hi , This Saturday the Townley Family band along with Christian Rapper from Sacramento (Marcus) and Olive Branch praise team will be playing in the Corning City pool park for FUN DAY, sponsored by Olive Branch Baptist Fellowship from 10am to 4pm. Two jump houses, free hot dogs, games and much more. Be there or be square. :-)

Resurrection Sunday

...Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)

We were so blessed to play the music for the Easter Sunrise service! It was 35 degrees and windy. We got some hand-warmers to keep in our pockets so our fingers could defrost in between songs. There were more than 50 people from several different congregations who attended. It was great to worship our RISEN LORD with the believers of Corning!

GPS

Our family is a part of a nation-wide campaign called GPS (God's Plan for Sharing) through the Southern Baptist Convention. This last week our church hung about 2000 of beautifully designed gospel tracks with an invitation to attend Sunday service. I am so proud of our boys for all the blocks they walked- even in the cold rain!

Easter

Wow! Life has been a whirlwind these days! We have been playing LOTS of music in the North State and we are booking another two-week tour this summer. We are playing acoustic instruments and singing next Sunday for Easter Sunrise (7am) service at the Cemetery in Corning. We always look forward to it even though it is usually chilly and our fingers have a hard time playing guitars! Easter is our favorite of all holidays. Jesus' resurrection from the dead gives us hope for eternal life when this life on earth is done. We have an inheritance kept in Heaven that will never perish, spoil or fade! Because of our faith in Jesus, God's power is a shield about us!

2/14/10 Happy Valentine's Day!

The Townley Family Band is really busy these days, with about eight concerts/ leading worship in the next two months including opening for the Nelon’s and playing for the Care Net Pregnancy banquet in Red Bluff. Samuel is finally getting Real People song down and the boys are playing better. Caleb on drums, Levi on bass, Jordan on electric guitar and Nathan and Samuel on percussion and vocals. Here's our schedule:
Feb. 12 Palo Cedro Community Church Valentine's Dinner (Redding)6pm
Feb. 15 Good News Rescue Mission (Redding)6pm
Feb. 27-28 Woman's Retreat (Assembly of God Church, Orland)Sat-9am,1pm Sun-10am
March 7 Opener for Nelons (First Church of God,Red Bluff)6:30pm
March 15 Good News Rescue Mission (Redding)6pm
March 20 Coffee Connection (Mt Shasta City)7:30pm
March 27 Feed the Homeless (Woodson Park, Peach St. Corning)

October 19, 2009 Good News Rescue Mission

We were asked to lead the worship and bring the Word at the Good News Rescue Mission in Redding, CA. We brought the keyboard for Don to play and one guitar for Lisa to play and Susan Cripe came to join us with her beautiful singing and Levi played percussion and sang. With the three of us singing we had some sweet 3 part harmonies going on! We were SO BLESSED to see most of the 200 homeless people really getting into the worship! We felt the Holy Spirit moving and Don shared his testimony and God's plan of salvation. We were asked several times to come back again. We would love to!

October 3, 2009 Care Net Walk for Life

It was a cool, breezy morning as we headed up to Red Bluff, CA at 6:30 in the morning. Care Net Pregnancy Center was having one of their biggest fund-raisers of the year. We were asked to set up our sound system and play music for two hours. We were able to add a few musicians to our group for the day and that made our time of worship all the more enjoyable. Our 17 year old son, Caleb, who is a missionary with CEF was working up in Manton at the Apple Festival so he couldn't play drums for us. Pastor Walter & Elvey Bright from Tehama Assembly, as well as Susan Cripe from Capay helped us with this concert. Walter is an awesome drummer and his wife Elvey has a lovely soprano voice. Sue has been singing with our band for several years and adds such beautiful harmonies. It was great to see people walking by who were not even a part of the Walk for Life, enjoying the music. We had Don, Lisa, Jordan and Levi Townley participating for this event as well. We are so blessed to have the opportunity to worship the living God in public!

Saturday, 8/22/09 Olive Festival

At 1pm today we played at the Olive Festival. It was a challenge! Some of the boys were gone, and that left Nathan, Samuel, Don and Lisa. When we first started, Nathan looked like he was about to faint. He said he felt sick to his stomach. It was a hot day, so Lisa poured some cool water on his head and back to see if that would help. It didn't. Since he was not able to sing at the beginning, Don and Lisa did a few songs (Household of Faith & Beautiful One). Then Nathan tried to sing with us for a few kids songs. He was having a hard time. We felt frustrated at the way things were turning out, but we kept our eyes on Jesus and shared that "Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father accept through Him." There were several people enjoying the music and the message. A few even came up to us afterward to thank us. It's a good thing that "In our weakness, He is strong."

Ministring in Corning

On Tuesday, Lisa stopped by the Spring Mountain Apartments in Corning to see if they would like us to do a concert for them. Mary, the manager, said that Wednesday was the last day they would be serving lunch and wanted to know if we could play during lunch. Don, Lisa, Nathan and Samuel went down and played some music. It was fun, Nathan played our small drums and sang, Don and Lisa played guitar and sang, and Samuel sang a little. There were not many people, but we announced that the Townley Family Band would be playing on Saturday, August 29th at 4pm.

This coming weekend is the Olive Festival in Corning. Our band was asked to play for about 45-50 minutes at Woodson Park just down the street from our house on Peach St. We will be playing at 1pm. (Caleb is not going to be there though.)

8/15/09 Worship and the Word Tour

Saturday, after we left Fresno, we went up to Redding. Lisa's sister Brenda and her family are missionaries in India. They were going to be leaving on Monday evening and we wanted to spend time with them before they left. They will be back next May.

Our first tour is over and we had a meeting with the boys about our trip. We wrote down things we liked, disliked, and want to do different next time. We all very much enjoyed this trip and we will be planning a trip across the US in April. We will be praying about Mike's offer to record us in his studio in Arizona. We may just travel through Death Valley in the Spring and enjoy God's beautiful creation since the desert flowers will be in bloom.

8/14, 8/15/09 Worship and the Word Tour

Friday after we left the campsite, we went to Fresno and hung out at Barns and Nobles for about an hour. Then we went to The Revival Center for church. We really enjoyed the worship and the message. The Lord wants us to keep our eyes on Him when the discourager is at work. Jesus is our encourager! We must keep our eyes on the Lord! Things won't always be as hard as they are right now.

After church, we went to the home of Kristen and Lance Walters. Lance is the drummer at their church. Kristen served us pizza when we got there and we had a wonderful time of fellowship with them. They live is a beautiful community. Lisa enjoyed spending time with the Lord early that morning at the neighborhood park. While Don was outside loading the van, a gentleman across the street started visiting with Don and Caleb. After a bit, he put his hand on Don's shoulder and started praying for Don and our family ministry. Don was encouraged to start offering prayer to the people every time we sing. We were all so very blessed from our time in Fresno.

8/14/09 Worship and the Word Tour

After a nice big, leisurely breakfast Don took some of the boys to the pool and then we started packing up. We got a phone call through our 800 number from Mike in Arizona. He wanted to hire Don to check out a piano for him in French Gulch. We talked for quite a while and he said he has a recording studio and if we were ever in his area he would like to donate his time to help record us. He was very kind and generous. We hope to take him up on his offer next spring. The boys played in the game room and we headed north to Fresno for the last meeting in the current building for Abbas Heart Revival Center.

8/13/09 Worship and the Word Tour

8/13/09 Thursday, Tim fed us Coach’s Oatmeal and then Hayley helped us setup this blog. THANKS HAYLEY!!! We headed for Visalia, just south of Fresno to play for a nursing home called Casa Grande Senior Care Home. This place was very fancy and nice. The folks really enjoyed Don’s accordion music. Some songs came to his remembrance while he was playing that were awesome old songs.
After that we went to a KOA Kampground. We set up our tents then jumped in the pool. We roasted hot dogs over the open fire and played some music using our little battery powered amp called the Cube. Don played some jazzy tunes with some reverb and Jordan played bongos. This was our first experience with KOA campground and we had a blast with the game room and the pool. Like this is real camping! We met a lot of people from Europe namely France, Netherlands, and Germany. They were traveling around in rental RV's with their families. Most of them were visiting Yosemite.

8/12/09 Worship and the Word Tour

Tim made us pancakes and then we went to two of the retirement homes in San Luis Obispo. We played at Cabrillo nursing home at 1:30 for 30 minutes. The activities director was a man FULL of energy. He was dancing around in the back of the room- very animated! Next, we went to Mission View nursing home. The room was packed and many of the people sang along and clapped. They were so grateful that we came. Tim and Hayley came and watched the concert. They were so encouraging. After we were done with that we all went to watch Tim play two co-ed soccer games at a park with a bunch of guys and gals. After the first game of Tim being practically MVP we were tired and so all of us went back home except for Jordan. He stayed with Tim to watch the second game. After Jordan and Tim got back we all sat down to a feast of spaghetti, two different types of garlic bread, and some fruit salad. After the amazing meal we all hit the sack.

8/11/09 Worship and the Word Tour

Tuesday mid-morning, we left King City and went to stay with Don’s brother Tim and his wife Hayley. We got there around noon and Hayley took us to the Graduate for lunch. We hung out at their awesome home in the afternoon, and then went to a beach near Pismo beach and the boys had a blast. Then they took us to a nearby town for dinner. We ate at the Klondike Pizza Parlor. They have all you can eat for $8 on Tuesday s including pizza, garlic bread, salad, and drinks. The servers walk around with a fresh cooked pizza, calling out what kind it is. You decide if you want a slice of it or wait for the next one to come by. It was a lot of fun especially because there were video games and a music box thing where you pay one dollar then you can pick which genre of music and what song you want it to play. But this wasn't just an ordinary music box, it looked like a player piano and it had a banjo, and rhythm instruments behind a glass case above the piano and drums and percussion instruments behind a glass case in the baseboard. It was fun to listen to and we got it on video too.

8/10/09 Worship and the Word Tour

Monday,our band played at the Mee Memorial Hospital for the terminally ill. These folks were so grateful and they sang along. Samuel did a good job singing. We ended with him singing Jesus Loves Me and we went around to each person to shake their hands and bless them. They asked us to come back again. The boys commented that it is nice when the folks interact and sing along. That night we stayed at the Foster’s home. We are so grateful for their generosity and hospitality.

8/9/09 Worship and the Word Tour

Sunday our band led worship during church. Pastor Dan had us play for half an hour without interruption. It was great! The church was pretty full. There were some visitors there too. One group of teens were there who had helped lead VBS. We really appreciated how they joined in the singing and worshiped wholeheartedly. Lisa stayed for a ladies lunch/ secret sister revealing, then she and Robin came back to the house. Lisa took a LONG nap! That night at 7pm we did our concert. It went well. It is a little easier when there is an audience that enters in. We sold some CDs, T-shirts and a hawk and along with the love offering, we received $490 from these very generous folks! We stayed one more night with our three host families then Monday morning we met at the Foster’s.