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.

8/8/09 Worship and the Word Tour

Saturday, we packed up after breakfast and went to Monterey. We played on the beach for about half an hour. It was beautiful but a brisk wind blew. Lisa found a white shell on the beach that she wants to put on a necklace. We had lunch and then headed off to King City.
We arrived at First Baptist Church at 3:30pm and started setting up for leading worship on Sunday morning and a concert Sunday evening. The pastor is Dan Paxton and his wife is Faith. They have 4 kids. They fed us a delicious dinner. There were three families that housed us. Aaron and Jordan stayed with Jason. He was a fun, Godly, single guy who is a kindergarten teacher and he plays drums and electric guitar. Caleb and Levi stayed with the music pastor Steve and his wife. Don, Lisa, Nathan and Samuel stayed with Mike and Robin Foster. They had a lovely two-story home. They were the guitarists for the worship team. Mike is a fireman and robin owns a coffee shop in King City. She is planning on selling it soon and working at the hospital. We had a great time of fellowship and they were very hospitable. Samuel had lots of fun playing with their Chiwawa puppy.

8/7/09 Worship and the Word Tour

Friday Don and James went to James’ music studio at his church to tune a couple pianos. James is wanting to learn how to tune pianos. They ran out of time but Don will come back at the end of August. At 1pm we went to sing at the Life House Care Home. It was the first time the boys sang at a nursing home. There were about 35 to 40 residents there. Don played a lot of songs on the accordion and he and Jordan played a few on the guitar. The room lit up when an elderly gentleman came out to the room we were in. He had a book of hymns and songs (typed in large print). He sang at the top of his lungs and kept requesting more songs. The staff sang along too and seemed to really enjoy the music. They were baking cookies while we were playing and loaded us up with cookies and soda when we left. The staff asked us to please come back again.

After we left there, we went to Guitar Showcase to get a keyboard stand that had broken, had dinner and headed south to Mc Alpine Lake in San Juan Bautista. We camped there and met a Christian Hispanic family across from us- Ruben & Mariviel and their daughter Nathalie. Mariviel is a recording artist and she sang a song for us from her album. She also gave us a copy of her album. We had a great time of fellowship by their campfire. We also met a retired Marine named Max. He sang a song for us called the Baptist Sunday School Chorus. Max was a very interesting fellow just traveling around to all the places he’d never been before.

8/6/09 Worship and the Word Tour

Thursday we packed up and headed toward San Jose. We had intended to sing at a nursing home that afternoon but it took longer to get there than we planned, so we postponed and went there on Friday instead. We stopped at Taco Bell for dinner and then we stopped by Life House Care Home to see how much room we would have to set up and to be familiar with how to get there. We got to our host’s home- James and Katie Nobriga at 6:45pm. Lisa and Katie got to catch up while the boys enjoyed a movie or two. James and Katie have an album they are working on. Their group is called Katie Joy. They are very musical and we really enjoy their friendship. The boys sacked out on the living room floor and Don and Lisa took a hide-a-bed in the office. Samuel slept on a couch pillow in the office. They have a nice condominium in a pretty safe neighborhood.

8/5/09 Worship and the Word Tour

We took our time getting up in the morning and ate breakfast and lunch and made chicken lasagna for dinner later at church. We left about 3:30 and went to the gazebo which was down town Petaluma. At 4pm we started setting up our band and at 5pm played for an hour. There were several families there. Some were dancing with their kids, sitting on the bench and singing along, playing in the play ground or laying down reading a book. There was a man on the street working on his Harley Davidson. This was our first concert on this trip. There was a cold wind and Don’s binder kept turning pages. We put Lisa’s capo on it to hold it open. Samuel did a great job singing the Real People Song and then he ran off to play in the playground. The boys did great. Aaron painted a picture that had an optical illusion. That night we enjoyed the chicken lasagna at the Church of the Open Doors – the Van Meter’s church. Someone bought a copy of Aaron’s Hawk. We went upstairs to an upper room and Don and Lisa led worship with a few songs including Revolution Song. We had church and when we left, a woman gave us $45 as a love offering. It was so good to spend time with Shannon because she shared lots of faith-building stories about how God has been working in their lives. We missed her husband Frank. He was gone for the week doing a tile job for his brother. Frank is an incredible artist and is very talented in remodeling and in music. They have a music ministry called Living Water Music and Art. You can check out their website at livingwatermusicandart.com

8/4/09 Worship and the Word Tour

We slept in a bit and made breakfast cereal for the kids and lunch to take with us and headed to Bodega Bay Beach. We had a hard time climbing the Very Hot sand dunes to get to the water. The kids beat Don and I by far but an awesome time enjoying the clear blue sky and gentle breeze. It was so clear that Lisa got a sunburn on her knees and shins and Don on one foot. Lisa sat in the sand with her fingers and soaking in the beautiful sights, sounds, and smell of the Pacific. We enjoyed our lunch as Shannon made a chicken salad we ate on crackers and Lisa made tortilla roll-ups. When we got home, our 10 bean soup was done and delicious! We ate it all! With garlic French bread and classic cheesecake for dessert. We slept well that night.

8/3/09 Worship and the Word Tour

We finally left Corning at 6:45 PM and headed toward our first destination: Petaluma—Shannon Van Meter and her 3 kids. Frank E, Nita, and Dana housed us graciously. We arrived at 9 PM.

The Townley Family Band takes off!

The Townley Family Band is going on the road! God has given us talent and a desire to share the good news about Jesus. We had three fund-raiser concerts in Corning and God brought in about $1,800 from the time we announced we were leaving to the time we left.