Life & Mission Updates
Lemi Staff's January 2023 DTS
A DTS is a Discipleship Training School (10802NAT – Certificate III in Discipleship) which gives you the opportunity to set aside five and a half months of your life to grow closer to God while giving you the opportunity to put your faith into action. After 13 weeks of training and discipleship at our campus in Townsville, Australia, we take you on nine weeks of outreach where you will have the opportunity to be a part of strengthening lives, communities, and nations.
And Lemi was asked to be one of the staff on the school where he will help disciple the students that are apart of the school. His school has 14 students, within 10 nationalities. They are on week 4 of lectures. Keep an eye out for our updates on what outreach will look like :)
FIRST SPONSOR OUTSIDE BROADCAST
On Saturday, 15 October Live FM had our first outside broadcast for one of our station sponsors. A station sponsor is a local business that supports the station financially in return for advertisement, and things like broadcasts! It was a huge success, with 53 entrants, 80 1L bottles of laundry detergent given away and the store seeing the most people come in on a saturday than they ever have! YES, God calls us to connect with businesses too:)
Celebrating Lemi!
A few weeks ago we celebrate Lemi! He has served 5 years here at Townsville Australia as a full time volunteer! Wow isn't he amazing ;) We celebrated all he has done as he has served in Live FM, on the Performing Arts team, on the worship team, on the venue team (cleaning the base), on the property development team (construction team). We celebrated him finishing several training courses, his PLD, ALD and TAE I & II. He's done so much amazing work and it was so great to hear it all and be able to honour him!
Viking I & II
The Viking boats that will help get crew to land based outreaches have officially arrived in PNG!
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More info coming on this in the future!
Welcomed the Ship Home
Lemi and I got to welcome our YWAM PNG MV medical ship home! It was brought in from PNG for the first time in 2 years to be able to get some maintenance work done. We celebrated it in and cried over all the miracles that have happened on this ship!
Lemi's Work on our YWAM Precinct
As many of you know, YWAM Townsville has been in the work building a YWAM Precinct. An amazing place created to host our youth and help them.
Lemi has been a huge part of the building progress! They have started work on the roof installing aircons (air conditioners), building the inside of the cafe and the kitchen and so much more!
Broadcasting Live for an Event
I got the chance to do an outside broadcast live on air ALL BY MYSELF for the first time for an event. I have done this before for smaller things but never for a full event. It was great to connect with the community, offering kids a chance to win free lollies, and adults a chance to win a grocery voucher. All while helping promote an event that was run to let families know or give resources on how to keep your family and kids safe.
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FIRST Movie Producer Interview
David’s comfortable world is turned upside down when his birth mother unexpectedly reaches out to him, longing to meet the 18-year-old son she’s only held once. With the encouragement of his adoptive parents, David embarks on a journey of discovery that leads to a staggering truth from his past. From executive producers Kirk Cameron and the Kendrick Brothers—creators of War Room and Fireproof—comes LIFEMARK, inspired by an incredible true story that celebrates the gift of life.
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I got the chance, for the first time, to interview producer and actor of the movie, Alex Kendrick!
Building Projects
Both Lemi and I have been pretty busy with building projects.
Lemuel has been apart of the property team doing construction work for our new YWAM Precinct. The precinct will offer transitional accommodation, a high and low ropes course, a community cafe, and a place to do school seminars.
I (Abby) have been doing another building project, although I did the painting part of it while my station manager did more of the building. Due to running now two stations, and the hopes of having another one in Papua New Guinea, we needed more studios to be able to record from. So we turned out conference room in the station into two new studios! Praying and believing that God will fill them up with others whose passion is to speak life through ANY station we run!.
Interviews
Both Lemi and I have been pretty busy with building projects.
Lemuel has been apart of the property team doing construction work for our new YWAM Precinct. The precinct will offer transitional accommodation, a high and low ropes course, a community cafe, and a place to do school seminars.
I (Abby) have been doing another building project, although I did the painting part of it while my station manager did more of the building. Due to running now two stations, and the hopes of having another one in Papua New Guinea, we needed more studios to be able to record from. So we turned out conference room in the station into two new studios! Praying and believing that God will fill them up with others whose passion is to speak life through ANY station we run!.
Fundraising
For those that know, Lemi and I have really been pushing to do better financially. We aren't bringing in enough monthly to even cover our rent, which means most months we get behind. However, we have a huge praise report. In three days of communicating our needs we were able to send in $1,700 for staff fees. Then we rand a fundraiser to get more funds in and raised EXACTLY $1,000!! AND THEN as if God wasn't already showing us that He will sustain us, the day our fundraiser wrapped up, someone on base came and gave us another $1,000 helping cover our fees. Our rent and ALD are taken care of until next month. We are so beyond blessed and it's been so good to be reminded, that even though it seemed impossible, that A. things will happen in God's timing and B. if He has called you to something He alone will sustain you.
Lemis work on Alma Bay Property
As many of you know YWAM now has property on Magnetic Island. It is still at the very beginning stages of work, in hopes of being turned into a retreat center for our base here in Townsville. Lemi and the property team have been busy working over there most days the past couple of months. Meaning he gets up super early to take a ferry and bus over to the property, works all day in construction, gets a ferry home and most days doesn't get home until 6pm. But their work will all pay off! here is his video update with where things are at. We will post before and after pictures soon!
Radio Testimony
Live FM ran our annual appeal from June 21-24, and was able to raise over $81,000!!! Appeals are always my favourite because it reminds me how many people partner with us, and a great encouragement as to why we do what we do. During the appeal we had a guy text us saying he couldn't give but had a story to share about how Live FM changed his life. Take the time to listen because every time I do I am brought to tears. We as announcers sometimes never know who it is we are speaking to or who's lives we are touching but this was an amazing testimony to how we bring life to LOTS of people, people like David who was trying to grow spiritually and turned to radio to do so! This is why I do what I do.
YWAM Cafe Central
Lemi has been volunteering once a week at our YWAM bases cafe that we run down town. He has wanted to be involved for a long time, with a heart to be able to teach his family in the Solomon Islands to make coffee and run a cafe so they can bring in some income as well as teach others. So now he can practice at a real cafe and at home ;)
WE GOT A CAR!
Our dear friend Lucy left a month ago, and GIFTED Lemi and I this vehicle. We were shocked and BEYOND blessed. This doesn't happen often, especially in missions, and we are so grateful for an amazing gift. God is so good.
Melanesian Pride
Lemi is part of a band called Melanesian Pride with some of the guys here on base. They have been getting asked to perform in resorts, restaurants, events, weddings and now even for a city council "Music in the City". It's been so good seeing Lemi grow in his musical abilities and leadership through this opportunity and we couldn't be more proud :)
Easter Treasure Trail
Live FM has our annual Easter Treasure Trail. I event managed it, and Lemi helped set up and run one of the station on the day of the event! It was a huge success, with the event running 2 hours less than last year, and pouring down rain to start off the event, we still had 40 more people come for it than last year. Our ETT helps us engage with the community, bringing them hope and fun while also spreading the easter message. We engage with community, as well as local businesses who partner with us and provide vouchers to hand out. This year we saw 440 people come through the trail!
Fundraiser
As many of you know, Lemi & I have been raising funds for our Visas, Health Insurance and trianing Course. We recently just did a fundraiser where we opened our doors and invited people to have coffee and yummy snacks for a donation. We raised $300- which meant in total we raised $5,000 fully funding us to stay in Australia!
YWAM Jetty Construction
Our Port Moresby campus is under construction! A second level is going in the main building to provide more accommodation and training facilities for students and volunteers. This will give us more capacity to train and equip more people to serve across PNG
WE MOVED!
Over the weekend, Lemi and I got to move into our new apartment. A place we can make home in! It is just around the hall from where we were at before but a bit bigger and more open. Check out how you can partner with us to help us afford this place, as it is a bit more expensive, with our "Partner" tab up top! Although it cost more, we really felt this is a good place to grow as a family and to grow in all God's calling us to do.
Sunday Spotlight IS BACK!
This past Sunday was the first time in 2022 that I brought my show back! It was a great show, where I interviewed Sue Collier, a musician who was pretty famous back in the day and for decades, took a break and became a prison chaplain and is now returning to her music career with a brand new EP!
You can find my interview by heading to http://livefm.com.au/suecollierinterview/
Lemi performing with Melanesian Pride
For those that may not know, Lemi is part of singing group called Melanesian Pride, and they have the amazing opportunity of performing every Sunday at a Resort and Bar here in Townsville. This has really helped Lemi step out in his gifts in music!