|PIC1|Joshua and Helen Avia began this network of Hosanna Churches in New Zealand with five churches, and now the churches are also found in Los Angeles, India and Australia.
"My own family was Christian but it was my grandparents who were one of the first people in their family group who accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour through the early missionary endeavours in Samoa," Helen Avia explained. "It was their prayers that were the foundation stones for my Christian commitment."
In this way, she is part of a rich history in Christian circles for petitions to the Lord by grandparents and great grandparents that future generations be followers of the Lord.
Helen Avia was one of the delegates at the recent Baptist World Alliance Living Water Australasian-South Pacific conference held in Cairns where she gave a video testimony for Australian Missionary News IPTV.
This IPTV channel is a courtesy of SafeWorlds IPTV, which provides a Christian channel within their commercial IPTV network. It is run by Well-Being Australia's 'Basil Sellers Press Service International'.
"I was nine years old when I gave my life to Jesus Christ and accepted Him as my personal Saviour. Since I am now 47 years old, my life has been one of constant training as a follower of Jesus as I have continued in a maturing of my faith," Helen Avia told Mark Tronson of the Australian Missionary News IPTV.
Helen speaks of her walk with the Lord as a hand-in-hand journey. She feels that one of her gifts in Christian service that has come to the fore has been the ability to be a 'life influencer'.
One only needs to meet Helen Avia and it's obvious that her 'life influencing' skills have been beautifully honed by raising her family, assisting Joshua run busy congregations and where she has influenced the lives of young people where they too have accepted the Lord Jesus as their personal Saviour.
"Encouragement is a wonderful ministry, I love being an encourager for the Kingdom of the Lord," Helen Avia said.
As the Hosanna Church network has developed internationally, Joshua and Helen Avia with their four children, have found, like numerous other busy people, that someone needs to keep the home fires burning.
"This has been my role in our family and those occasions when Joshua has had to be away, I've depended on the Lord to help me through each wonderful day with our four busy children and various things associated with the church," Helen Avia explained.
Joshua and Helen Avia relocated to Brisbane in January 2009 establishing the Brisbane Hosanna Church and since that move, they have established another church back home in New Zealand, one in Los Angeles, one each in Melbourne and Sydney along with the first Hosanna Church in India.