Midday Connection
Midday Connection is a live, 54-minute radio program designed to encourage women, with a focus on growing the whole person: body, mind and soul. Hosted by Anita Lustrea and Melinda Schmidt, the broadcast brings listeners relevant content about marriage, parenting, the workplace, finances and 
issues that affect their spiritual lives. Midday is a community of women growing together.
Midday Connection was awarded “Program of the Year” by the National Religious Broadcasters in 2007. Executive Producer Lori Neff has led the Midday team in many innovative efforts to increase interaction with listeners. Midday will truly connect with your audience with an array of resources related to the daily program. Listeners have the opportunity to go beyond the broadcast each day with a blog, book club, forums and a recently-released daily devotional, Daily Seeds from Women Who Walk in Faith.
Hosts
Anita Lustrea is originally from Blue Hill, a beautiful oceanside town in coastal Maine. She grew up as a PK (pastor’s kid) in the north woods of Maine, and always had a deep longing for spiritual things and a desire to reach out to others. Lustrea attended Ben Lippen High School as a resident student. From there, she went on to major in Bible and Theology at Moody Bible Institute. Upon graduation, she traveled for a year with a Christian singing group. Before coming back to Chicago to work full-time with Moody Broadcasting in 1984, she was a youth director to a small inner city youth group in Kansas City, Kan.
Lustrea’s first role for Moody Broadcasting was music director. Later, she became Friday Sing producer. Hosting Midday Connection has been her favorite position. Lustrea is involved in the spiritual formation ministry of her church. She also enjoys traveling around the country speaking and singing, while meeting and talking with women about issues that affect their daily lives. One of Lustrea’s favorite Scripture passages is Matthew 11:28-30. Lustrea, along with her husband, Mike, and son, John, live in the Chicago suburbs. To learn more about Anita and her speaking schedule, please visit Anita Lustrea's website.
Melinda Schmidt grew up in Wheaton, Illinois, listening to Moody Radio’s flagship station, WMBI-FM. As a kid, she was eager to grab the mic of the family’s Wallensak tape machine to record make-believe news broadcasts and imaginary radio shows. Early tapes have her announcing the arrival of “the Beagles”—otherwise known as "the Beatles"—to America. A career in broadcasting appears to have been inevitable! After graduating from Moody Bible Institute as a Communications/Broadcasting major, Schmidt received her degree in Broadcasting and Bible from Calvary Bible College in Kansas City, Mo.
She began her professional career at Calvary’s radio station, KLJC-FM, and then came to WMBI-FM in 1980 as afternoon news reporter. She and Jim Warren were the first hosts of Moody Broadcasting’s national program, Prime Time America. During her time there, she met and married PTA guest David Schmidt, then left Moody Broadcasting and began family life. Since her return to Moody, Schmidt has served as executive producer of Network Morning Drive for Moody Radio Group. She and her family live in the western suburbs of Chicago.