Where is God Taking Us?

I thought I would try and bring everyone up to date on what is happening with us in regards to a future in full time missions, at least everyone who reads this blog.

It started about 2 weeks before my father passed away (March 11, 2011), all of a sudden doors that were closed for the past 10 years began opening.  The first door was Wycliffe Bible Translators, they are very interested in us joining their photojournalism team in Nairobi, Kenya.  This is exactly what I want to do so I am partial to Wycliffe but I am trying not to allow my desires to get in the way of what God wants for us.  That is why I am looking at all the possibilities that are before us at this time.  I have had many conversations with Wycliffe and we are ready to apply but we can't until we get a credit card paid down.  God has already answered that prayer and now we are waiting for the check to come so we can pay down the card.  Once we get it paid we will start the application process.  Africa Inland Mission was the next open door and they also want us to go to Kenya.  If we were to go with AIM then we would live in Kijabe, Kenya and we would be dorm parents at the Rift Valley Academy in Kijabe.  RVA is a Christian boarding school for Missionary kids, we would be living in a dorm with the kids and would be their surrogate parents.  RVA is a big school with more than 500 students from more than 20 countries.  Some of our other duties would be maintenance work or teaching photography at the school.  Morgan and Lyndsey prefer this option as they both want to go to RVA.  So far, Kelly also prefers this option.  I also am beginning to think this is my favorite option, but photojournalism is what I would love to do as a missionary.  AIM was the second open door but was the first one that we started applying with.  The next open door was World Team, who I was not really excited about at first but the more I talk to them the more excited I get.  They are very aware that we are looking at other opportunities and have asked us to consider a 1 to 2 year trip to their West African field.  They will tailor a trip around our skills and desires.  They want me to work as a photojournalist and document the work that their missionaries are doing.  They also have many opportunities for a maintenance/construction/mechanical person, as much or as little as I want to do while we are there.  There is also a boarding school called the Rain Forest International School where we could be dorm parents and the girls could attend.  We would be in Niger part of out time and then in Cameroon part of our time.  We recently started the application process with World Team as well.  Evangelical Baptist Missions is the latest open door, they were one of the first but it started as only a crack but has all of a sudden swung wide open.  They just today asked us to consider coming to Mali for a survey trip.  They have a couple of things that they would like us to consider.  In Mali they want us to consider running their guest house in the capital city.  I would also do maintenance and help build churches in the villages.  I could also teach photography at a MK school or to the locals to give them a skill with which to support their families.  They also have a lot of opportunities for us in Niger.  There are pros and cons with each of the ministries but I am honestly very excited about each one of them.  One of the things that we are trying to do while we look at our options is to get out of debt as much as we can.  God has been proving Himself mighty in this, He has blessed us in ways that we can't explain and we give Him the honor and praise that is due Him.  Just this year we were able to pay off 2 credit cards and just recently we made the last payment on our van.  We have a second mortgage on the house that we hope to be able to pay off by the end of the month and we hope to have our last credit card paid in full by the end of the summer (or at least the end of the year).  This will leave us with a school loan and a mortgage.  Isn't God amazing, we have struggled for the past 8 years (while I was working) to pay these bills.  Now that I am unemployed not only are they being paid, they are being paid off.  I can't explain it other than this, God is a God of Wonders.  I could go into more detail about the opportunities that God is giving us at this time but I have a hard time keeping the details straight so I think I will just stop this post here for now.  Hopefully I will have an update for you soon.

Photoman

It Was A Big Job But We Will Be Finished On Time!

Sorry that it has been so long since my last post, this answer to our prayers has turned out to be a lot of work.  I am not complaining it was a blessing, it just took all our effort and energy to get everything out of the house by May 1st.  We were able to get everything that we want to keep out but there is still quite a bit of stuff that we are giving to our church youth group that we need to move tomorrow.  The youth group has an annual sale in the spring, so it made sense to give a lot of the stuff that we didn't want to them so they could move it.  The plan was they would get a group of kids together and they would load and unload it.  Well that is not happening so I get to help the youth director load and unload it.  So one more day of moving and we will be all done, with the move that is.  Now we have the monumental task of unpacking and finding places to put all of the stuff that is currently sitting all around the house, in the garage, in a trailer (that is sitting in our backyard), in my moms garage and in a small storage room of our church.  Tonight I have to go back to the house and take down some ceiling fans and put up the regular lights that were there when we moved in, load up the rest of the cleaning supplies and wait for the youth director to help us move stuff tomorrow.  Will keep you up to date hopefully a little better after this move is finished.

Well, I just got finished with the fans and putting up the old lights, so now I just have to get the stuff to the church youth sale and load up all of the cleaning supplies.  That should take most of the morning tomorrow and possibly part of the afternoon, depending on how much help I have.  Then I can turn in the keys and ask for my move out incentive money.  Praise the Lord!

On a side note, Kelly and I are trying our best to get completely out of debt (not including the house) so that we can get on the mission field sooner rather than later.  In order to do this we are selling a lot of things that we have collected just for this occasion.  We started collecting things just for the sake of collecting them knowing that we may end up on the mission field one day we decided that we would sell them when the day was looking more realistic.  That time it seems has come so we are selling a lot of things (mostly my things as I am the collector of the family).  We have over 500 board games, I am selling all of my darkroom equipment, all of my film cameras, all of my small collectibles and I am not sure what else off the top of my head.  We are also selling an electric range, a microwave, a dishwasher and a few other things.  Possibly a bed or two as well.  If you need any of these items or know someone who does leave me a comment (with your name and number)and I will call you.






Photoman

Answered Prayers

My wife and I have been praying that God would help us get our last credit card paid down so that we could apply for Wycliffe Bible Translators as career missionaries.  We need $1000.00 to pay on the credit card so that we can apply with them.  I can't really go into details but today we received a phone call and we were promised $1000.00 by May 1st.  It will come with a commitment on our part but we agreed and will be able to pay the card down the first part of May and begin the application process with Wycliffe.  We are still looking at Africa Inland Mission very closely (maybe more closely than Wycliffe at this point) and are planning to apply with them as well.  Many other options are still on the table but we are pursuing each one until God closes the door on them.  Please continue to pray that we put God's desire for us above any desire that we have for ourselves.  If you are reading this and would like to hear more about our ministry in Ghana and Togo last year I will be speaking at Calvary Baptist Church on April 3rd (this Sunday) at 6:00 p.m.  I will give a recap of our trip and give more detail about what God is doing in our lives currently.  Hope to see you there.

Gary Phillips aka Photoman

Decisions!

Lately, it seems that God has been opening many doors and giving Kelly and I much to think about in relation to our desire to be on the mission field in a full time capacity.  We have several mission agencies who have been in contact with us about possibly joining them.  If it were up to me I know which one I would go with but with so many doors opening we feel it is only wise to step through each one and see where they lead.  I have finally learned that I need to be willing to put my desires behind me and seek God's desire for me first and through this He will give me the desires of my heart.  We are presently talking with Wycliffe Bible Translators, Evangelical Baptist Missions, World Team, African Inland Mission, and Christian Missionary Alliance.  Each of these agencies have expressed interest in us and we are excitedly watching as God takes us on this new journey.  Please pray for us as we look at each of these ministries and try to determine which is the best fit for us.  Pray that God will give us clear direction and that we will listen to Him and not our personal desires.  Also pray for us as we try to pay off the remaining credit card that we have.  We need to have the balance below $1200.00 ASAP and the remainder paid off by June 2nd, we currently owe about $2200.00.  Without a job this is not going to be easy but God is faithful and has been providing us the income that we need to pay our bills.  Pray for Kelly and I as we look at our budget and try to find ways to spend less and pay it on the credit card.

Gary Phillips

Arrowbrook Baptist Church

Yesterday I had an opportunity to speak at Arrowbrook Baptist Church (One of the churches who supported us on our trip to Africa) and give a follow up report about our trip.  They gave me a copy of the service on CD so I decided to upload it to the blog for everyone to hear.  Maybe I should rephrase that, I decided to upload it for those who have nothing better to do than to sit and listen to me talk for 45 minutes.  If you take the time to listen first let me say thanks and second let me apologize for the poor sound quality at the beginning of the message.  I was wearing a lapel mic but it does not seem to work very well when I turn away from the podium.  During the first part of the message I was talking about slides that were being shown behind me and I would have to turn around and look at the images to know what to say.  When I turn around the sound quality goes way down, the lapel mic was supposed to be my main mic but the podium mic was obviously the main.  Someone who was listening to the disc today asked me if the people at the church could hear me better.  I hope they could!  You can hear everything I say if you listen closely and after I stop talking about the photos the sound is fine for the rest of the message.  So if you are still willing or if I have peaked your interest click below on the words listen to Gary to hear what I said.   A new window will appear and the audio should start right up.

Listen To Gary


Hope you are not bored,


Photoman

Alzheimer's

My father passed Friday at 7:25 p.m.  He is now in heaven in a perfect body and is able to remember who we are.  I am confident that he is watching over us even now.  The details of his funeral will be decided in the morning but the waiting is over and now we can bury his remains and mourn his passing.  All the while helping my mother get used to being on her own.  The last 18 months of her life has been sitting in a nursing home with my father who couldn't even talk to her.  She took very good care of a man who much of the time didn't really know who she was.  Now she will have so much time and will not know what to do with it.  I am afraid that she will want to lock herself at home and feel guilty about doing things and enjoying life without him being a part of it. Please pray for her, her name is Marie.

Gary - aka- Photoman

A Time to Mourn!

Today my family suffered a great loss in the death of a great man, my father!  He suffered with Alzheimer's for the past 8 years and finally succumbed to the disease.  He passed peacefully while sleeping with my mom and his sister at his bed side.  We will miss him greatly but he is now in a place where the diseases of this world can no longer harm him.

Dad,

I will always love you and I will miss you until we are reunited in God's yard!

Gary -aka- Photoman

Enya - New Age or Christian Music?

How would you classify Enya's music New Age or Christian? Most people in the music industry would classify her music as New Age. Enya herself says that this is because most people don't understand her background and therefore do not understand what it is that inspires her music. She was born and still lives in Ireland, she was raised Catholic and has spent a large part of her life in the Catholic church. She says that she often would be the only person in her church and says it was quite therapeutic to be alone and pray. She goes on to say that instead of abandoning Catholicism which was not working for her, she had to find a way to make it work for her. This she explains is how she makes Catholicism work for her "I consider myself to be a spiritual person, not necessarily a religious one, although I have to say that one of the highlights of my career was when I performed at the Vatican for the Pope and had an audience with him. My core beliefs would revolve around the idea that we should live to the best of our abilities -- we should live and let live."

I have never met Enya and much of the above information was taken from www.Wikipedia.com. So obviously, I cannot say if her music is Christian but I would say that to me it is more New Age. What I can say, and this is the reason I am writing about Enya in the first place, is that God has used Enya to work in the life of one of my children. My wife and I have been talking about the possibility that God may be calling us to full time service with a certain mission agency (more about this once it is more concrete) and we have been including our children in the discussions. One of them from the first mention of this has told us that she will not talk about it and that she will not go with us if we go. She has been adamant that we are not to talk about it in her presence. I was amazed at the anger that showed in her face anger that was obviously coming from her heart. She was not just upset, she would get angry and would not talk to me. I was worried about this as this not healthy behavior and I didn't know what to say to her. So I turned her and her concerns over to God and let Him know that I couldn't change her heart and that He would have to do it. I tried not to talk about the trip in front of her from that point on.  This proved to be next to impossible and sure enough she would get angry with me every time I spoke about it in her presence.

Tonight however I was sitting here in my La-Z-Boy (my favorite place to sit of an evening) when she came in the living room crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said that she misses Africa. I asked her what made her think of Africa and she said she was listening to her iPod when Storms of Africa by Enya was playing and she just started missing everything about Africa. I told her that maybe God was trying to show her that she should have a different attitude about what He is doing in our lives right now. She agreed and said that she had already thought about that. We had a really great talk and I told her that God could choose to send us back to Africa but that where ever we end up that it will be the best place for our family.

God used Enya (New Age Music) to soften her heart, proof that He can use anything in our lives to bring us closer to Him.

Please pray for our family as we have been on a roller coaster ride for the past 18 months. God is opening doors and we are stepping through them one at a time. It has not always been easy as every door we step through seems to come with a new trial. Please pray that we don't look for ways around the trials but allow God to teach us what ever lesson He wants us to learn through these trials.

Photoman

Lyndsey's Big Scary Moment!

Here are the pictures that I promised you, Lyndsey would rather I didn't post them as she says her hair looks terrible but here they are anyway. As you can see her seizures have not stopped her from doing the things that she loves.


Well to be honest, she is trying to contact all of her friends that called her when they found out what had happened.  It was heartwarming to Kelly and I to see how many of her friends were concerned about her and I know it made her feel good also.



Today we spent a few hours at the hospital but we didn't have to stay the night this time.




God has kept His hand of protection on Lyndsey and so far there have been no more seizures, please pray that we will not see any more.

Photoman

Thanks for Praying!

Let me begin this post by saying thank you to everyone who has been praying for us. It has been a long weekend but it is better now. Our daughter was released Saturday afternoon from the hospital and she has now been seizure free for just over 48 hours. Our hope is that she will remain seizure free forever and that she will be able to be taken off the medication one day. We know that God is in control of her life and that He is the great physician so we are trusting her to Him. The doctors have told us that for the next 2 months we are not to let her be alone for more than a few minutes at a time, this will be an interesting 2 months! While in the hospital she was drugged pretty good so that she could sleep without having a seizure, when the drugs started wearing off she woke but was still very tired for the next few hours. Once the drug was out of her system she was back to her usual self and you wouldn't have known anything had happened. We are very glad to see her being her wonderful self. I will try to upload some photos from our very eventful weekend soon. I managed to get a few pictures with one of the kids little cameras but I have not had time to upload them to my computer. Once again thank you for your prayer during our crisis.

Photoman

If You Read this, PLEASE PRAY for Us!

We got a call from our youngest daughters school today, one that no parent wants to get. She has had a history of Absence Epilepsy, which manifests itself in the form of staring spells, where she just blanks out for a few seconds and doesn't remember anything that happened in those few seconds. Today however, while at school, she had what is known as a Grand Mal seizure which is usually associated with full blown Epilepsy. She was taken by ambulance to Children's Hospital and looked at by the ER doctor. All seemed fine and she was released with a prescription for a new medicine. Wore out from the experience she fell asleep in my recliner and while asleep she had another seizure. Again, she was taken by ambulance to Children's Hospital but this time she was to be admitted for observation. Before they could get her into a room, she had a third seizure which lasted longer than the two prior. At the present time she is resting comfortably in the hospital and we pray that this is the end of her Grand Mal seizures. Please pray for her and for us, she has to be scarred though she is a trooper and you wouldn't know she was. I know that her mother and I are very scarred for her, because we cannot control this.

Sincerely,

Photoman

First Impressions!

This is the scene that we saw over and over on our first day in Togo! I have mentioned in a couple of other posts already that we left Ghana and went into Togo on the weekend of Easter. As a result we were met by large groups of Catholic Togolese people who were remembering Christ's death. I got a photo of this group as we drove past them on the way to Kpalime, Togo.
Before we made it to Kpalime we had to stop in this village to get our temporary visas. While we were waiting for them to be processed and approved we saw this scene. It is another group of Catholic Togolese, they are reenacting Christ's day of crucifixion. This was by far the most elaborate of all the groups that we saw.



As you can see by the above photo, they had a very large group of people who was following them through the village. This group is no different than any of the other that we passed that day, they would just stop and pray or sing praise when and where they felt like it and the vehicles had to just sit and wait until they were finished. We were not exempt from this practice and had to sit through some as well.



The men with the gold helmets were the guards that carried out the crucifixion, they seem to be carrying some kind of weapons that they were using to beat the man carrying the cross. I don't think they were actually hitting the man but they were going to town on the cross if not but they were beating the dickens out of something.



The Togolese and the Ghanaian people are very deeply religious people. Unfortunately they are not necessarily all following a living God. There are many people who follow false and dead god's who need to know about the One True Living God. I hope that the time and the work that we did while in these countries will be beneficial to the missionaries there as they try to share Jesus Christ with them.

Photoman

Is God at Work in Africa? part 4

Our first Sunday in Togo was Easter Sunday, it was a treat to visit this Church on top of the mountain that stands behind our house here in Tsiko, Togo. The ride up the mountain though rough at times was beautiful we had great views of Togo and saw beautiful waterfalls. As you can see from the structure that we are climbing up to it is not much of a building. The main structure of the building is a pole building made of teak poles with a steel roof. The walls are merely stalks of bamboo that are split tied to more pieces and assembled into panels. The panels are then tied to the pole structure to keep out most of the weather. Not a very secure building but it serves its purpose.

The banner at the front of the church reads ...Prepare to meet your God! Amos 4:12. It is the Church verse and the church goal, to be prepared to meet the God if Israel! It is written in French so if you can read French you may be able to make it out. In the image below you see the churches pastor leading a Sunday School class.

The worship team leading us in a few praise choruses, in French so I was lost but still a great time of prayer and praise. Though the music is very basic, I miss it!

Here are the children having an Easter Sunday in the beauty of God's creation. One of my favorite parts of being here is that I felt close to nature and not confined in some concrete or steel box.

It was a special service and the church was celebrating the scriptures and songs that the children had memorized. All of the kids that you see in the below image were reciting scriptures that they had memorized. The pastor asked our girls to participate so they were able to recite some of their favorite scriptures. All of the children were rewarded for their participation with candy.

I couldn't resist this photo!

God is at work in Africa this is just one of many churches that we attended where we saw the African people singing, praying, reading the scriptures and praising God.

Photoman

Is God at Work in Africa? part 3

In this post I am going from the beginning of our trip to the end. I have mentioned in previous posts that I had been overseeing the construction of a new church building in Agou, Togo. Because I had to ride a motorcycle to the job and there would be no where to keep my camera equipment safe while I was working I was unable to take any pictures until the building was almost complete. So I am not able to show you pictures of the the progress but I am finally able to show you some images of the construction of the building. In this first image you will see a home that is being constructed, this is the future home of the pastor of this church. He has hired men from his church to construct the house to keep the finances separate.


Below is the church building itself, it sits only about 20 feet from his new house. As you can see there are doors but no windows. It does not get cold here so they only need a way to get air movement through the building so they use special shaped blocks that when put together leave holes in the wall for fresh air to get into the building. They will also leave the doors open unless it is raining very hard and blowing in the doors.


The majority of the time that I spent on this project my transportation was a moto or motorcycle. On a very rare occasion I had the privilege to drive this beast (see above image). Let me tell you it was a lot of fun, I loved driving in Africa but when I got to drive one of these trucks it was even more fun. The ride was terrible in a car or light truck but in this guy it was down right scary, I loved it!


When complete there will be steps up to this porch and this will be the main entrance into the church.


My first metal roof, I had a lot of fun with the guys when we put this roof on. I wish I had some pictures of the men but they were not around when I took these photos. Not speaking French was a challenge but I learned very quickly how to communicate with them.


From the roof a view of the neighboring families family compound. I saw the pastor talking to one of the ladies from this family and I asked did they attend his church. he told me no but that he had invited them to and they said they would start coming when the church is opened. They are not believers so pray for this family that this church can see them come to know Christ. In the lower left corner of the photo is a metal roof covering a large round structure. This is a bread oven, we bought bread made in this oven every day for a meal. We were able to be a blessing to this family by buying their bread and they were a blessing to us by filling our bellies. I miss the African bread, we just don't know how to make bread in America.

So to answer the question "is God at work in Africa?", I say, yes He is definitely at work in Africa. This building is a miracle in an of itself but that is a story for another post.

Hope you enjoy the blog,

Photoman