A Slow Week!

It has been a slow week, not really anything new to share with you this week. I expected this week to be slow since it is Christmas. The next few days I don't anticipate much activity as well but God could have a different idea than I do, guess I'll just have to wait and see. We have a very busy schedule ahead of us starting on the 3rd of January. Many speaking engagements that will keep us away from our church for the next 3 Sundays. Also some meetings during the weekdays as well. As of this moment there is only 33 days left before we are to leave, that is just under 5 weeks. God has brought in $12,000.00 in the past 4 weeks we need another $12,000.00 and we have 5 weeks to go. Can He do it? Do you really doubt Him? I don't doubt that He can do it, I am excited to see how He does it. Before I get ahead of myself, let me stop and say that I do believe He can do it, if it is His will that it be done. I trust that the plans that I have laid are in line with His but if not I trust that He will bring in the rest in His timing. The hard part is waiting to find out what His timing is. Well folks keep praying for us, He is working in our lives and we are doing our best to follow His leading. Pray that we are able to work out all of the many details that come with planning a trip like this, especially since we have never done anything like this. Pray that we will be able to get all of the loose ends here tied up before we are supposed to leave. We are not sure what all of the loose ends look like, my prayer is that God will not allow me to overlook something that will cause me hardship once I am gone. Hope your Christmas was wonderful and may your new year be the same.

Thanks for reading,

Gary Phillips

50%

We hit 50% in just 4 weeks and we still have 5 weeks to go. God has already proven that He can bring in our support in the time we have left. We are just watching to see how He does it.

Gary Phillips

A Journal of God Sightings!

While we are preparing for this upcoming trip to Africa, God has been doing many neat things in the lives of my family and myself. As I have been sharing some of these stories with others, I have received many questions and many different responses. One reoccurring response is "Are you journaling or writing any of this down?" Until now my response has been, "not really". I have shared many things through this blog but I don't really go into a lot of detail so that I can keep the posts short. So I decided to write down as many of the God sightings that we have had as they relate to our trip to Africa.

I am not sure that what I am about to write is a God sighting related to this trip but it is in my opinion a part of what God is doing. Some may say this is prophecy, I'm not sure that it is, but it is the closest I will ever come to being a prophet. It sure seems a bit prophetic but only God truly knows if it was.

It all started about 16 years ago when I first met Chad & Marnie Butler, we were attending Calvary Baptist Church in Xenia at the time. Chad was a student at Cedarville University and was studying to be a Pastor. He was invited to do his internship at Calvary Baptist, during this time we became very good friends as did our wives. Not long after graduating Chad found a job as an Associate Pastor with a church in Wisconsin. I was excited for them but was sad that they would be moving away. About 6 months into his new position a couple of things happened. I accepted a call to the Mission field and the church that Chad was with had a split. The Pastor that hired Chad left the church and took with him those who supported him. Chad was left to fill the pulpit while the church looked for a new Pastor. Being hired by the Pastor that had just left the church left Chad and Marnie in a less than desirable position. They were let go by the church once a new Pastor was hired. Being their first foray into ministry they were disillusioned and decided to move back to Chad's hometown. It had been over a year since we had seen them so we decided to go and visit them, while we were there I told Chad about my calling to the mission field. I half jokingly, half seriously told Chad that "in light of his experience maybe he should give up on the Pastorate and be a missionary". I said "we could all (all being his family and mine) go to Africa together as missionaries". With a slight chuckle Chad told me that he was not cut out for the missionary thing that he just needed some time to get his head straight and then he would look at the Pastorate again. It was about 4 years later that I got a phone call from Chad our conversation went something like this, (Chad) "Guess what?" (Me) "What?" (C) "I accepted a call to the mission field!" (Me) - "I told you so! Who with and do you know when and where you are going?" (C) - "ABWE (Association of Baptists for World Evangelism), we just started the candidating process but we are looking at Africa." (Me) - "Do you remember our conversation about 4 years ago?" (C) - "Yes" (M)e - "I told you so, I wish we were going with you." (C) - "You should come to, at least for a visit." Well that is the important part of the conversation I won't bore you with the rest. Some say that God has a sense of humor this proves it to me. Like I said I don't know if this can be considered a God sighting but I think it is a cool part of our story. After Chad accepted his call and candidated it took them 41/2 years to raise just half of their support, so ABWE agreed to let them go to Ghana for a couple of years to get some experience. They arrived in Ghana in May of 2009 and are currently there. When they were getting ready to leave they had a huge yard sale of the things they no longer needed. We decided to go and help them with the sale and spend some time with them before they left. While we were there Chad mentioned that there is a huge need for electricians where they are going in Ghana. He said I should consider coming over and visiting them and working as a missionary electrician. I told him once he gets there to let me know if there is still a need and we will see what God can do.

This brings us to the part of the story that we are currently living. About a month ago I was on Facebook when Chad popped in an instant message asking me if I was still considering coming to Africa. To which I replied "Sure! If there is a need for an electrician I would love to come and help?" He said, "We need someone to come and help us finish the construction of a house that is being built, we are supposed to move in it in June and it will not be finished if we don't get some help. You could also run electric to the homes in the villages, the government has installed electric to the power poles but it is up to the villages to hire an electrician to install it to the homes, most cannot afford this so they don't have electric." It was at this time that I started praying and asking God if this was what He wanted me to be do. As much as I wanted to be a missionary I never truly considered using my skills as an electrician or maintenance worker on the mission field before this time. For the past few years I had been trying to find a way to use my photography skills on the field, usually to no avail. When I finally accepted that God wanted me to use my abilities as an electrician and agreed to it, I actually got excited about it. I can look back over my life and the experiences that I have had and can tell that God has been preparing me for this for a long time. But that is a story for another time, I want to share with you some of the things that God has been doing over the past 4 months.

As I said I wasn't really excited about using my skills as an electrician on the mission field but after praying about it God gave me and excitement for it. My wife on the other hand is a different story, she was not as excited about the idea of this trip as I was. I knew that she didn't feel the same way as I did but I was sure that this was what God wanted me to be doing. Then one night while discussing the trip with Kelly, she told me how she really felt. She told me that she did not think this was what God wanted us to be doing. She said she thinks this is what Gary wants to do and that Gary has a way of making things happen when he wants them. She asked me to not talk about the trip in front of the girls anymore as she didn't want them to get excited about a trip that wasn't going to happen. She then said that she didn't want to go and that she wasn't going to go. All I could say was WOW, she really let me know what she thought about me! The problem was I began to wonder if she was right and I was wrong, I did want to go to Africa and have wanted to go to Africa since I was boy. I do have a way of making things that I want, happen. So that night I prayed, I said God, I really believed until now that this trip was your will after hearing Kelly I am not so sure. I don't want to make this trip happen if it is not your will. If it is your will, I know that I cannot change Kelly's heart I will leave that to You. I will continue to quietly step through doors that I see you open and I as I do please let Kelly see you at work and not me. Allow her to get excited about this trip as you have allowed me to. Over the next week God did just that, She went from "I am not going!" to "I am not saying we are going to Africa, but if we go we need too...." to "If we go to Africa we need to get...." to "Now Lyndsey, when we get to Africa you will still have to do dishes!" After this comment I knew that God was changing her heart so I went to visit one of our Pastors at church and share with him about our trip. This turned out to be another God sighting to me another confirmation that this is what God wanted me to be doing. When I told him about our possible trip, he got excited and said this is great. We (the Elders) have just been having discussions with Sharon Rahily in Togo and we want to send some folks to Togo this summer to visit her ministry. If you are going to be in Ghana you will be right next door, why don't you just stay while longer and be our representatives? I said o.k. what do we need to do? He then said go home send an email to Sharon (to see if there is a need for us to come during the time frame we will already be there), make up a rough budget for the trip and get back with me. When I got home that night I was excited the trip had just gone from 3 months to 6 months. I wasn't sure how Kelly would take it but I knew that God was working on her so I left it up to Him. That night I wrote an email to Sharon explaining who we were and what we were planning and asked if we could be of use in Togo for 3 months following our stay in Ghana. I also made a rough budget based on being gone for 6 months. When I asked Kelly to look over them she did and when she finished she promptly stood up, put her hands on her hips and proceeded to put me in my place. She said Gary I have never talked about a 6 month trip, I have only agreed to 3 months, I am going to bed! As she walked away feeling like she had made her point clear, I was ecstatic. I was quietly pumping my fist in the air (while hoping that she didn't turn around) and praising God saying Yes God we are going for 3 months! She had never once agreed to going for any length of time prior to that moment. After that she had accepted in her own mind that we were going to go for 3 months. It was about a week later that she decided that she could go for 6 months if all of the girls were going. Our son is 18 and she said she could allow him to stay home as she knew he would prefer that (though she would prefer him to go if she could have her way). This all took place over a period of just two weeks.

For a long time this was the biggest confirmation to me that this trip was of God. There have been many smaller confirmations and recently some more larger ones. Before I share the larger ones I want to document some of the smaller ones. - My employer (Legacy Ministries International) is in a financial pinch and needed employees to take unpaid leave, this trip will help the overall budget as I take 6 months unpaid leave. - The huge need for an electrician in Ghana and maintenance/construction projects in Togo. All of which God has been preparing me for over the past years in my career. - The open invitation to come to both countries and limitless possibilities to serve. - The fact that I want to do this type of missions work. - The many contacts that God has brought into my life who are helping us financially.

There have been other smaller confirmations that I cannot think of but will add them as I remember them.

Let me share with you another of the big confirmations God has given me, this is by far the most humbling thing that God has allowed me to be a part of.

To be continued........

Bon Voyage to our barrels!

Well finally our barrels have been packed and delivered to Rapid Performance Inc. in Columbus. They will be Africa bound in a few short days and should arrive in Ghana just after us. Yesterday we were given many tests of patience and I think we handled them very well. God is trying to give us a taste of what it will be like in Ghana I think. We are still not sure why God did not allow us to get our barrel out yesterday but we now know that we had grossly underestimated how much would fit in a barrel. So today we delivered our first barrel to Rapid Performance and took the stuff that wouldn't fit in it and put it in a second barrel. We still didn't have enough room so the rest of the stuff will have to go in our suitcases. Good thing we can each take 3 suitcases. I uploaded some short videos so you can see us as we deliver and pack our barrels. In the video you will see Rajah Ishwar who runs Rapid Performance Inc. he is a native Ghanaian who now lives in the U.S.

Please continue to pray for us and rejoice with us that we were able to get our barrels shipped.

Gary Phillips & family

Shipping a barrel what a chore!

Well let me just tell you, shipping our barrel has turned into a huge project. We have needed to ship our barrel for about a week now and have not been able to for various reasons. I decided last week that I would ship the barrel on Wednesday but that didn't work out so I decided then that I would ship it the following Monday. Well that didn't work so I decided to try today (Wednesday) for the 3rd time. As the saying goes 3rd times a charm, right? Wrong!! We had been waiting to hear from the missionaries in Ghana about some specific items that we might need to pack, they must be having computer issues as we have not heard from them for the past few days. Anyway we have not been able to get the info we need not to mention the shipping address, I was able to obtain that info after making a number of phone calls. We now know where to ship the barrel but we still are not sure if we have all of the items that we will want or need. That said, we are going to try and ship the barrel tomorrow now. The only thing keeping us from shipping today is a financial matter. We were not able to obtain the check the we need to pay for the shipment, we are told that we will have the check tomorrow. I am not sure at this time why God does not want us to ship today but I know He has a good reason for keeping it from happening. We are going to get the barrel today and then pack it and take it for delivery tomorrow. My first thought is that God knows of something that we need for the barrel, we will have to wait and see. I feel like I am rambling so I am going to stop writing and go get the barrel. Please pray that God willing we will be able to get this barrel shipped tomorrow.

Excited to serve,

Gary Phillips and family

Our Current Speaking Itinerary

Our current itinerary for speaking in churches is as follows:

Dec. 13th Pleasant Grove Missionary Alliance Church @ 9:30 a.m.
Dec. 20th Arrowbrook Baptist Church @ 6:00 p.m.
Dec. 27th No church scheduled
Jan. 3rd New Song Fellowship of Fairborn @ 9:30 a.m.
Jan. 6th Emmanuel Baptist Church Xenia Awana Clubs @ 6:45 p.m.
Jan. 10th Calvary Chapel Beavercreek @ 10:00 a.m.
Jan. 10th Shawnee Hills Baptist @ 6:00 p.m.
Jan. 17th Calvary Baptist Xenia @ 9:30 a.m.
Jan. 24th Emmanuel Baptist Xenia @ 9:30 a.m. (Christening Service)
Jan. 31st (unconfirmed) Twynholm Baptist Church of London, England (a.m. or p.m. service)

That is a current list of the churches where we are scheduled to speak about our missions outreach to West Africa. As you can see there is still plenty of open times for us to be able to visit other churches. So if your church is not listed and you would like us to come please tell your Pastor or missions committee about us. I am available any day of the week to speak it doesn't have to be a Sunday or Wednesday, I am willing to come and share with your home church, small group, Sunday School Class, Youth Ministry or whatever you have in mind. Please feel free to contact me through this blog or through my church Emmanuel Baptist Church of Xenia at 937-372-5887.

Gary Phillips

Passports & 40%

Kelly and the girls passports came today, I was surprised that it took so long to get them. When Taylor and I had to get them a couple years ago we got them within just a couple of weeks. This time it took 5 weeks almost 6 to get them. The important thing is that we now have them and now we are ready to get our visas, which we plan to order just after the first of the year if not sooner. I am very happy to say that at this time we have received or been promised just over 40% of our support need. We are not quite half way there but it is starting to get exciting. I also wanted to let you know that we have another scheduled speaking engagement. We will be speaking at Calvary Baptist Church in Xenia on Jan 17th during the A.M. worship service which starts at 10:30 a.m. Feel free to stop in and visit, I am sure that the church will welcome you. I also have a meeting this week with another Christian Business owner and 2 more Pastors. So keep praying that the money will continue to come in and that those who I talk with will be receptive to our ministry.

Gary Phillips

Thank You Oak Creek Worship Center!

I want to express our thanks to Oak Creek Worship Center in Kettering for welcoming us into their church to share about our upcoming trip to Africa. From the moment we stepped into the church we were greeted with smiles and handshakes from everyone who saw us. It was a very pleasant experience, it was as if we were visiting a church where we knew everyone already. It was a gratifying experience to say the least. Pastor Jim and Pastor Scott were very kind and in my opinion went out of there way to make us feel welcome in their church. Oak Creek Worship Center is blessed to have such fine men leading them. I look forward to when we return home so that we can have another opportunity to visit Oak Creek and share with them how God has used us while we were in Africa. If you are reading this and you live in the Kettering area and are looking for a home church I highly recommend you visit Oak Creek. I don't believe you could find a more caring and loving church than Oak Creek Worship Center. They are located at 4800 Bigger Rd. in Kettering, Ohio.

You can visit their website at www.oakcreekworshipcenter.org/home

Gary Phillips

A Night of Confirmations!

Tonight was a big night for us, it was our first speaking engagement at a church other than our own. I had good intentions to sit down and prepare an outline of what I wanted to talk about, do I need to say any more? I started and didn't get far when my computer started ringing, we have Skype on our computer and we can use it as a phone to talk to other people who have Skype. If you don't know what Skype is you should check it out, it's free and you can talk to anyone in the world who has it for free via your computer. If you have a camera on your computer you can see the person as well as talk to them. Anyway our friends in Africa were calling us and to cut to the chase, I didn't have time to work up my outline. When I got to the church I wasn't sure exactly what to say first, so when it was my time to speak I just started talking. It was unrehearsed and I just let God guide what I said, it felt awkward at times as I would get off track and forget where I was. When I was finished, I didn't feel that I had spoken eloquently at all. After the service a young man came to greet me and the Pastor, after I shook his hand and spoke with him a moment I walked away so he and the Pastor could speak. The Pastor came to me and asked me to pray with them. He then explained that the young man had told the Pastor that after hearing me speak he felt compelled to get saved. All I could say was WOW, it was so exciting to think that God could use the simple things that had I said to bring someone to the realization that they need to become saved. Again, I say WOW! When I am telling people about feeling called to Africa I am often asked how I know this is of God and not just something that I want to do. My response is usually something like this "there have been so many little things that have happened that confirm to me that this is of God and not me that I can't even remember them all, but there is 1 big thing that to me is all confirmation that I need". Then I proceed to share with them what this 1 thing is. Well tonight though was another of those big things that prove to me beyond a shadow of doubt, that we are doing exactly what God wants us to be doing. This is huge to think that God could use us in this way, I hope that when we get to Africa that I will have an opportunity to see someone come to Christ through our ministry there, but I never thought about it happening here in the States. God has opened my eyes wide tonight and showed me that He is bigger than I realize. The title of tonight's blog "A Night of Confirmations!" you will notice is plural because that is not the only confirmation that we got tonight. The last thing that I shared with the church tonight was a couple of prayer requests, I asked them to pray that we would get the financial support that we need and that we would be able to get into some more churches to share with about our trip. On the way home I told my wife and oldest daughter that I would like to get another church scheduled for the Dec. 13th as we were only scheduled for the 6th and the 20th. We had been home for about a half hour when the phone rang, you guessed it, another church was calling asking us to come and speak on the 6th or the 13th. So if you are following our speaking schedule you can add Pleasant Grove Missionary Church to you list for Sunday morning Dec. 13th. God is AWESOME! I don't believe that this is coincidence!

I have told many that this is going to be a faith building experience for the whole family as we watch God provide the finances for this trip. My faith has been both tested and strengthened already and I look forward to what God will do next. After I was finished speaking tonight the Pastor didn't have time to share what he had prepared so he gave an impromptu message on Faith. I think his message was fitting! Thanks for reading our blog and for praying for us.

Here are a few prayer requests:
Pray that Shawnee Hills Baptist Church will be able to add us to there Jan. schedule
Pray that the Christian business men that I have approached will be able to pick us up at the level of support that I spoke to them about.
Pray for Mike he is the young man who received Christ tonight.

Gary Phillips