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