July 2020 Prayer Needs from Travis and Natasha Phillips

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Keeping a long story somewhat short, our departure date to the Philippines has been delayed by 3-5 months due to Coronavirus travel restrictions and a few missionary families on leadership returning to their home countries during this time of forced quarantine on Mindanao.

At a surface level we are saddened/disappointed that we are delayed, but at a deeper level we know God’s timing is good and we can trust that his plan for us and those in the Philippines is good. This also gives a bit more time to continue support raising as we are now approaching the 89% funded mark.

Please pray we will reach the 100% funding mark in the next few months.

On an exciting note, we were given the “go-ahead” to start some of our Phase 1 culture and language study here in California, which is basically unheard of in our organization. God blessed us with a native Cebuano speaker who lives in Atascadero that is willing to help us begin to learn the language and culture! We had our first language session with her on Saturday, June 27. The session went really well, and it was an exciting milestone for us as we move forward toward ministering in the southern Philippines.

Because of these changes, we need to find a new place to live for August-December. Please pray for the Lord’s provision in this.

Please pray for our new connections in the Filipino community, and especially for our language helper(s).

I will likely rent a shared office space in town because we are also going to be doing substantial research and working on people group assessment and curriculum development projects for our Philippines field team that will benefit our future work and the future works of other missionaries.

Please pray for wisdom and ability to do these projects well, and for a quiet workspace to do them at.

Please pray that we would continue to love each other well in marriage and parent our children in a godly way!

Thanks for your prayers, support and encouragement!