September 2024 Prayer Needs from Travis and Natasha Phillips

Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord,

  We appreciate your prayers for a few key things in August:

First would be our preparation for leading a 5-day seminar on language and culture learning for our five newest missionary families. Natasha is organizing and leading childcare so that all the moms and dads can focus on the seminar. Our main language teacher and I will be doing the teaching. Thanks for praying for us in this — that it would be a blessing and encouragement to the newer families, that we would have good weather, and safety for all of us on the drive to and from the seminar location on the coast. 

Second, we appreciate prayer for wisdom as we assist an outreach in putting a roof on their gathering place. There is a young pastor doing an outreach among a least-reached people group (among whom we are interested in working long-term). The people are very, very poor, and the pastor requested our help to get some tin roofing so they don’t get rained on during the teaching time (it’s reainy season now). We want to help without hurting and continue to build our friendship with that pastor and that community. He has been a huge help to us in people group assessments the last few months. I will likely drive to their community in the mountains in the next couple of weeks, so thanks for praying for this. 

Third, we appreciate prayers for safety in travel as we go to Manila at the end of August for a two-week “Language Learners Encourager’s Course.” This is a big piece of our training in becoming language learning consultants for the Philippines field. We are also bringing one of our Bisaya language helpers, so that he can learn and grow more in his role. Natasha and I will both be attending, and our girls will be in childcare for those two weeks. Our biggest prayer request for this is that our kids would have a wonderful experience, that they would continue to grow in their knowledge of the Lord and for safety in travel and during our time there. 

 Finally, please pray for our decision with regard to which people group to work among long-term. Once we make the decision on our end, we still need a formal invitation, a land agreement for us and our coworkers to build our homes, and government approval. Our coworkers are on home assignment in Germany reporting back to their supporting churches and will have their fourth child in October. They plan to return in January when our responsibility leading the E2 program comes to an end. 

Thank you very much for your prayers and support!