NTM

In 3 short days we will be on the flight to Manila, Philippines. It almost doesn’t feel real! The last few weeks have flown by!  (excuse the pun) We definitely need your prayers over the next few days and weeks.  Here are some ways you can pray…

– LAST MINUTE DETAILS… As you can imagine, there are lots of last-minute details to take care of. Please pray that we will first of all remember them… and that we will have time and energy to accomplish them.

- SAFE AND UNEVENTFUL TRIP! Please pray for our long 29 hours of travel. We would love it to be as uneventful as possible. Camryn is at a very squirmy age, and we need her to sit with us for a long time! 

- NEW LANGUAGE AND CULTURE… Please pray as we adjust to a new culture and language, and that we can find an apartment that we can move into fairly quickly. We would especially appreciate your prayers for Ryley- she’s old enough now to be a little sad about moving.

- MONTHLY SUPPORT… We think we are at around 80% monthly support now! Please pray that God would continue to build our support team.

If you want to join our support team, CLICK HERE

We appreciate your prayers – we need them so much! 

COMMISSIONING SERVICE…We are excited to have a Commissioning "Send Off" on Sunday, July 5 at Grace Baptist Church. The day before we leave! 

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS!  While we have been packing and making preparations to go, we had 2 special birthdays…. both our girls turned a year older! Ryley is now 4, and Camryn is 1!  Here are some fun pictures for you to look at. Enjoy!                                                                  CLICK HERE FOR BIRTHDAY PICS

We are so excited to finally have plane tickets! We have desired to join our co-workers in the Philippines for a long time now, and we can’t wait to do our small part in reaching tribal people for Christ.

We are leaving July 6th!

46 days, 12 hours, 36 minutes, and 12 seconds AWAY!

Even though we have set a date, we still need your help!  You to can be part of reaching tribal people in the Philippines for Christ by praying for us and supporting us financially.  We are still lacking $1,380 of our monthly support, and $4,870 of our one-time outgoing needs. Our greatest need is for monthly supporters.  We are asking the Lord to raise up people like you that want to join us by supporting us on a monthly basis.

If you want to join our financial support team click here for more information.

We will be flying to the Philippines with another NTMA couple. They are good friends of ours from training, and have kids the similar ages to ours. They too are moving to Manila to start language training with us.  It will be nice for all of us to have companionship as we make the long trip across the ocean.  Pretty cool, huh?

I am excited to celebrate my birthday in the Philippines 2 days after we get there with 4 sets of great friends that we went through training with in Missouri and Arizona. 

We covet your prayers for us as we finish our packing and final preparations in these next 6 weeks. We need your prayers!  We know that we can’t do this on our own strength.  Thank you for praying and supporting us!

We’re back!

After 27 days of traveling, sleeping in different beds, setting up the pack n’ play a million times, eating on the road, and seeing LOTS of family and friends, we are finally back in Sarasota, Florida!  We had a great time, but man, it is NICE to sleep in our own beds and stay in one place again!

… for a couple of months anyway.  And did I say our own beds?  Actually they are borrowed beds… borrowed beds that belong to this great condo we are using. This place has definitely become home for our family this year, and we are so grateful!  The longer we are missionaries, the easier it is to feel "at home" in places that aren’t really ours… simply because we’ve moved so much!  And the next time we will be making a home, we will be in the Philippines!  How exciting is that!

(Camryn Celebrating 1st Birthday in GA)

The rest of our trip went pretty well.  We definitely didn’t accomplish all of the packing we meant to…. Joel and I both caught a combination of colds and stomach bugs that kept us pretty well grounded during our last week in Atlanta.  We rallied our strength on the last day to put all of our belongings in the trailer, along with our special Philippine packing boxes, and we drove it all back here to Florida to be packed in the next few weeks. We are just grateful that the important and time-consuming job of sorting all our STUFF got accomplished.

We are praising God for safe travels, and we are also praising Him for keeping our girls completely healthy when everyone around them was sick! Only God can do that!

So the journey continues.  We are still praying about a departure date (sometime in July), and keeping an eye on plane ticket prices.  We are also continuing to watch God provide for our monthly needs as we get closer to going.  We are still in need of about $1700 per month.  If you feel led to partner with us financially or in prayer, please click on the contact icon at the top right. 

To see pictures of our Road Trip Click Here>>

Thank you for your part in our journey!
Under His Wings,
joel & missy, ryley & camryn

hi everyone,

THANK YOU for praying for my LAST surgery and recovery! I’m feeling better today, but I’m definitely still recovering… whenever they tell me that I’ll feel good in 1 week, I’ve learned to add at least 2 more weeks on for myself. Right now my mind is ready to jump back into things, but I still tire out easily… a frustrating place to be, especially when I’m wanting to keep up with my kids and SO ready to feel good again. But I am getting there. I’m not quite 2 weeks past my surgery today. So I keep telling myself to sit and rest.

I am SO grateful to God for letting us know about this genetic mutation. If you remember, having this mutation gave me an 87% chance of getting breast cancer. Now, after surgery, my risk is less than 1%. How can I thank God enough for a chance like this? We want to give HIM all the glory for everything HE has done… letting us even know about the gene, giving us the "go ahead" for surgery before we go to the mission field, letting me be treated by the best specialists in the field, sustaining us through an intense and incredibly hard time. Looking back I can still reel at how hard it all was… but I can also see a covering of God’s grace through it all, His arms surrounding us. God is amazing.

AND I have to tell you what an wonderful husband I have. He has been SO behind me through this whole thing, making me laugh when they are wheeling me into the operating room, willingly being "Mr. Mom" for weeks at a time, bringing me flowers and watching movies with me when I could barely get up. He is a gift from God and such an amazing guy! I love you Joel!

My sisters and my parents have been amazing too. Sherry is here constantly, helping straighten up and taking care of the girls. My parents are also here a ton, watching the girls while we go to appointments and bringing flowers and food. Even my sisters who don’t live here have helped. After my first surgery, Debbie came down for a week and was here every day to take care of the girls. She and Sherry filled our freezer with meals. And Becky has called through it all from Colorado, dealing with surgeries of her own! We couldn’t have done this without them all.

Thanks for being there for us, for praying, bringing meals, helping with our girls, and sending notes of encouragement. You were all a part of the journey!
In HIS hands,
missy

(If you can’t see all the pictures below, Click Here to go to our website.)

It was our home church’s 51st missions conference, and we invited our church to come out and fly with me for the day. 

  It was a great opportunity to show everyone what we’ve been doing these last few years of training, get more people excited about the ministry of reaching tribal people with the gospel, and just thank those that have been supporting us these last few years.   

  Everyone seemed to have a great time.  Especially everyone that sat next to me up front because they got to take the controls and experience what it is like to fly an airplane down the coast of Florida. 

  The best news is: NO ONE GOT SICK! and everyone left with a big smile on their face.  Missy, Ryley, and I had a great time as well just sharing with them the passion that we have for this ministry and how excited we are to join our teammates in the Philippines soon! 

  We are hoping to leave by June, and we are so grateful to have your support as we go.  Thanks for praying for us and giving sacrificially so that we can Expand the Reach of the Gospel in the Philippines.       

  We have 65% of our monthly needs met, and we are asking God to raise up more of His people to join us on a monthly basis before we leave in June.

  We also are raising support for the one-time needs that we will have as we pack up, ship our things, and move to another country.  We are currently at 50% of our outgoing needs and so grateful for those of you who are helping us be prepared for this big move. 

To see our progress, check out our:  

OUTGOING NEEDS WEBSITE

Thanks again for all of you who are praying for us on a regular basis and giving so that we can be part of the taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

  We are so grateful for your love and support as we get closer to our departure for the Philippines.  One way that you can stay connected with our progress as we get ready to go is this new Outgoing Needs Website.

  There are a few things like buying household items, shipping our belongings, buying plane tickets, and setting up our house in the Philippines that go beyond the scope of what our monthly support can afford, and that is why we’ve created this website. 

  We hope that this is a fun way for you to see our one-time needs and track our progress as we are finishing preparations to leave for the Philippines.  Thanks again for partnering with us as we Expand the Reach of the Gospel together.

Countdown to the Philippines!

We are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and we are  excited about joining our teammates in the Philippines!  We can’t wait to be personally part of this dedicated group of believers who are striving to make Christ known to tribal people who have never heard His name.

Before we leave…Some of you may know that Missy found out that she and two of her sisters have the BRCA1 breast cancer gene mutation. This genetic science is cutting edge – a huge breakthrough in breast cancer research.  Unfortunately, this genetic mutation carries with it a 90% lifetime risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer and therefore is taken very seriously by medical professionals.  We truly believe that God has given us this knowledge for a purpose and for us to glorify Him throughout this process.  Please be in prayer for us over these next few months as we do a series of preventive  surgeries before heading to the Philippines.

We are trusting God for our departure date of June 2009, and we are asking God to bring people our way that want to be part of our team.  We need people who God is prompting to pray for us on a regular basis, and we need people who will join our monthly financial support team.  We are currently at about 65% of our monthly needed support and we trust that God will provide the remainder of our need before our departure.  He is so faithful!

If God is prompting you to either pray or give towards our ministry, please let us know by emailing us at  Joel_Davis@ntm.org.

or

by giving directly to:  NTM, 1000 East First Street, Sanford, FL 32771  (Make gifts out to NTM, with a note that it is "for the ministry of Joel and Missy Davis").

                                        Under His Wings,

                                                    Joel and Missy Davis