Africa Welcomes Anderson As New Regional Communications Coordinator

Having served for two years on the Caribbean Region, Phil Anderson and his family arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa, in early January to begin their new assignment. Phil was born in Denver, Colorado, and grew up on a cattle farm near the San Juan Mountains. He worked long hours on the farm, but found time for plenty of hunting, fishing, and camping.

Phil was raised in the Baptist church and played at being a Christian until after high school when he realized that he needed God to be real in his life.

“I was making a mess of my life in the name of God. Through many ups and downs spiritually, I grew in my faith and understanding that God’s grace is freely given,” says Anderson. “Despite growing spiritually, I was running. I was running from that feeling that God had a story already written about my life. I just needed to start reading it.”

Phil moved to Pennsylvania when he was 22 where he met and married his wife Denise. It wasn’t until Phil turned 30 that he opened himself up to the Lord’s leading. It was also during this time that Phil and Denise welcomed daughters Makenzie and Morgyn to their family.

“God led us to the Shippensburg Church of the Nazarene. They had just hired a hip, new young pastoral family the year before. The changes in that church mirrored the changes in my own life, and I connected with the pastor and those spiritual awakenings,” says Anderson. “It was there that I really began to understand a loving, holy God…a God who wanted the best for my life, but also a life of sacrifice.”

It was during those 12 years at Shippensburg that Phil learned and understood more about who he was in Christ. He felt a deep understanding of the need to serve Christ completely and to give himself as a holy sacrifice.

“Denise and I never saw missions on our radar scope,” says Anderson. “Denise’s brother is a missionary with the Mennonite church, and our attitude was always to support missions financially, but that was as far as we wanted it to go.”

But during a sabbatical from Denise’s university teaching job, Phil and his family served as volunteer missionaries in Thailand for a year.

“It was there that all of the changes in our spiritual lives came to fruition,” says Anderson. “God gave us both the desire to serve him full-time after only four months on the field. It was a surprise to us, but we never felt so assured in our lives.”

Phil and his family returned after that year in Thailand to Pennsylvania, where Phil, at age 40, completed his degree in communications.

Phil’s desire for World Mission Broadcast (WMB) in Africa is for the message of Christ to be heard through radio in more culturally, socially, and spiritually relevant means. He wants to reach the local church and provides more resources to share Christ with people. He wants television to become a part of the method to “make Christlike disciples in the nations” and for WMB to be a service ministry to churches and missionaries all over the continent of Africa, assisting in bringing the Word of God to all people through media broadcast.

---Brian Utter, World Mission Broadcast