Joel and Missy Davis Expanding the Reach of the Gospel in the Philippines 
I had the privilege of being raised in a godly environment, surrounded by many godly people, including my immediate and extended family. Because of the influence of my parents and the tugging of the Holy Spirit on my heart, I realized what Christ had accomplished for me and placed my complete trust in His work at a young age. I’m so grateful to the Lord that He saw fit to draw me to Himself and save me at such an early stage of life. That still amazes me to this day, that the God of heaven cared enough about me to extend to me His grace and an opportunity to experience life to the fullest serving Him forever. The exact age I was when I was saved, I’m not sure, but I know that I moved from darkness to light that day when my parents guided me to the Throne, and that is what is important to me.
I was born and raised in Sarasota, Florida, where my dad worked as a youth pastor at Grace Baptist Church until I was about 9 years old. It was then that the Lord started working in my parents’ hearts in regard to overseas missions. They had been on many mission trips, but He was now calling us as a family to go full time with World Team to the Dominican Republic. We went to language training in Costa Rica, and after nine months there, we arrived in the D.R.
Riding my horse in the D.R.
I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to experience what God is doing in the lives and ministries of those overseas. I count it a privilege to have served Him overseas because it gave me the passion and vision of future service with my family. God used my experiences to give me the desire to serve Him in full time ministry, but I didn’t know how he would use me. Until I had the opportunity to go on a short term missions trip to Ecuador with my home church from Florida.
While were in Ecuador, we were privaledge of flying with MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) from Shell Mera, back into the Waodani tribe where the five missionary men were martyred back in 1956. It was there, on the beach where they were killed, that I heard the complete story and knew that I wanted to be one that would "take their place".
MAF plane in Waodani tribe
I had been exposed to missions because of my time in the Dominican Republic, but this was the first time I had ever experienced missionary aviation. I thought, "How neat to be able to serve God by flying airplanes". It was there that I believe the Lord planted the seed for what was to come.
My first view of missionary aviation
I stored that thought away, and when it came time for me to pick a college, I really wanted to find a Christian college that had a good baseball program. Baseball was the big "love" of my life, and I really wanted to keep pursuing it, possibly as a career, but the Lord had different plans.
He led me to Bryan college which didn’t have a baseball program or an aviation program. My whole purpose for going to Bryan was to grow spiritually, and seek the Lord concerning my future. I had the desire to do either baseball or missions, but I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just something that I thought was cool.
So I sought the Lord in prayer that semester, telling Him that I would go anywhere and do anything that He wanted me to do, and He confirmed over and over again that it was OK to keep pursuing missionary aviation. Later that year, I enrolled to Moody Aviation, was accepted, and have been amazed to see the Lord blaze a trail in front of me ever since.
I saw first hand as an MK the need missionaries have to be spiritually fed and supported. Missy and I are excited to be a part of encouraging and supporting those missionaries who may be isolated and discouraged at times. We see the airplane as a much needed and effective tool linking the missionary to their lifelines of food, supplies, and mail. We also look forward to getting involved in the local church and seeing national leaders raised up to fulfill the Great Commission for themselves.
