Phil grew up in central Minnesota and Debbie was raised in St. Louis, Missouri. They met while Phil was at the University of Minnesota and Debbie was at St. Paul Bible College, now Crown College. They were married in 1970.

Phil and Debbie have served in missions since 1976 in Indonesia, northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Florida. Phil has been a missionary pilot and they have been missionaries to First Nations people.

From 1991 to 2006, Phil and Debbie worked with Campus Crusade for Christ's JESUS Film Project. Phil has managed the recording of the JESUS Film in nearly 50 languages around the world. They continue to work on projects on Latin America as Affiliate Staff members of the JESUS Film Project.

The idea for Port of Hope Ministry started back in 1995 when Phil's travels for the JESUS Film took him to port cities in the Caribbean and Latin America. The ports were busy but none had an outreach ministry to seafarers. Why couldn't local Christians be encouraged and trained to minister to the seafarers who visited their ports?

They started Port of Hope Ministries in 2002 and in 2003 it became a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Two years later they started Port of Hope Ministries Canada, now a Registered Charity in Canada.

In addition to planting seafarer's ministries in Haiti, Guyana and Toledo, Ohio they also serve at the Fraser-Surrey Docks in British Columbia. As well, they are beginning work on a ministry to towboat (river barge) and shore workers on the upper Mississippi River and lower Minnesota River in the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Phil is an ordained Southern Baptist minister and they both are commissioned Workplace Chaplains with the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptists. Phil and Debbie are Civil War Re-enactors where Phil portrays a Union (Northern) battlefield chaplain. Phil also conducts a chaplain training seminar.

They have three adult sons: Jesse, Pete and Steve. Jesse and Pete are in commercial construction in the Vancouver, British Columbia area. Steve works in retail selling. Jesse is married and has two children. Phil and Debbie live three blocks south of the Canadian border in Sumas, Washington.