Bio

Savannah’s parents, Forrest and Jennifer McPhail, went to Cambodia as missionaries when Savannah was only one year old. She spent her childhood and teens in Cambodia and loved the country, people, and culture. When it came time to leave “home” and go to the United States for college, she was very sad, but at the time she had no thoughts of returning as a missionary herself.

She received a B.A. in Communications from Bob Jones University with an end goal of being better equipped to communicate the Gospel throughout her life. As she worked different types of jobs and served in different children’s ministries during her years of study, God showed her that she desired to work in some form of full-time ministry, especially with children.

A visit back to Cambodia reignited her love for the country and its people, and she felt a strong pull to return there. But Savannah was afraid to go back to Cambodia for the wrong reasons. She did not want to go to the field as a missionary just because it would be easy to do so, or because she just wanted to go home.

It took a few years for her to work through these doubts. During this time she interned at Gospel Fellowship Association, graduated from university, and kept putting herself “in the way of” missions. She served two short-term assignments helping Cambodian missionary families with homeschooling.

During the second assignment, God made it clear that her love for Cambodia, her knowledge of the language and culture, and her experience with missions made her perfectly suited for reaching Cambodians with the Gospel. With her doubts gone, Savannah applied to GFA to become a career missionary and was accepted in June 2022.

As a career missionary, Savannah will work closely with Nathan and Rachel Waldock, a church-planting missionary family, with a focus on children’s ministry in the community and in the local church.    

To view Savannah McPhail's photo gallery, click the picture below.