18/05/2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTqYy5HrQsY
Vale Philip Saunders
Philip Saunders, a faithful servant of Christ and valued member of the Every Home for Christ (EHC) family, passed away peacefully on Tuesday 5 May.
Philip was deeply loved by all who knew him and will be remembered for his gentle spirit, servant heart, and unwavering commitment to sharing the Gospel. He greatly enjoyed serving with Every Home for Christ, particularly through door knocking ministry, where his warmth, humility, and genuine care for people touched many lives. Philip understood the importance of reaching every home with the message of Christ’s love and faithfully gave his time and energy to that mission.
His wife Jan shared how much Philip treasured his involvement with EHC and the friendships formed through ministry. His life reflected quiet faithfulness, steadfast devotion to God, and a sincere love for others.
It is especially poignant that Philip shared the same birth and death years as Dick Eastman, former International President of Every Home for Christ International. Both men were faithful servants who dedicated their lives to advancing God’s Kingdom and were called home to the Lord around the same time.
While Philip’s passing leaves a deep sense of loss, we rejoice in the assurance that he is now in the presence of his Saviour whom he faithfully served throughout his life.
Our prayers and love are with Jan and the Saunders family during this time. Philip’s legacy of faith and service will not be forgotten.
EULOGY FOR PHILIP SAUNDERS
Philip was born the fifth of seven children to parents, Henry and Rita from Schofields on the 10th November, 1944, during the 2nd WW.
Philip was a quiet and obedient child who tried to make other people happy.
He grew up attending the Gospel Mission Hall, an interdenominational, church on Grange Ave., Schofields, opposite the Public School.
It was a rough timber slab and iron building built in 1903, on land that his great grandfather Robert, together with two other Christian men, had petitioned the land developer of Schofields for.
He attended Sunday school and eventually went on to run a Bible class on a Friday night, teach Sunday school on a Sunday afternoon and preach once a month at the evening service.
He also, along with his siblings, attended the Church of England Sunday school (now called Anglican), run by a godly lady, Doris Habberfield on a Sunday morning, where he learnt Bible stories, Bible verses and many Christian songs, for which he was very grateful.
Occasionally Mrs. Habberfield would take her class from Schofields to the Sydney Town Hall to perform. Mrs. Habberfield was one of the very few people allowed to play the Grand Pipe Organ in the Sydney Town Hall. This was a wonderful occasion for the children from the small rural town.
For schooling, Philip attended Schofields Public School. Philip’s father had been one of the school’s very first pupils, when it opened in 1919. The School was initially held in a dance hall, and moved two years later into a two roomed school building, in Grange Ave.
Here, Philip was taught along with the three R’s, Christian Hymns and Bible stories, which were a part of the school curriculum, back when Australia was a Christian Country, in the4 1950’s.
He later attended Blacktown Boy’s High, travelling from Schofields to Blacktown each day by steam train.
During his senior high school years, Philip joined with some others from Riverstone Presbyterian Church youth group to form a team to compete against other Churches in Sydney, in the Christian Youth Fellowship’s Bible memory competition held at the 2GB Auditorium in Sydney. They ended up winning against the other Sydney churches.
Philip always loved God from an early age, but didn’t get assurance of salvation until he had gone forward for salvation in a meeting for the fifth time.
He had a deep desire to be a Missionary Dr in Africa, so when he missed out on a medical scholarship in 1961 at the Leaving Certificate Examination, he repeated 5th Year (now called Yr 12), and in 1962 was awarded the medical scholarship for which he had worked so hard.
To his shock, his father then refused to allow him take up this scholarship and do medicine, saying that he could not afford to have him do it.
Instead, he made him take up a teacher’s scholarship, as it paid more money per week.
To help him over this crushing blow, a kind older friend advised him to do his teacher’s course and then go on to do medicine, after he had finished. The teacher’s scholarship had required him to sign an agreement to say that he would teach for a few years. This made it very impractical for him to go back to Uni to do medicine. He resigned himself to being a High School Physics teacher, and so he determined to be the best witness for Christ that he could be in the High School arena.
Over his almost 40 years of High school teaching, Philip taught at Girraween High, Seven Hills High, Evans High and Rooty Hill High.
While he was at Seven Hills High, he arranged to have evangelists come into the High School and present the gospel to the students, as much as he was permitted.
During his time teaching at Evans High when they did tandem teaching over one of the junior years, no one wanted to teach Evolution as a subject. Philip said that he would do it, if he was allowed to teach it alongside Creation. He was given the green light and this was then taught to every student in that year.
He did this for many years, getting the prayer chain at Blacktown Baptist Church to pray it in each year. Some antichristian teachers did not like it but were powerless to stop it, until it was forbidden by the NSW Minister for Education to teach Creation in schools.
On occasions, Philip would attend the Hawkesbury Missionary fellowship meetings held at Richmond. This is where he met his future wife Jan in 1967. They hit if off straight away after taking Jan home from a choir practice, held at his sister Ruth’s home in Blacktown. They had been practicing for an upcoming HMF special missionary meeting.
After talking to Jan that first night, Philip went home and told his Dad that he had met the girl he was going to marry.
It was very obvious to both of them that God had brought them together.
They became engaged at Jan’s 21st Birthday Party in October, 1967, and following this, they started to run a Christian Youth rally each month, for about four years, at the Gospel Mission Hall as an outreach to the youth of Schofields.
In 1969, during the May school holidays, Philip and Jan were married at Blacktown Baptist church. This was the church that Jan had attended for a few years with Philip’s Aunt and Uncle and the other “Vinyard Kids”, and where Jan in 1963, had been baptized with the very first baptisms in the new church.
In 1971 God blessed Philip and Jan with a bouncing baby girl, they named Sharon. Philip had never been prouder in his life as he held this sweet baby girl for the first time.
In 1972 Philip and Jan moved to their current home in Blacktown, and joined the Blacktown Baptist Church. Very soon after, Philip was given the responsibility for the younger boys of the Boys Brigade.
In 1975 God once again blessed Philip and Jan with another sweet baby girl. This time they named her Miriam, as one of the books containing baby names and their meanings had said that it meant “most longed for and wished for child”, as Jan had had trouble falling pregnant a second time.
Philip and Jan attended a Navigator Conference in Canberra, having been contacted by them because Philip had previously purchased follow up material for an evangelistic weekend that had been held by the churches in the Riverstone and Schofields area a few years previously.
This connection saw Philip trained as a Bible Study Leader as he sought to further his Bible knowledge and spiritual growth.
In 1977 Philip was led of God do owner builder extensions on his modest 3-bedroom home, by the Bible verse from Isaiah 54:2 which reads "Enlarge the place of your tent, And let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings; Do not spare; Lengthen your cords, And strengthen your stakes." "For you shall break forth on the right hand and on the left; and your seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited."
In 1978, 33 yr old Philip suffered from a leaking brain aneurism. His 35 year old sister Ruth, had died from one which had ruptured two years previously. While waiting for his operation he was commanded by his brain surgeon Dr Dorsh not to worry, as this would adversely affect the operation. So the night before, he asked God if he would come through O.K. As he read through the Psalms, the verses read that you could take it either way. He had no assurance until he read Psalm 91 verses 14-16.
“Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”
With this, he believed God was giving him the assurance that he would pull through. Jan also had assurance, as she reasoned that God would not have led them to start building extensions, only to have them partly finished and take Philip’s life.
So, on 20th October 1978 Philip had a 5-hour operation at RPA in Sydney on the base of his brain. This day happened to be his mother’s 71st birthday. She was very sad, as she thought that she was about to lose a second child, so she said her goodbyes to Philip and returned home.
Jan was sitting in the waiting room when after the surgery Dr Dorsh came into the room smoking heavily. The room had a huge sign saying OXYGEN, NO SMOKING. Jan took one look at this Dr and thought he doesn’t think he is going to pull through.
Dr Dorsh said, “That and another was the hardest I have ever done and can promise you nothing. He had had a previous bleed and so I could not clamp it. I did the best I could and repaired it with epoxy and gauze.” Not long after Philip awoke from the anesthetic. Jan was told that that was a very good sign as sometimes they take days to come round. Philip had had one of the best Brain surgeons in the country, referred to him by Dr Joffee, the Dr his sister Beth worked for, operate on him as well as a top anesthetist, so that he was not sick from the anesthetic. They had removed part of his skull and put it in the fridge for 3 months, which was later put back in the following January, this time with a different anesthetist and he was sick from the anesthetic. The op was performed again at RPA but he was then transferred to the newly opened Westmead Hospital to recover. Dr Dorsh then headed up Neuro surgery at Westmead Hospital.
In the February Philip returned to teaching, though he found it mentally challenging as he was not fully recovered and the promised light load did not eventuate.
In the 1980’s Philip headed up “Extended Family Groups” at Blacktown Baptist Church, and sort to put his Navigator training into practice. The church went from a handful of people meeting together for prayer once a week to well over 100 meeting for prayer, fellowship and Bible study. This helped the church to grow both in Biblical knowledge and numerically as people’s needs were being met and the church started to function as it was meant to.
The leaders of these groups would meet at Philip’s home together with the Pastor and go over the coming weeks study. This format was based on what Pastor Les Scarborough was doing at St Mary’s Baptist. Jan would type up study booklets for the term and Philip would have them printed up at the church, then brought home to have them put together and stapled up. These were wonderful years.
Philip also encouraged men to attend Shamgar meetings also run by the Navigators, where men would be encouraged in their walk with God, and also be challenged to have a regular quiet time and memorise key Bible verses.
In the late 1980’s Philip together with a couple of other men did some church planting, seeking to see even more people won to Christ. Some of that fruit remains to this day.
In 1989 Philip walked his first born down the aisle to be married.
Sharon and Jeff blessed Philip with 10 wonderful grandchildren. Joshua, Gabrielle, Hayden, Rachel, Jared, Boaz, Annabelle, Eloise, Michael and Jacqueline, and two great grandchildren, Danielle and Levi.
Philip’s cup was overflowing. He adored each and every one of them. They brought so much joy to his heart. He enjoyed teaching them Bible stories and memory verses and playing with them.
In 2005 Philip walked his second daughter down the aisle to be married.
Miriam and Mal have blessed Philip with two lovely girls Jessica and Emily, who are growing up to be fine Christian women.
Around 2003 God called Philip to resign from running the High School Youth Sunday School Department at Toongabbie Baptist Church and to join their daughter church, Douglas Rd Community Church which met at Tyndale Christian School. This was currently being led by Toongabbie’s retired minister Bob Bawden.
Bob was a bit skeptical at the move being led of God, until two weeks later the New Tribes Couple, who were running their Sunday School announced that they would be leaving as NTM was moving from Plumpton to Laureton on the North Coast. After they left, Philip took over this role.
In February 2006 Philip retired from teaching High School, and the very next week started teaching primary school children SRE. He was finally doing what he loved.
He continued this up until he took ill in July 2025 some 20 years later.
Over the years he has taught students from seven different schools, those being Walters Rd, Blacktown West, Blacktown South, Marayong, Toongabbie, Kings Langley, and Matthew Pearce (in Baulkham Hill). For a while he was teaching 10 different classes per week.
In 2011, Tyndale Christian School asked Philip if he would consider hosting Korean students for 6 weeks, and over time he hosted Japanese students which were only for a few days to a week.
Philip knew that these students, particularly the Japanese, probably knew nothing about Christianity, and as a result would be heading to eternal separation from God. Philip endeavored to give them a shortened version of the “Creation to Christ” teaching that New Tribes Mission, now Ethnos 360, teach with success to the tribes. The students seemed to enjoy this and participated in the short talk each night.
He also took them on Rivercat trips to Sydney and Manly. And tourist places, especially the Japanese gardens and wildlife zoo at Merrylands. Some of the Japanese students said that they had never been to a Japanese Garden before. Jan would take many photos and send them home with photos to show their parents mementos of their trip.
Hosting stopped nine years later because of Covid, in 2019.
Philip was looking for some sort of ministry to do during this time as almost everything had closed down. This is when he was led of God to approach Every Home for Christ about door knocking in the Blacktown area, as the “Lost of Blacktown” still weighted heavily on his heart.
Every Home supplied Philip with maps of the streets of Blacktown to fill in so that they would know which areas of Sydney had been covered. Starting at “Jerusalem” his own street, Philip door knocked all of South Blacktown.
He then door knocked all of the new suburb of Bungarribee, as well as parts of Marayong and Doonside. He gave out Every Home for Christ’s “The Way to a Happy Life” brochure that Eric Leach had had printed up, still in the many boxes that had hitherto been unused.
He also purchased Gospel’s of John from the Pocket Testament League and gave them out to anyone who was wanting to read the Bible. He continued this up until June 2025 when he took ill.
Whenever he was not preparing for SRE he was out door knocking.
Philip had an urgency from the Holy Spirit who, it appeared, was letting him know that his time was short.
Philip’s was a life well lived, and I am sure when he reached Heaven, he got a “Well done good and faithful servant” from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jan counts it a real privilege to have been given such a wonderful kind, loving, faithful, godly husband by the Lord.
They were five days away from their 57th Wedding Anniversary.
