Rev. Joshua D. Phillips, once an orphan, spent his life parenting those in need of unconditional love, including some of the Portland area's most prominent ministers and community leaders-passed away in November 2008.  He was 84.  Born in Montgomery, Alabama he moved to Sherwood, Oregon in 1978 to marry his second wife, Dr. O. Virginia Mitchell.  They promptly founded Give Us This Day, Inc., a counseling, adoption and social service agency in Newberg, Oregon.  Joshua and Virginia spent three decades building community, pastoring churches, creating non-profits and opening their arms as havens for the broken-hearted.  Together, they served as marital counselors, and racial and religious bridge builders in towns throughout the Pacific Northwest, California, Idaho and Africa.  An expert in building strong families, Joshua was the first Oregon chair of the national One Church, One Child Program, which encourages the religious community to recruit adoptive parents for children in foster care.  Under Joshua's leadership, the state doubled the percentage of black children in foster care being placed into permanent homes.  In the 80's, Joshua and his wife also opened Oregon's first state sanctioned group home for African American girls, in Northeast Portland.  Although Joshua fathered no biological children, he was certainly a father to so many men and women who had been rejected, abandoned, hurt and abused by their own fathers.  Many lovingly called him "Poppa" and were grateful for his unconditional love, intuitive wisdom and kind and generous smile.  The Joshua House is named in his honor and fosters integrity in young adolescent males.  Give Us This Day, Inc., has a Knights’ Code that is modeled after the wonderful attributes of Joshua Phillips, and how he led his life by vunerable examples and exemplary standards.