Letters from Bryce and Phyllis Little
January 2009
December 2007
June 2006
September 2004
May 2003
April 2002
Bryce and Phyllis Little
Bryce and Phyllis ended mission service with the PC(USA) in 2010. They are available to speak when their schedule permits. Email them to extend an invitation to visit your congregation or organization.
The Rev. Dr. Bryce Little Jr. and Phyllis Little were appointed by the General Assembly Council in January 2002. They serve as regional liaisons for World Mission, helping to strengthen the partnership between the PC(USA) and churches and institutions in Spain and Portugal.
“We have had a strong sense of God’s leading throughout our lives,” write Bryce and Phyllis, “as Jesus Christ has revealed himself to us. It has been a great privilege to work with people of many cultures and national backgrounds most of our adult lives.”
In 2001, the Littles were members of a small group that spent a week in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Vietnam, training pastors of the rapidly growing house church movement. “The vibrancy of their faith was very inspiring,” write the Littles. “We worked with two of the 21 house-church clusters, which were composed of 4,000 and 14,000 members respectively.”
In a sense, Bryce and Phyllis have been preparing for this ministry all their lives. Their ministry in Southeast Asia began in 1960 with their appointment as mission workers in Thailand and Singapore by the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA). This was followed by a year as missionaries in residence with COEMAR, one of the predecessor entities of World Mission.
After three years doing urban ministry in Seattle, Washington, in the early 1970s, Bryce began a long career in Presbyterian middle governing bodies. For 15 years, he was a ministries consultant on new church development in the presbyteries of Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stockton and Nevada (1973 to 1988). Then he was associate executive for mission development in New Covenant Presbytery in Houston, Texas. After three years as a mission pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, California, Bryce was executive presbyter at San Gabriel Presbytery in the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii, the position from which he retired in June 2001.
Phyllis’ first experience in cross-cultural mission was as a Presbyterian missionary to Cameroon, West Africa, where she taught school from 1957 to 1960. When the Littles were appointed to serve in Thailand, Phyllis gave up teaching to devote her energies to homemaking and raising the couple’s four children. She returned to teaching in Sacramento, California, in 1978 as a bilingual teacher of early childhood education. In Houston, Texas (1988-1991), Hollywood, California (1991-1993), and Glendale, California (1993-2001), Phyllis was a bilingual teacher of kindergarten and first grade.
Phyllis holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. She has two Master of Arts degrees from California State University: in early childhood education and in bilingual and cross-cultural education.
Bryce holds a B.A. in business administration from the University of Washington, an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, an M.A. in church and community from McCormick Theological Seminary and a D.Min. from San Francisco Theological Seminary. He holds a diploma from the Ecumenical Institute Graduate School in Celigny, Switzerland.
Bryce was ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament in June 1960 by Seattle Presbytery. He (Bryce) is a member of San Gabriel Presbytery. Phyllis is a member of Knox Presbyterian Church in Pasadena, California where the couple attends regularly.
Birthdays:
Bryce - June 28
Phyllis - October 3