Thanks be to God for You!

Thanksgiving Blessings

1Chronicles 16:8-9 Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts.

This Thanksgiving we were able to get together with Seth's immediate family as well as his grandpa. We were all blessed (escpecially Jonah and Jessica) by the entrance of Catherine Grace Sander into the world the day before Thanksgiving. Counting Catherine, there were 20 of us who were able to get together. This will most likely be the last time we'll all be together until we return back from our 23 month commitment in Austria. 

This month we've reflected on the numerous ways God has blessed us! A huge part of that blessing has come from you all! We firmly believe that without your prayers and support, we would not be this close to leaving. Thank you all so very much! It looks like God is keeping us in the states for Christmas and if the rest of our funds come out this next month we'll be flying out in January. We could definitely use your prayers in this specific area. We will not be able to get to Austria on our own. We continue to give this over to God and pray for his blessings on our ministry partner development.

Upcoming Events
Please be in prayer 
December 2nd - Speaking to the Youth Group at our church
December 6th - Sharing with the GI E-Free Church Missions Board
December 6th - 11th - In Wichita - Alyssa's family is getting together for Christmas
January 6th (tentatively) - Speaking at the Geneva E-Free Church Service(Also be in prayer for weekly meetings and calls that we are having with individuals)

As we look back over the past few months it is remarkable to see how God has been using us as well as providing for us. We are blessed in so many ways. It's really starting to set in that we are close to leaving. We do need to raise 100% and only need $1,150 more of monthly commitments to get there. Praise God! Our goal is to leave in the month of December. There is paper work that needs to be filled out by the 23rd of November if we are to leave ANYTIME in December. In order to fill out this paperwork, we need ot be around 95% by the 23rd. This means there needs to be about $875 of monthly commitments (for the whole 23 months we'll be gone) by the 23rd. That is a week away. We need your prayers in order for this to become a reality. We love you all. Thanks for the encouragement you've been!

Seth & Alyssa

How to give:
Mail:

Make checks payable to EFCA and in the memo line put Sander #1753

Mail to: 901 E 78^th St Minneapolis, MN 55420

Online: Click here
Monthly:To have your donation taken directly out of your bank account each month, fill out this form

All donations are tax deductible.

Undeniable Grace

Our most recent update sent out through e-mail. If you would like to receive these e-mails let us know by email: alyssa.sander@efca.org

We are at 80% of our funds! We are getting closer to our departure date every day now and we are getting very excited to join the ministry team there in Innsbruck. We do have to be at 100% before we can leave. Lord willing that will be before the end of the year! Be in prayer for us as we raise our final 20%. Thank you for all you have done for us, both through prayer and financially. Everyone has been a blessing and encouragement to us. If you are wanting to give you canclick here. Our number is 1753. We visited a big cat rescue center. Many of the tigers, lions and leopards at the center had been abused, neglected or unwanted by their previous owner. So this place decided to take them in. I got to thinking about this, It reminded me of many of us. A lot of us have felt unwanted or unloved or have been abused, neglected or not cared for. Thanks be to God for His overwhelming love and grace towards us! Just like the people that had a heart for these animals, God has even a greater love for us. While others may see unlovable, worthless people, Our Father sees great potential. We should be abundantly glad He's not just interested in adopting the best of the best! Our hope is that God can use us to show His love to those in Austria  Dave Osterhus will be our team leader while in Austria. Dave Initially arrived about 15 years ago and has since met his wife in Austria who serves as part of the ministry team as well. They have two wonderful(So we've heard) kids, Jakob and Jana! God has blessed us with a awesome team and team leader who desire to bringGod glory by reaching Austrian youth for Christ. Dave has been a huge support and encouragement while preparing to go. Refreshed! Recently, we were able to spend a couple of days away from everything and spend time just the two of us. We definitely feel a little more refreshed after spending time relaxing together and in prayer. We hope to be able use the time away we had to re-focus and maintain excitement for what God has in store! We Need You Give In order to reach or goal we need 13 more people to give $100/month or 26 to give $50/month - For more information on giving, click HERE. Pray -That God provides in order to leave in December. -That God empowers us with His Spirit as we share our heart with others. -For the team in Austria, that they would be continually strengthened and encouraged. -For those being ministered to in Austria, for there Salvation. Stay Connected Skype: Alyssa.sander10, Seth.Sander10 facebook Blog E-mail: Seth.sander@efca.org, Alyssa.sander@efca.org

Finding a Routine

Time sure does fly! So many things have changed for us in the last month.

Right after we got back home (Tuesday Sept 4th) from our training at the end of August we started to pack and organize things. We had a garage sale that Thursday through Saturday. We sold the majority of our possessions and many people donated items for us to sell as well. Seth's family and Mikaela Klien were a huge help in this process. With our items along with things people donated, we were able to fill up our front and back yard as well as living room! God provided awesomely once again, and were able to raise $1900! Thanks to everybody who  donated there stuff to sell and those bought the things we sold!!

That following week we packed up everything that was left. We put some in storage and pretty much everything else in suitcases. We keep finding more things to get rid of, but are getting close to only having left what we will bring with us. We moved our of our house on Sept. 15th with a lot of help from friends and family! Since then, we've moved into Seth's brother's basement which is a huge blessing to us in this time of transition.

We also had the opportunity to go to a Nebraska football game with some of Alyssa's family a few weeks ago. We had a wonderful time watching the Huskers beat up on Arkansas State, but an even better time spending the day with Alyssa's mom and brother from Wichita, KS along with her brother and wife from here in NE. Her whole family has been very loving and supportive through our journey, we're very grateful for all the ways they've helped us over the last few years. We're both undeservedly blessed to come from such wonderful Christian families!! I dare say we wouldn't be in the position we are here without our families : )

Since then we took a trip to Wichita for a week spending time with friends and family, meeting with people about support raising, and working for Alyssa's dad doing some tile work and painting. The trip was a big blessing and kept us very, very busy.

(Technically this is Manhattan, KS but we made it a part of the same trip)

Once we arrived back home, Alyssa was excited to return to some kind of a routine, but a couple days later Seth and his brother Jonah drove out to Denver, CO to spend some time with their grandpa and to go to the Bronco's game (I don't think he minded not getting back to a routine)

Now we are both finally back in Nebraska, however it doesn't seem as though our schedule has calmed down too much. We have been spending time connecting with supports and potential supports, and since we'll be playing a lot of sports in Austria, we've been playing Tennis this week in preparation : ).We've also been keeping busy spending time with family, and working (through some amazing friends we have, God has provided Seth with some work this week as well!) 

Currently we are at 65% of financial goal which is such a big blessing. Just this morning we got to 51 people supporting us monthly and even more that have committed to pray for us.We are still in need of more supporters! Please contact us if you're interested or go HERE (Our donation number is 1753). It's an amazing feeling knowing that so many people love us and are praying for us on a consistent basis. We appreciate you all so much!

-Seth & Alyssa

Back in Nebraska

Hey all,

Our training is over and we're now back in Nebraska. We had three full days of training from Monday the 27th to Wednesday the 29th of August. We learned a lot and got to meet some really awesome people as well. We spent time discussing many different aspects of cross-cultural and team ministry as well as going over a lot of logistics. They also had us do some fun activities to get us thinking and see what it's like working as a team.

 For one such activity, they gave our group of 8 people 8 dollars to buy lunch for all of us.   It was intended to give us a taste of what it's like to live on a dollar per meal and to see how we would work together in the situation. It ended up working out pretty well, and we had a delicious lunch of corn tortillas with your choice of hotdogs or peanut butter and bananas(or peanut butter, hotdog, ketchup, and banana which some people apparently prefer). We also had carrots and tomatoes for veggies, and you could enjoy that delicious meal too, with some to spare, for the humble price of $7.71!

After our wonderful training came to an end we headed to Champaign, IL to visit my brother and sister in law and younger sister Joy. We had a really good time there and are really encouraged to see all the progress Jeremy has made since his brain surgery! God is such an awesome God and has been pouring out His blessing through this situation. Please pray for Jeremy and Janelle and for a quick and wonderful recovery! After a few days of nail-biting board games, it was time to head home.

We ended up leaving early this morning around 2 A.M. and arrived at our humble abode around 11 A.M. Now it's time to clean,  organize, and get ready for the garage sale we're having this weekend. We're planning on having it Thursday evening 6-8, Friday morning 7-4 and Saturday 7-4. Our address is 238 S 3rd st, Seward, NE. If you're interested in donating anything please let us know.  Everything's going to be free- will donation and any proceeds will go towards our trip to Austria.

-Seth & Alyssa

Mini Apple Us

Hey everyone,

We made it safe to Minneapolis! No car troubles or anything of that sort(except for a little paint missing on our bumper, still not for sure how that happened...gives the car some character though...) praise the Lord! We left Seward Friday after work, and stopped by Omaha to visit Alyssa's brother Marcus and his wife Suzy. From there we headed to Ames, Iowa to stay with our friend's Brad and Kayla and there handsome little boy Cooper. After spending an enjoyable time with them, we headed to Minneapolis Saturday afternoon.

We made it the better half of the twin cities(actually it was technically Bloomington) Saturday evening to stay with my cousin Sarah. After having a delicious supper of lasagna and basil bread which Sarah made us, we headed over to the Mall of America. It was almost the size of America, but not quite....and after price-guessing some expensive shoes, we headed over to the Lego store. And that was about all we did there. The ginormous Lego sculptures were pretty impressive though. We said goodbye to Sarah after church on Sunday and after another delicioso lunch made by her. We then headed downtown to visit our friend's Jessie and Kevin. They showed us around the downtown area and brought us to a cool lookout of the Minneapolis bridges. If you're ever in Minneapolis, and need a tour guide, I would definitely recommend them... a bit pricey, but very good.

After another delicious home cooked meal,(we're really getting spoiled folks) we went to our final destination. Well...not Heaven......but the only other place we'll be while in Minneapolis, the Kaufman's! They were also gracious enough to put us up for a few nights. We're having to sleep in the garage next to the used motor oil, but it's a place to lay our heads. But seriously, they're some of the nicest, most hospitable people that we've had the privilege to know. God has been extremely good to us, to Him be the glory forever!!

This morning, bright and early, well not that early..but still bright.. We started our first day of training. It was very enjoyable and we learned a lot. However I think I was just able to get my head to stop spinning..they did a number on us. It was a lot of fun though, and we got to meet 6 other missionary's getting ready to leave for various parts of the globe. We also had the opportunity to meet and learn from a number of staff there at the EFCA (Evengelical Free Church of America) headquarters. We topped off the day by eating at a Thai restaurant with a number of the other participants. God is good, tomorrow we start another full day of training, Thanks for your prayers and support, please don't stop!

-Seth & Alyssa

Friends and Family,

In a little less than a week (either Friday or Saturday) we are going to be off driving to Minneapolis for our pre-field training. We just finished up the online class that is preparing us for this training, covering topics ranging from our expectations of going to Austria, to sharing our testimonies to learning about culture shock. We have learned a lot, and are very excited for the training! It officially starts Monday morning and is 3 packed days, starting at 8 finishing around 7:30 each day with homework for the evening. Needless to say, it will be a busy few days. We'll be going up early in order to see people along the way. After the training is over on Wednesday, we'll be driving down to Campaign, IL to visit Seth's brother Jeremy and his wife Janelle. Seth's sister, Joy, also recently moved in with them. For those of you that don't know, Jeremy found out 2 weeks ago he had a brain tumor. He had surgery on Wednesday to have it removed, everything went well, and he is now home! Praise the Lord! What a miraculous and gracious God we serve! He's doing well and it sounds like recovery will take about a month.

Fortunately, Alyssa's job at the bank has known we would be leaving for months now, and is very flexible with her schedule. They are really wanting her to stay on as long as she can and are willing to work around what we have planned. However, Seth's job wasn't as flexible. Seth was given just a day and a half of vacation time for the whole year and that was used a while ago. Since he didn't have any vacation time, and was going to quit in the next few months anyway, they didn't want to make an exception in letting him have off. As a result, his last day of work will be this Friday, August 24th. We are trusting God that he will continue to provide for us as he has been.

Since we won't be having the income that we do now, we are planning on moving out of our home September 15th and moving in with family. We are needing to get rid of a lot of things and make many decisions before that point. We're packing up things we want to keep and putting them in storage and are trying to plan what we want to take with us, and setting aside stuff for a garage sale. We're planning on doing a donation garage sale September 7th and 8th. We won't have prices on anything, instead people can set their own price. However, if someone is in need of something, they can just take it for free. Any proceeds will go towards our Austria fund. Please be praying that this will go well. If anyone wants to donate anything for us to sell, you can bring it by our house anytime, or give us a call at 402-641-3747. 

God has really put things in motion for us now and we know He will continue to provide. We have a tentative plan to leave for Austria in mid October, but we still have a lot of support to raise so we need a lot of prayer. We know that we need to trust God's timing and have seen that He is putting things in place, so we're working hard to prepare. We are going to be working on keeping this updated, now and while we are in Austria as well. We love you all very much and are very thankful for all the support that you have shown us. Thanks for all your prayers!!!

Love,
Seth & Alyssa Sander

p.s. - If you'd like to give now go here our number is 1753