Welcome back everyone to another episode of Faithfully Engaged.
I have an extremely special guest today because this guest happens to be my own mom.
So mom, let me kick it to you for a little bit and have you just introduce yourself.
I will.
Good morning, son.
Thanks for having me.
I'm happy to be here.
Yeah, my name is Deanna Sanders and I am an author.
This is a recent development in my life.
I've been a writer for many years, but have a book coming out this year that we'll be
talking about here just shortly.
I have lots to tell you about that.
Okay.
And obviously thanks for being on here.
So with that being said about the book, just tell us a little bit about this book.
What's this book about?
Okay, well, the title is called Unseen People and the subtitle is Sharing Light and Life
with Your Neighbors and the Nations.
And this was a long time coming, the birth of this book.
It began as a blog in 2011 and that was the year I started working for a nonprofit, anti-trafficking
nonprofit, and traveling the world and hearing stories and seeing people and situations where
they were rough, that they needed to get away from abuse and exploitation.
Anyway, through the years I wrote a lot of stories, not just about that, but stories
about people even here close by.
And the whole, as it began to develop and I got to thinking, these stories can be put
into a book form.
I've seen other books where they cram blogs into a book and there's no thread of any
thing going through it.
But this one, I started to see the development of just the progress of how God began to show
me through a variety of situations, people who aren't normally seen.
And there's all kinds in this book, from days in my childhood through my youth and then
onward to adulthood in different situations.
So I wanted to share these stories in a form where people could have them all in one place.
I've had them spread out in different blog sites and different variety of ways and I
want to gather them all together so I could share them more efficiently with the world.
So that's what this book is about, seeing unseen people.
And I want to encourage people to develop that type of vision so they can see through
God's eyes, people that need or are in desperate need of help.
That's what this book is about.
Awesome.
So tell us, you're not going to be able to tell us every little bit of the book, but
what were some of those, not so much in the book itself, but your real life experiences,
other places you've gone and experiences for those of you that don't know you, those
that do know you know that you've been all over the world.
But tell us just some of those real life experiences that somebody might end up reading in the
book.
Okay.
Well, so I felt, back up a bit, I felt a call to missions and writing in high school
and then into college, early formative years.
And so I felt those calls coming together.
And my earliest desire was to go into all the world, wherever God opened doors and write
those stories so people could see them.
And it took a while to get there, but I eventually did.
And some of those places where I was, I was missions minister at a local church.
And that began to help me get my travel experience.
And so I was able to go places in the States as well as places around the world, and Mexico,
Canada, Italy, South Africa, multiple times to England, and Bangladesh, places that aren't
necessarily tourist destinations.
Some of those are, a few of them are, but mostly not.
Who would ever want to go into the inner workings of Dhaka Bangladesh is not something that
you really want to go get, run out and get your passport for.
But it was in those places like that, and then 14 trips to Indonesia, which is a big
part of my stories.
But within those places, you find, you find Christian people that you bond with for one
thing, but you also find people who are riding on a bus and you get to strike up a conflict
conversation, and they become lifelong friends.
And sometimes they are believers and mostly time not, but it's an opportunity to share
some light and life with those people so that they're able to get a glimpse into who God
is.
And so I've, gosh, there's a lots of stories I can tell, and I want to tell them all right
now, but I won't, I'll save them for the, for the book.
But in the mountains and the villages of Northern Sumatra Indonesia, down into the villages
of the island of Bali, all kinds of people who share the commonality of who Christ is
and want to get that message out to the world, and you just immediately bond and you find
opportunity to go into those villages with purpose and see women and girls who are desperate
for life and ability to get away from bad situations.
And so you work with people there.
One, I'll just tell you one and we'll move on, but the, one of our partners with the
organization, she is safe.
Her name was Wati, her name is Wati, and she has remarkable story all by herself and a
little Indonesian woman, but mighty and strong in her passion and her ability to overcome
obstacles and help thousands at this point in her life, thousands of children and women
and through seminary training, young men, equipping them to be God's messengers in a
dark place.
So she was just one, but very influential one.
So from, from somebody and your situation, you, you now live in more rural setting of
Oklahoma and grew up in all sorts of rural areas and Arkansas and throughout, throughout
the South.
Why is it important for somebody in those situations to go across the world?
Why shouldn't you just stay in the South, stay home and just impact the people around
you?
Why, why should you go out?
Well, good question.
So the, I answer that actually in the introduction to unseen people because my comfort zone is
my home as well as you would know, and I talk about being an introvert and how much I love
being home.
And that's the way God designed me and I'm, I'm okay with that, but to put an introvert
on a airplane that goes 23 hours to a destination with all these people and then you go into
a very populous country, wherever it was, I went people everywhere and it was like,
what in the world?
But the message that God gives is so important that you have to say, yes, I'm willing to
go whether that is staying home or whether that is going around the globe and both are
equally important.
They are, but I've had people ask me that question and it's like, aren't there unsafe
people here, aren't there people here that need to be seen?
Absolutely, absolutely.
And what I wanted to say is you go do that and I'll go get on the plane because that's
the, that's the passion that God had given me.
And when, and without that calling, I wouldn't have done it.
Absolutely wouldn't have.
Every night before a trip when I packed my bags, it's like, I think I'll just stay home.
This is too much work and too much trouble and exhausting.
It was on many levels, but, but I think the vision that developed that I began to see
through the years is God put open those doors for me to go, but he also opens those doors
for me to stay.
And whenever changes of seasons in life would come and job changes would come, it's like,
what's what's happening?
Why am I not on an airplane anymore?
But I'm okay.
I'm okay with that.
It's important to answer the call wherever God puts you in whatever season of life.
There's going to be people that need to hear you say their name that need to hear, see
your encouragement, whether that's in the grocery store line at the checkout at Walmart
or if it is in international plane terminal somewhere around the world.
The call is the same.
It's just location.
Let's take that last bit go a little bit further in that of somebody saying you saying somebody's
name that on its surface that doesn't like, okay, somebody called my name, Johnny, who
who cares?
That's just my name.
But why is that important?
Why is it important that people hear their name and that you say other people's names?
So significant for one thing, people hardly ever get my name correct, but that's okay.
I've gotten over that.
Yes, you can tell.
But people saying your name, it just gives you, I mean, that's your identity.
That's who you are.
And for people to recognize that by saying your name makes you feel significant important
because you are.
But for another human being to recognize that there's just immediate connection when you
say somebody's name.
I try and I'm horrible.
I have a horrible memory as you would know.
But I want to be able to remember people's names.
So when I'm going through the check it line, especially if they have a name tag on the
checker at Walmart, I want to see that her name is Denise or whatever it is.
And before I leave, I will say, thank you.
And I look at her name Denise and immediately that person will just light up because I've
said her name and she's not just another person on the other side, clicking buttons.
She's a human being made in the image of God doing what she's supposed to be doing at that
moment in time, but there's an immediate connection.
So I'll take that name with me.
I will immediately try to write it down or click it on my phone or something.
So I'll remember it, but especially important for places where you go repeatedly, like maybe
to a restaurant where you go and you have the same servers many, many times and they
get to know you.
And so you're able over time to develop relationship, but you use their names because that's who
they are.
And everybody likes to hear their name.
Maybe it sounds like you're trying to be more important than you are, but that's not the
point.
The point is you're making God's image.
You have a name.
He knows your name.
There's a lot of scripture to back all that up about when God calls people's names, which
may be the title of another book.
We'll see.
We'll see about that.
We'll get to this first one first.
But when God sees people, he calls them by name and he has a purpose and a mission for
them and that needs to be our purpose and mission to.
Yeah.
Well, and like you're saying there, there's a connection there.
It's not just a number.
It's not just somebody we're trying to win their soul and then forget about them.
Like no, it's a real person.
So calling them by name, that makes sense.
It is.
There's a psalm that, Psalm 139, just to check on that, but it's God sees you where you are.
Whether you're up in the depths of the sea or in the heights of the heavens, God sees
you and he knows you and he calls you by name.
The scriptures and Isaiah are the same.
So I think sometimes we overlook that part.
And in the society in which we live today, it's easy to be anonymous.
It's easy to hide behind a screen or a phone or just get in and out as fast as you can
from somewhere and you just move on because we live in a society where you can stay hidden
if you want.
It's hard to see people whenever you have that mindset.
God knows where we are at all times and we need to develop a little bit of that God vision
to see other people where they are, whether it's a normal everyday life or if it's in
a desperate situation and knowing how to help them get out of that.
That's our calling, not just mine.
That's every Christian's calling is to see people and help them know Jesus and bring
them to a relationship with him.
That's really what I want with this book is that.
It's not just to tell my stories and to tell all about myself.
It's to bring the readers to a place where they understand that's their calling to see
people at the point of their need and to bring them to a relationship with Christ.
That's the whole goal.
Let's back up away from your experiences and stories while these have been fantastic and
they're certainly written there in the book.
This is the next basis of the question here is it's in a book.
Some people might have similar situations.
I know people you've worked with over the years have fabulous stories but they're not
written down.
They're not written down even in a blog or in a book.
Take us through just your writing journey.
Have you always wanted to be a writer?
When did you develop this passion?
Just walk us through the writing portion of your life.
I wanted to be a veterinarian.
Can you imagine?
When I was a kid, that's what I wanted to be because I love animals and then I understood
you've got to be good at science and math.
That is not my calling.
So then I turned to art and I thought maybe I'll be an artist and the whole creative part
of me began to emerge.
It was in high school.
There's a creative writing class of all places.
It was in Chapel High School and Pine Bluff.
There's a wonderful teacher.
Mrs. Gorman was her name.
She saw my ability to write.
At that point, I started writing different types of writing from poetry to long stories
and short stories and all those things, even a script for a cartoon, all different types
of writing.
I began to see that this was a passion that I wanted to see at the words on paper.
I followed that calling into college at another long word, Washington Baptist University in
Arcadelia, Arkansas, and had another professor there, Dr. Downs, who was really good at challenging
me and marking up my pages with big red pen, but knowing that I had the talent to be able
to write.
Once again, I learned lots of different ways to do it.
But that intersection in my college years, I also felt a calling to mission.
As I said a while ago, I thought that maybe my calling would be to write the stories of
people around the world, which is what ended up happening in a roundabout way.
But anyway, the writing process, yes, since about high school years, I've wanted to write.
So I've got, I don't know where they are now, but stacks and stacks of notebooks of poems
and stories and through my teenage years and into my college years, I started gathering
all those stories and continued on that journey even into my seminary years, where I got a
master's in communications and began to keep honing that skill that God has given.
But mostly my thoughts came out in journal writing, and that's what I would encourage
a lot of people to do.
You don't have to publish a book.
You don't have to write on the blog.
Like you said, some of us feel like we have to do that because we want to share it with
the world, but you don't have to.
You can write your words down in the journal.
You can record them on your phone if you want, but just capture what you're thinking.
That's all journal writing is, is capturing your thoughts.
Sometime that can turn into a prayer journal, and that's good too, where you're journaling
your thoughts to God.
So that's, I think that's a good practice for anybody in your daily quiet times is to
have your journal have something nearby and a handy pin, drop those things down.
Date it, go back where you can look and see what God has done through the years.
So that's, that's something I continue to do.
It's been a, it's a little bit different forms through the years, but I've always done that.
So anything you can do to keep your skills sharp is good too.
I mean, if you feel like you're called to write, you can, there's other ways to write
than there's certainly a lot of ways other than book writing, which I've done as well,
which article writing, writing curriculum, writing content for all kinds of all kinds
of, there's all kinds of needs for content anymore, whether it's for the internet or
for like I've done with nonprofits, different newsletters, things like that.
There's lots of different ways to use your skill, but you got to do it.
It gets got to become a habit.
It's not just something you all of a sudden think, okay, I'm going to write this book.
You know, you can, but you've got to have some experience and skill and always continue
to learn.
There's so many things these days out there to help you learn to develop your skills for
Christian writers, specifically even you can find all kinds of opportunity to learn how
to do it and to do it continually and to do it well.
So that's, that's where I find myself today is continuing to learn this whole new world
of writing a book.
I mean, I say I've written since I've been probably what 17 years old or 16, even younger
than that.
But that's a, that was a long time ago, but there's a lot of new ways to learn how to
do it and to be a continual learner, then that's good advice for anybody in whatever
you feel your call to is to always be willing to learn and not to be afraid of something
new just because it's new, but like podcast.
So, but to learn, to learn, to jump in with God calls you and to do that and continue
to learn and find opportunities to do that.
You know, I kind of have the, the inside scoop here because this is the, the guess that's,
that's my mom.
So I see a different, different picture here than I do with most of my guests, but I personally
know the journey for this book has been a very long one.
And I'm not talking so much of the writing portion of that, although that's obviously
a big piece, but tell the audience just a little bit of what the process of being published
is like, cause that's a different thing than actually writing it out.
So kind of tell us that story.
So, so I've learned, I don't take rejection well.
I'm not sure anybody does, but I got a lot of rejections along the way with this particular
book.
So like I said, I've written forever, but this, writing the book and having it published
is a whole brand new thing for me.
I've, I've learned some things in the past and, and I've actually wrote a fiction book
many, many years ago unpublished, but I learned some things through that process that it's
hard.
It's, it's like, you know, everybody thinks they can be a writer and has a book in them.
And maybe you can, but to get it to the publishing to the right publisher at the right time is
a whole another thing.
And so yeah, I, I, once I figured out that I wanted to do this with all my blogs and
combine them into a book, that's when I started really needing some help.
And a lot of times the way to do that is to find an agent that will represent you.
And so I tried that route and I attended some, this particular one last year was an online
writers conference.
And so what you learned to do is you have your, your book idea, you have all your ideas
kind of on one page and that's what they call this is a one page.
You have all your information there and then you pitch it to an agent that you've con,
I had an appointment with and then they kind of gives you a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
And I got several thumbs down, but it just wasn't the right story for the right publisher
at the right time.
And to find that fit is quite the journey.
And so I never really did get an agent, although I still recommend that for people.
If you really think you have a publishable idea.
But this one particular agent, he didn't take me on as a client, but he gave me a lot
of wisdom about how to organize my book.
I had like 60 something chapters and he goes, no, that's not my work.
So he showed me how to combine that into workable units that, that are readable without being
disjointed.
And so he gave me the wisdom of how to do that.
And then continued to give me free advice.
I'd, I'd shoot him a question and he'd answer back and, and that was free on his end.
And this, because he saw the, he saw something in me.
He didn't necessarily know if that particular book was right for his agency, but he did
think that it had possibilities.
So that, that got my attention that I needed to continue it.
So I, I pitched it to him and I continue to send it out.
There's a Christian Writers Market guy that comes out every year that has a list of publishers.
And so I started working through that to see who might want this book.
So whenever a publisher looks at your proposal, which is a longer version of your one sheet,
he goes into a lots of, a lots of detail.
They look at that and they decide if it's something that they can sell, if it's a traditional
publisher, they will decide if it's something they can sell.
And if they think so, they will take it and they'll want to see more.
They'll request the first three chapters or whatever.
And then they'll decide if they want to take it onward from there.
I did have a few requests to see those first three chapters and that's, and then it stopped.
I was like, ah, didn't find out I still hadn't found the right person.
So, but I've also learned, and this is kind of something new that's happened within my
writing career from all these years.
Is there's more than one way to publish anymore?
It used to just be the tradition of publishers, which is kind of narrowed down through the
years to five or six main publishing houses, the Zondervans, the Holmen, Broadman Holmen,
all of those, all kinds.
But now it started self-publishing a few years ago, several years ago now, which is, you
know, you're going to get your book out there because you're self-publishing, but there's
a lot to learn about how to do it from cover design to goodness, all the different choices
you have to make about presentation of the book, that if you had a traditional publisher,
they'd take care of those things for you.
But then there's an in-between, there's a hybrid publisher where they take the book
and decide that they want to take it on, and they do the cover design, and they do the
editing, and they do all those things, but you still have a voice in it.
You're still able to help along with the journey.
So there's a lot of different ways.
Through a lot of last year, I started sending this out to different publishers, both hybrid
and traditional, and I kind of had ruled out self-publishing just because I didn't want
to deal with all those details.
I admire people who can, but I thought if I can find either traditional or hybrid publisher,
that's the way I'm going to go.
And so I kept getting rejections, closed doors, and then finally I sent one to a publisher
called Ambassador International, and I didn't hear from them.
And I thought, huh, after a few months, I thought, I'm going to try again.
And this is months down the way, and I reached back out and I said, did you have a chance
to look at that and have everybody hear from you?
And it had just gotten lost in the weeds somewhere, and that happens.
So you've got to be persistent if you think this is the right place.
So I'm not a bulldog, but I am persistent on things that I think are worthy.
So he got back right back with me and said, yeah, this may be something we want to look
at, and he wanted to look at the whole book and read it and said, yep, we're going with
this.
So that's how that happened.
It just kind of happened all at once.
And this was in November, first of November of this past year.
And so we're a few months into it, and it's like day difference.
And all of a sudden, you're trying to get it to the right place at the right time.
You're trying to find conferences to go to and people to interact with and build a relationship
with.
And then all of a sudden, it just happens.
And just for a person of faith, it's like, OK, slow down a minute and pray it through
and make sure talk through with your family.
This is a good fit or not.
But the way God tends to work with me is like, I know that it's right at the right time.
And I felt that peace about it.
So sign the contracts and off we went.
So it's still, I said that was in November.
And so here we are in June.
And it's in the editing phase.
And also, and the artist is starting to work on the cover design.
I'm really excited about to get the cover design.
And then we can show people what we're looking at visually.
And they'll get a better idea of what's happening.
So sometime probably later this summer into the early fall, all of that will be settled.
And then we'll get into the final process of publication.
Hopefully, it'll come out by the end of the year.
But we'll see.
So say I'm learning.
This is a whole new.
I am in my my sixties and I'm learning new stuff about how to how to do these things.
But it's exciting.
I'm enjoying it.
And it's a process and it takes patience.
But if it's if it's worth it, then you do all those things.
So that's probably more information.
No, I think it's great.
And it really leads into this this next question that I kind of like to ask all my guests if
I get the chance.
And I want to break yours up into two different ones.
This podcast is really built on on action.
It's built on the kind of the genesis.
A lot of listeners have heard this already is people that are in more of a of a Christian,
a conservative type of worldview.
There's a lot of great content out there, but a lot of it's just about what's going
wrong, all the bad stuff, which is not inherently bad to have an understanding.
Of what's going on, but I don't want people to stay there.
I want people to be active and to be being engaged.
That's why we call this faithfully engaged.
So I want to break this into two kind of actionable pieces.
The first one, let's focus on really what you just said, and this will probably be,
you know, the longer form.
You probably already went went through that, but I want to go even closer into the listener.
Use this play right now, and they can get off of this recording and then go do something.
They can go get at least closer to getting either a book published or a blog post, anything
in the writing world, but they're just stuck and maybe self doubt or am I really good enough
to do this and they just can't quite go.
What would be your advice for any type of writer to just get started?
What would you say for them?
I would say, well, first of all, just do it and just write and just to get it going for
your own sake, but also you need other people.
So one thing that has been helpful for me in this past year is to join a writer group.
Sometimes they're local, you can go in person, but the one that I'm a member of is an online
group and it's called Hope Writers, and you can just find them at HopeWriters.com, I think.
But there's a lot of groups out there, and you can find them on Facebook groups and all
kinds of things where you're getting advice and benefit experience of people who have
done these things.
So with my particular group, they have a whole library of guests that have been interviewed
like this that give their wisdom on a variety of writing topics from book publishing to
what you do if you have writer's blog to how to find inspiration for stories, all of those
things for both fiction and nonfiction.
I'm a nonfiction writer these days, but there's advice for both types of writers.
And also I would say find a writer's conference.
Once again, the one I mentioned earlier was an online writer's conference.
And here in Oklahoma, you think it would be something close by, but we're really kind
of not, but this goes out to people all over the place.
So there's a lot of conferences, especially there's one going on right now in North Carolina,
which I could have been at the Blue Ridge Christian Writers Conference.
But there's writers conferences everywhere.
There's something Chicago coming up soon.
There's another one or two in California.
They're all over the place.
So some of them, if you can't go in person, go online.
At least you're able to hear conference speakers.
You can go into breakout rooms.
And sometimes in those breakout rooms, you actually get to talk with each other, like
online talk.
And so your building relationship as well as building your knowledge about writing.
And some of those pieces of advice they will give you is what to do at this point in your
life.
Because everybody's in a different place on the journey.
Are you feel like you're all alone and you're not?
There's other people out there struggling to find out what to do.
And you can access those people in a lot, lots of ways.
Online groups as well as, like I said, Facebook groups, there's people on Twitter and Instagram,
wherever you want to go.
There's a lot of writers out there.
There's a lot.
And so just find your tribe, find your people and dig in and commit to it for the long haul.
So you can see how this group works and how you can interact.
And how you can also help other people.
Because you've got wisdom too.
And it's not just one-sided.
It becomes a relationship.
In this past, just in the last couple of months, there's about three different people in my
writing group I thought that we kind of connected.
It took me a while to find out who those people were.
That's why I'm saying do it for the long haul.
But I found out other writers that are similar in topic to what I do.
And also some of them similar in age, but some of them are younger.
And so we've kind of built a bond and helping each other.
Encouragement is probably the biggest thing.
I like those words of encouragement.
And so they are good at doing that as well as they can be honest too.
You can give them a piece of your work and say, tell me what you think.
And sometimes they really will.
So I got you ready for that.
But that would be my two things that you can do immediately.
Find a group and find a conference and get involved.
Do those two things.
I find this is what's so interesting what I really love about doing this podcast and
talking to people in different walks of life.
That there seems to be some similarities in different things just because we're humans
and we all kind of operate similarly even if we have very different personalities.
But that's a common thing is don't do it alone.
That we're just not, I think that's the way that God made us.
We're not built to be completely isolated even as to introverted people that enjoy a
long time, what we still recognize that you need to have other people.
Great wisdom there.
And then the second piece, and this is going to be more on just the strictly faith based
side of things.
People that maybe have heard your story or God's been tugging on them for a while that
they want to be involved in missions in some way, shape or form.
And I'll make this pretty abroad that this might be somebody that is able to go and maybe
they can go do a mission trip this summer or something.
Or maybe it's a some grandma in their 80s that physically is not able to go and do something,
but they want to be involved.
So for anybody and everybody that wants to be involved in missions in some way, shape
or form, what's something that they could do after hearing this to just be more involved
in the missions process?
Right.
Oh, that's a big question.
So of course, number one is go through your church.
If you're involved in a local church and if you're not, go do that.
But and find out what they are doing in the world of mission.
Because if it's a church who feels if it's a well rounded God called church, they're
going to be involved in mission at some level locally and globally.
So so do that.
Talk to your pastor, find or find another staff member, find somebody that's in charge of
mission and talk to them about what that is.
I feel like everybody is called to to mission and it can find its way in different forms.
Everybody can pray.
Everybody can give not everybody can go, but you can help support somebody who does.
So for that 80 Euro grandma, which you know, I'm going to be soon is find specific ways
to pray.
I've written for a publication for a women's missionary union for years and and different
different audiences of that organization.
But they there's other other denominations have other pieces of mission literature that
you can read and learn how to pray specifically.
If your church is involved in a partnership of some type, learn how to pray for those
particular needs, find out what they are.
Don't just say, God bless the missionaries, pray specifically about who they are, what
their needs are.
And if you don't know what the needs are, find out and pray specifically.
There's always a need to give and and whenever you start talking about missions is like,
oh, there's another mission offering.
And I promoted a lot of those through the years.
But because you can't go and do things without the financial resources to do it.
And if you just if you look at it in the terms of your your dollars or helping people get
out of bad situations and hear the love of Christ and see the love of Christ in action
through a person.
That's worth every bit of financial investment you can give.
But if you can go and I've I've taken 70 plus year old people on trips before and that was
they felt called to go.
And so I couldn't say that they weren't and we provided opportunities for them to go and
to serve it.
And there's nothing like seeing with your own eyes the depths of of poverty or the depths
of pain, the depths of of just separation from God through throughout the world and to
see it with your own eyes makes a world of difference.
So you can you can do that through actually through video and different things like that.
But if you can get on a bus or a plane or or whatever and go for yourself with a group
from your church or your area, whatever group you decide to go with, it'll change you whenever
you smell it and walk in it and breathe it and sit in the homes.
I'm immediately thinking about sitting in the homes of women in in Indonesia, I'm sitting
on their mat and drinking their strong Sumatran coffee and hearing their stories and listening
to them giggle and watching them cry.
And it's just you're physically there and so you can feel it and absorb it in all your
senses.
And as a writer, that makes a huge difference.
You'll be able to share through all your senses what it is that you've experienced.
And then you can come back home and help other people understand that better because you've
experienced it better.
And so that's kind of the completion of the loop is you find where to go, you go and experience
what you come back and share.
And then maybe you go again and again and again or help somebody else go and you know
how to pray because it's it's part of who you are.
And so all of that kind of works together.
So yeah, get your passport and go.
That's what I tell people get the passport, get it ready.
You don't have to use passport.
You can go across the street and find people.
That's another I didn't leave that I was thinking internationally when I was speaking just now,
but there's people in nursing homes.
There's people in hospitals.
I have stories in the book about a therapy dog.
Daisy was my therapy dog and we went into hospitals and nursing homes and and you there's
all kinds of people that are in need in those places.
And so you can do that.
You can be on your own mission without going with a team somewhere.
There is plenty of opportunity to do that.
Just kind of have to be willing to find out what those things are and go do it.
Yeah.
And and that kind of be that that's kind of at the center of all this is you you're never
going to have bright flashing lights and this is exactly it.
Like you do have to just you just have to do it sometimes.
And yeah, we actually read a book recently on the giving side of things.
And this is something that I think is important for any Christian in any way, shape or form.
But we read this book is called The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn and really was just
talking about giving and why that's important as as a Christian.
And it specifically talked about missions and how that is a wonderful way to care about
missions is by just giving, whether it's $10 or $10,000, you are thinking about that.
And that can really instruct your prayer life of my kid just gave $2.
I want to pray that those $2 goes and and helps the people that whoever the missionary
is serving.
So yeah, you can be involved.
And again, whether it's international or not, you can go talk to your neighbor.
You can talk to somebody.
So there we can't use too many excuses that I can't go international.
One, you might be able to we don't want to use that throw that off the boat too quick.
And if you're not, you can still be involved in some way, shape or form.
Yep.
Randy Alcorn is a really good writer, by the way.
I read I haven't read that book.
I read others from him.
Really insightful, talented writer.
But the giving part is just key for those people who do go and come back and they people
who give want to know what's happened with their money.
And working for nonprofits, I have known that's to be really true.
They want the stories about what happens to people.
So in a team, volunteer team member, when they go and they see all these these experiences
and they see the people, you want to make sure have opportunity to write it down before
you leave the country for sure or leave your location because you'll forget, you will,
but be able to share with people who've given those dollars so they can you can connect
with them that this takes everybody to make it happen.
And no job is less important than the other.
And the praying is just as key as well as a given you got to have that and you got to
have people willing to go.
So all of it works together.
But make sure you tell those stories about what's happening with those dollars, how it's
helping the missionaries or how it's actually helping the people.
And you've seen it so you can tell the truth about what's going on.
So be sure and make that part of your job assignment is to tell when you get back.
Absolutely.
Well, I think some fantastic stories, fantastic wisdom of just your own experiences.
As you mentioned earlier that we don't really know exactly when the book is going to be
coming out and everything.
And just for transparency for those of you that are watching this when it goes up, I
don't fully know when this episode will air, but won't be too terribly long in the future.
But for those of you that are listening to this and they want to be plugged in, connected
here about when the book will be announced and just be able to connect with you.
How could they find you and stay in contact with you?
And I would love that if people would.
The main place would be at my website, dnlnsanders.com.
I used my whole name because that's what my mom would call me, Dnl.
But anyway, dnlnsanders.com and on those pages I will update.
I have a link, I have a page on there about the book and it's just called that, the book.
And so you can go look and see what the updates are on that.
And I also would invite people to, while they're on the website is to subscribe to my weekly
newsletter.
It's a substack newsletter and there's a form on each page on my website where you can just
put your email in and you'll get connected.
You'll have an email every Wednesday.
It's called a Good Word Wednesday.
And so every week I'm able to connect with people who want to know what's going on.
I have a good word encouragement and insight that God has given me throughout the week
that I get to share with people who want to read it.
And always I will give an update about the book if there are some.
So you can just please sign up and so we can talk about a community.
That's what I feel like my good word community is.
It's a group of people who bond together over what God is doing in our lives.
And I'd love to hear back from people to get that feedback, don't know what's going on.
I'll ask a question of the week about that word and I get some interesting information
I'd love to hear from people.
So yeah, go to the website first and then sign up for my newsletter every week.
And if you'll do that, I'll send you a free.
It's called, what's it called?
It's called Seven Ways to Show People That They Are Significant.
And so I've got seven very specific ways.
It's like a little e-book that I will send you when you sign up.
And it's got these seven steps in it.
And some of these stories that I've talked about today are already in there.
But it's about how to connecting with people and everybody wants to know that they're
significant when those ways learning their name like we've already talked about that
we talk about that in there as well.
So I will send that to you when you sign up and we'll just get started getting to know
each other.
Awesome.
Well, I'll definitely be sure to include the website link and everything down and
the, and the show notes.
So be sure to check that out.
And I say that for all my guests, but this one's my mom.
So doubly be sure to check her out there.
So mom is great, great having you on and love getting to hear more about, about your stories
and your, your book writing and just everything getting to share that with my audience.
So it was absolute pleasure having you on today.
Thank you for inviting me, Son.
And I, you know, that this is, you know, talking is not my writing is my strong suit, not talking.
So, but I appreciate this venue to be able to, to share with people and to be able to
talk with you more about it as well.
So thank you.
I appreciate what you do.
This is good stuff.
All right.
Well, as, as I said before, go check out all of my mom's information down below.
But thanks again for, for listening to another episode of Faithfully Engaged.
And let's just continue fighting for truth.
You guys take care.
Thank you.