Hello friends,

My name is Kristofer Sanders.

I am a Software Engineer by day and an Evangelist of Yeshua by night.

I am also the Founder of Nea Ekklesia which I have founded in honor of the God of the Bible.

You see, I used to be the Servant of Sin.

Everything I did was based upon my knowledge and what I reasoned I wanted.

The Bible teaches that Sin is a harsh taskmaster and I know that is true through experience.

Today I am a successful Software Engineer and aspiring Preacher of Righteousness.

Yet these developments were not the result of my hand.

Let me tell you what happened and how these things came about.

I started as any child starts off, though my circumstances were a bit peculiar.

I was born to parents who were evangelists and they traveled the United States.

They were Pentecostal but would go anywhere the people loved Jesus and would invite them.

So while their background was Pentecostal their ministry was Charismatic.

My siblings and I travelled like gypsies until I was about ten or eleven.

We were even a part of the “act” as “kids” for a while.

Given our circumstances we had experiences most children and adults rarely do.

And although this is generally true it is specifically true in regards to religion and in different ways.

One of these ways stemmed from the fact our family was affiliated with Pentecostals.

Our family believed in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Yup. It wasn’t quite “Blues Brothers” because we were all “white”. But it was close!

During the time I was traveling with my family I received two prophecies from the Churches we visited:

1. You are going to have a unique ministry preaching the Word of God
2. You are going to work for the government during a time of war having something to do with planes

The first one was easy to reason how one might make that prediction and it is also the one I received most often.

The second one I received only once at Bill Swad Senior’s Church in Ohio.

Our family and another group were brought in as guests to minister to the congregation while Bill, the pastor, was on travel.

The other group had a man with them who was a pianist. The attraction was that he prophesied while playing the piano.

The man began by setting the audiences expectations.

He told the audience that God was in control of the prophesying and that he could not make prophecies occur.

He prophesied for no one that Saturday.

However by Sunday evening service he said he had a prophecy for one of the Sanders family’s children.

I was certain that it would be for my brother who was older, more outgoing, and also a pianist.

However when he said it was for their son Kristofer I was pretty sure he got us confused because that was common. We both looked alike at that age. We even had matching bowl cuts and church dress.

I was eight years old at the time.

As you can imagine I had not formulated any real and firm convictions regarding theology.

Yet after he gave his prophecy I remember being fairly convinced he got the entire family wrong seeing that we were a musical family and all.

I also remember thinking there was a contradiction here that the People of God were having and certainly “someone got it wrong!”

Christianity is an easy target for unbelievers, and when it comes to ridicule, the Pentecostals are second in line only to snake handling.

The world and being accepted by the world has an intense pull for adolescents.

And as a child I only wanted to have friends and go to school like other children.

I wanted to be “Normal” and have a “Normal life”.

I said in my heart, “God. If there are any gifts, musical, or whatever, I don’t want them. I just want to have a normal life.”

I got that chance.

By the time I was old enough to attend junior high school the laws of Tennessee required that my parents either have a Master’s degree or enter their children into public schools.

Since my family was not planning on leaving Music City, my mother began to stay at home more, and all their children began to attend public schools.

At age thirteen I was smoking.

By age fifteen drugs and alcohol were becoming a regular part of my life.

Marijuana was openly smoked in the classroom of an alcoholic teacher. And there were theatre lines to the drug dealers on my first days of high school.

By age sixteen I was out on my own in the street and my parents marriage would not survive.

My father continued to serve God. Alone this time. And he serves God until this very day.

My mother never stopped loving God.

By twenty I was already having encounters with law enforcement.

My mother was always asking me, “Son would you come to church with me?”

“Nah mom” I would reply, “I am busy.”

“Son would you come with me to church?”

“Nah mom.”

One day my mother came and asked me, “Son, it is mother’s day this Sunday. Will you come to Church with me?”

I may have been a jerk but I was not that big of a jerk!

“Sure mom.”, and so I went.

Whatever the pastor was talking about that day I have no idea because I was not paying any attention.

Yet I remember my mind was flooded with thoughts about God and I left abruptly in the middle of the service for privacy.

It was a modest facility and in the men’s room I found solace, and in the stall, I said an internal prayer.

“God, I cannot live up to your standards. I cannot imagine myself meeting your standard or living like these people. If I am to make it into your kingdom, you will have to be the one to do it.”

I returned to the service.

When the pastor spoke, this time he was speaking the secrets of my heart, aloud, and before the congregation.

He read my heart like it was an open book.

I glorified God and spoke in tongues on the spot.

Afterward I rationalized the event.

I said to myself “I got emotional. I must have done that because of my upbringing. Because I thought that is what you are supposed to do in that situation as I was in the moment.”

I was just never a fan.

I did not realize it at the time, but this was the day the God of The Bible began to reveal himself to me as the God of The Bible.

Jesus taught us to pray to our father in secret and he would reward us openly.

Jesus taught that it was the sinner’s prayer that he hears.

I tried to go back to my life but my life wasn’t working out anymore.

My life was the same.

My circumstances were the same.

My friends and acquaintances were the same.

My knowledge was the same.

I did not understand it at the time but God had changed something in me that day that rerouted my destiny.

He changed my heart.

He changed something very deep.

He changed my very nature.

I would continue my education in my mid twenties.

I graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science from the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Tennessee State University (a historically black university).

I married my wife and we had our first son during these years.

Before I graduated I was recruited by a High Technological and Communications Company as a Software Engineer on the Space Coast of Florida.

Time passed.

I grew professionally and seven years later we would have our second son.

It was my chance to spend the time that I often wished I had spent with Kristian, my first son, when he was a toddler.

I was too busy, doing too much, and I was too young of a father to realize it at the time.

I was looking forward to a second chance.

The first time a man holds a son he doesn’t quite know what to do with him.

The bonding with the child comes later for the man.

It was the strangest thing when Aidan, my second son, was born. When he cried his first cry it was as if I recognized his voice.

God had blessed me.

He gave me a wonderful wife and beautiful sons and a way to provide for them.

I was living out Isaiah 55.

Yet as early as I can remember I had a deep love for Yeshua.

Even during the darkest moments it was there, buried under the complications of life.

I never forgot about all of those prophecies about serving God.

And at this point I began to wonder,

“God, is this all? Did I stray too far? Did I stay in the world too long? Did I mess up your plans for my life? Is this it? Is this all that you want me to do? Be a good engineer and provide for my family?”

And while I was praying this prayer on my back patio; God caused me to remember that one odd ball prophecy from our last visit to Bill Swad’s Church back when I was a small child.

I was filled with wonder.

I thought,

“He knew I would be asking this question thirty years before I would ask the question. He provided the answer thirty years before I would ask the question.”

Everything was correct; but it did not have anything to do with planes.

I read no more into this other than what was revealed.

I was humbled and wondered at God who answered my prayer in such a mighty way!

I had a new appreciation for how The God of the Bible is living, sovereign, speaks, and loves his people.

Not long after this our family took our oldest son for his wellness checkup.

Our youngest son had already had his wellness visit a week before but because our youngest was too young to be home alone the whole family ended up in the doctors office.

The children both checked out but we asked if they were up-to-date on their vaccines which they were.

But the doctor mentioned they had a new vaccine flu mist.

I remembered all the visits home to Nashville to visit the family over the Holidays and how many times we got sick with the flu because there were so many children.

I said “Sure. Let’s get our flu vaccines.”

The doctor said “this early shipment is reserved for children and the elderly but we can vaccinate your kids.”

It was at this point that my youngest child was vaccine injured.

His eye was shut tight with the paralyzation of his 3rd, 4th, and 5th cranial nerves.

You see, the design of the delivery mechanism is high risk for young children who are more likely to resist.

Without a design with fine control such as a syringe it is high risk for delivering the antigen to an unintended site; like the eyes!

When they released us from Nemours Children’s Hospital my sons eye was just as shut as when we arrived.

When my wife asked if he would recover after taking the medication the doctors just returned a blank stare.

Yet I knew someone who speaks confidently and makes promises without reservation.

Let me tell you my friends,

At the end of the day a man with a Pentecostal background has a long track record of seeing and believing the God of the Bible is capable of things no one else believes He truly is. And I am talking about Christians!

God led us through a procession and opened our eyes during this time.

My life has been marked by the grace of God.

Yet I had never faced anything like this.

This was a hurdle like no other.

I began to cry out to the God of the Bible, Yeshua, because I knew that the doctors were fresh out of power to deliver here.

It was not looking good. And for transparency; I wasn’t feeling very strong in faith at that moment.

I did not have any power whatsoever to rescue my family.

It was a dark situation.

It was when I was on the phone with my cousin recounting all of God’s faithfulness over the years that something happened, something clicked.

I became just as sure that my God would not allow this to stand.

I was just as convinced as I was just moments before that I was in bad shape and in it for what was possibly the long haul and an uphill battle with no good outcome.

I was convinced that God was about to move on my behalf!

Deuteronomy 8:2, 8:3

2 And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.

3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.

Psalms 50:15

15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

For brevity I will not recount the full testimony of that event here today.

God honored our faith in his word.

God opened the eye of my son.

And through this event He also opened my eyes.

The morning when he crawled upon my lap with both eyes open and fully tracking I experienced joy that was bright like the sun!

I knew then that my God, the God of the Bible, is a deliverer. He changes not!

It wasn’t long after this that I began my next assignment at work.

And it occurred to me as I was writing this testimony, that the part about the planes came from the mouth of that prophet when our families went out for dinner after the service.

It came later!

When I travelled with him along the way.

There comes a time in a man’s life when the God of the Bible becomes so great that the man must honor him. A time when God’s name has become “hallowed”.

I preached my first public sermon at Greater Palm Bay Church of God in May of 2016 and I began to preach regularly at CITA Rescue Mission for men sometime in 2017 up through to today with my older brother, Assistant Pastor of Greater Palm Bay Church of God, and honorary member on the board of directors of Nea Ekklesia, brother Herold Lee.

Today I go to be with a beloved friend and older brother.

He is one of the Directors on the Board of Nea Ekklesia and the Pastor at Grace Family Church, Keith Manly.

He is a man who our family has special history with.

We love his family and the body he serves at Grace Family Church.

He is a man who has served God faithfully and whose life I watched and respected.

He has spoken into my life at important chapters along the way.

Today I go to be ordained as a Minister of the Gospel of Jesus with the People of God.

Dear friends, I have founded Nea Ekklesia in honor of The God of the Bible.

Only the God of the Bible knows the end from the beginning,

Only the God of the Bible opens the eyes of the blind,

Only the God of the Bible can raise men up,

And ONLY the God of the Bible can provide Truth and Salvation to every generation!

Bless his Holy Name,

Kristofer Sanders