The biggest, most exciting and challenging ice skating event of the year is coming up again! At the end of this month the 28th AEW (Alternative Elfsteden-tour Weissensee) will be held on the WeissenSee in Austria.
Many marathon ice skaters from Holland will challenge the cold, snow and ice and enter the 200 km (!) long race. Each year the big question arises: will personal records be broken?
The Traveling Light skating team is growing steadily: this year we have three sportsmen who will skate for one of our projects: Krijn Donk (Papendrecht), Henk Swijnenburg (Bleskensgraaf) and Henk Vlot (Oud Alblas). We are so proud and happy to have them!
These men will raise funds for the Teen Challenge juvenile program in Kazakhstan, a boys home which was established in 1997. [The western part of this country is considered Europe, the eastern part Asia. So Kazakhstan connects two continents]
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| Bolat & Elmira and their daughters |
The daily management of the home is in hands of Bolat & Elmira Baitakov. There are currently nine boys aged 10-18 living at the home. The boys often come from difficult and dysfunctional home situations (abuse, addictions, abandonment and neglect) or have no parents at all.
We are in contact with workers Maxim & Jenya Buzinovskiye (left in the group picture below) because they speak and write English very well.
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| Boys House in Almaty, Teen Challenge Kazakhstan |
The boys have a safe place, they can go to school, they are given food, clothing and a warm bed and they hear (often for the first time) about Jesus. The Christian program receives no government funding and depends on donations.
There is an urgent need to build and install a proper kitchen, for general use and for the cooking classes the boys are getting! This now happens in a space with barely any facilities. A space where the roof leaks, there is no refrigerator or storage space and the windows and doors close badly. There really is a big need for a serious renovation.
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| group picture taken this Christmas |
You can sponsor the skaters as as a team or individually as follows:
- pledge a certain amount for finishing the race
- pledge a certain amount per kilometer accomplished
- pledge a certain amount no matter what the result will be
- pledge a certain amount for breaking personal records
- with whatever idea you have! We just LOVE to hear from you!
Of course all proceeds will go to this project in Kazakhstan. You can send your pledges by email to (krijncora@kpnmail.nl) or Facebook.
You can also donate right now by sending your gift to IBAN: NL91RABO0118582275 BIC: RABONL2U St. Traveling Light in Papendrecht. Make sure to mention WEISSENSEE.
Click HERE for Weissensee actions in previous years.