Activities + travels

Last week, Traveling Light attended the 10th Roma Leaders conference in Ohrid, Macedonia. For Marja it was the third time she could be there.

Roma leaders from various countries and churches came together for education, prayer and encouragement. It is a great opportunity for us to hear what is happening in the Roma communities in the various countries.

AND... we get to meet up with our friends Sokrat & Lena Apostolovska. This lovely couple organizes these annual conferences and for many years they have been involved in children's work among the Roma in Skopje.

The proceeds of our secondhand shop Twinkeltje over the month of June will therefore go towards their work!

This Thursday we will organize a mission evening in Twinkeltje again. This time we have guests from the USA: Jeroen and Robin Honingh. They are on their way to Israel where they will spend three months volunteering wherever they can. We met them years ago in Israel in the soup kitchen of Brian Slater in Netanya. We had a click right away.

They will share about the how and why of their annual travels to Israel and how they manage to take three months off from work to volunteer in another country. It will be an inspiring evening. Door is open from 19:30 hrs and coffee and tea are brewing. WELCOME.

This coming weekend the ZIP festival will be held on the beach at Salmsteke/Lopik. Sunday afternoon Jan will be preaching. Take a blanket or chair to sit on and some food to share. We'll stay there till sun goes down!

Jan left for Slovenia last week Monday. Together with the staff and students of Teen Challenge he drove from there to Macedonia for the My Brother's Keeper conference. He attended for the 7th time!

It turned out that the conference (where some 350 men from the Balkans are present) was held near Ohrid ... but we did not see each other 😎 This conference is also a great opportunity for us to see, hear and experience what is going on spiritually in the Balkan countries.

It helps us to pray with more passion for the nations. Please join us in praying for a safe journey home for Jan. Thank you.

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Current projects:

Project Teen Challenge women's home, Lithuania

Project sponsoring summer camp, Ukraine

Travel and project news

Board meeting ETC, Krakow 2018

We recently made a trip to Germany and Poland, together with Jim & Lynda Hayes. We made some encouraging visits on our way to Krakow, Poland, where the Europe Teen Challenge conference took place. We will tell you more about that trip soon. Keep an eye on this blog!

"Let your light shine before men ..." [Matthew 5:16] is the motto on our website. Everyone who has been reading this blog for some time, will know that we do this on a local, regional, national and international level. Shining our light simply by (for example) offering a helping (technical) hand, raising money for a new washing machine in a rehab or through sharing personal prayers and encouraging words.

Over the last few years we have been organizing monthly prayer meetings: for Europe, for our region and for individuals. We meet on Fridays and Tuesdays in our secondhand shop Twinkeltje and pray for unity and a spiritual revival in our county.

It is therefore that we would love to sponsor the Slingeland festival that is being held from June 22nd to 24th June. Every year this festival is being organized by Hart voor de Waard, an interdenominational organization that aims to share the Gospel in a simple and outgoing manner.

Far away and close to home, let's support outreach events and in doing so encourage one another! You can send your gift to St. Traveling Light, Papendrecht IBAN: NL91RABO0118582275 BIC: RABONL2U. Make sure to mention: FESTIVAL.

• We were able to transfer 3,000 euro for project village kitchen Navazi in Georgia. As soon as we have photos/news, we will post it on this blog.
• The next project will be the support of the Teen Challenge women's home in Lithuania.
• This Friday, May 25, we organize a special Israel event in Twinkeltje. We have al kinds of products, snacks and drinks. Doors will be open between 19:00-21:30. Korenbloemstraat 20 in Papedrecnt. See you there!

News items & prayer

Cora Donk

A non-profit organisation can only operate with the help of supporters and volunteers. Every now and then we put one of our volunteers in the spotlight on this blog. This time it is Cora Donk (who is also one of our board members). Cora is quite handy with garden tools and painting brush and she often helps family, friends and neighbors with their chores. She doesn't do this to make money, but to collect money for Traveling Light. Recently she surprised us with a generous gift from which she wanted 2,500 euro  to donate to the Teen Challenge women's home Ark in the Negev, in Israel. Wow, we are so grateful, what a generous gift and what a blessing for the work in Israel. We have sponsored the Ark in the Negev several times over the past few years and we are planning to visit them again this fall. Thank you Cora for your hard work and generosity. Let's pray the money will be used where needed most.

Visiting Joran Stoilov in Tetovo

Jan and volunteer Krijn Donk are currently traveling in Macedonia. The idea to travel to Macedonia together came after Krijn's ice skating fundraiser that resulted in a gift of 1,450 euro for the Saraj church in Skopje. It is a blessing to give, but that is not the end of a project, it is the start. Visiting the people behind the projects is part of our vision too. Such visits, we call them encouragement trips, strengthen relationships and are very inspiring (for all parties involved). Of course such visits will often result in new project ideas. Jan will speak in several evangelical churches over the weekend as well. Please pray for good travels and for the effective spreading of the gospel in this country.

Creative workshops at ZIP 2012

The 500 euro for project sponsoring ZIP festival in the Netherlands came in. To our great surprise we even received a gift from a couple in California. These dear people have Dutch forefathers and gladly wanted to invest in the spreading of the gospel in the Netherlands. They were happy to hear that such events are being organised in our small country. We hope that our sponsoring project will inspire others to do so as well: non profits, churches, businesses, families. If ten give 500 euro it will make 5,000 euro. If twenty give 500 euro it will make 10,000 euro. If we put our hands together we can do so much more! Will you pray for the organisation of this festival and of course for nice weather and many people with hungry hearts for God's love?

The 5,000 euro for project Casa Shalom in Italy is almost there (still 150 euro short). Who helps us out?

This means we have room to announce the next two projects: 1) project study grant Teen Challenge Slovenia and 2) follow-up project chapel Teen Challenge Slovakia.

Thank you very much for all your help, donations, support, kind words and emails. Together, we can do so much more to change Europe and the Middle east for God's glory!

Project sponsoring ZIP festival, The Netherlands

If you have been following the activities of Traveling Light for a while, you must have noticed that many of the projects we support are somehow related to Christian drugs- and alcohol rehabilitation programs. Pulling people out of the pit of darkness into the light and giving them new hope. But, that is not all we do...

There are basically two pillars for all projects we sponsor, 1) they have to be small-scale and 2) they must somehow connect people with the love of Jesus. It can be a food bank in Israel, a gypsy church in Macedonia or a summer camp in the Ukraine. We are currently raising 5,000 euro for Casa Shalom in Italy, a therapeutic community in the Tuscan hills. This week we also want to ask your attention for a local initiative in The Netherlands: the ZIP festival (Sing in the Polder) that will be held July 5-7th, 2013 in Lopik.

A few years ago several churches in that area decided to work together in organizing local events, sing-inns, youth evenings and an annual festival. Their goals was, and still is, to bring people from all walks of life together and share the message of the Bible with them. It is also their goal to further improve relationships between different churches and denominations.The ZIP festival is a family festival being organized by a large group of faithful volunteers. Traveling Light would love to sponsor this initiative with a gift of 500 euro. We hope more non profits, businesses, organisations, churches and families will follow our example and become sponsors of this outreach event.

During the summer time, every week some kind of special event is being organized in The Netherlands: a summer fair, a music festival, a market ... Lots of money is being pumped into this kind of worldly entertainment. It is no more than logical that we support our Christian events; as an encouragement and as an investment in human lives. Good causes can be found everywhere as the need for God is huge. If you have a heart for outreach events in rural areas, please support the ZIP festival.

Send your gift to Rabobank nr. 1185 82 275, St. Traveling Light, IBAN: NL91RABO0118582275

BIC: RABONL2U  Make sure to mention. ZIP 2013.

PS: We will participate in the program as well. We will speak, give a workshop and be present with a Traveling Light stand.