Latest News...

Jan 26, 2024: Code-a-Thon 2024: We had the privilege of recruiting at LeTourneau University's GO Week this week.
We've got 12+ coders coming from LeTourneau for our Spring Break Code-a-thon for Missions in March. Sign up to join them at [link]
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Apr 16, 2023: Operation Mobilization founder George Verwer passed into eternity this past Friday.
[link] We should celebrate his passion, servant's heart, and impact. At the same time, know that you don't need to be the founder of a large international mission agency to hear those words, 'Well done, good and faithful servant'. Focus humbly on seeking God's kingdom first and on faithful obedience. Love the things God loves. Let Him in His sovereignty do the rest, as He weaves your life into the beautiful fabric of His Kingdom. LightSys is one of dozens of missions agencies today that have roots in Operation Mobilization - we were based out of the OM USA office for our first eight years of ministry.
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Oct 5, 2022: Come use your skills for the Kingdom!
Mobilization season is here again. We're preparing the LightSys booth for college visits where we share the need for Geeks in Missions. Our first stop is LeTourneau University's Career Fair on Thursday, October 6th. Pray for God to bring us the right students!
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Mar 17, 2022: A huge thank you to Dan Williams - our amazing volunteer Scrum master who flies out to Colorado each year for our Spring Break Code-a-Thon for Missions events.
His goal: to help the young coders understand basic project management and keep them on task as they work on programming projects for missions. Dan - you make a huge impact on the students and the projects and in our hearts. Thank you.
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Feb 19, 2019: Story One: Becoming a Nonprofit: If Jesus can provide a tax payment in a fish's mouth,
then surely... Today's anecdote is a testament to God's faithfulness from long long ago in the ancient history of LightSys. That is, back in the ancient days of May 2000. You probably know that LightSys is a "tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit". But, what does all of that gobbledygook mean? To you it means that your gifts are tax-deductible and provides you the assurance that we're not essentially a for-profit corporation in disguise... but to us it meant a lot of work and a real faith-building endeavor! God Provides Finances Just for some context, LightSys has always sought to be a financially efficient organization, and our early days were no exception (in fact, those days were almost too much of a non-exception!). We had a total of $1,400 in donations during our first year (1999), setting the stage for being in a position to need a miracle. May 31st of 2000 was for all practical purposes our deadline for filing for 501(c)(3) status. Unfortunately, by May of 2000 we only had $433.50 in our bank account -- not enough for the $500 filing fee. Not only so, but we lacked the knowledge to fill out the form (and we definitely lacked the finances to pay someone else to do it!). The form was a real bear, too, at 10 pages long, not to mention requiring dozens of pages of exhibits and attachments. We were praying for the finances and expertise, as well as for a fair and understanding person at the IRS to review our case (we had heard horror stories of poorly handled cases). Then, in mid-May, we received a $100 check from a generous donor - we finally had the funds (with a whole $33.50 to spare)! Excitedly we continued to research the IRS form and continued to pray for the knowledge and confidence to fill it out. God Provides Knowledge About five days prior to the May 31st deadline, we received a surprise email from a guy from Texas who had just visited our website, saw a note that we were in the process of obtaining 501(c)(3) status, and wanted to send us a copy of his (computer related) ministry's 501(c)(3) application, if it would help us file ours (i.e., so we could use his successful application as a model for ours)! He even mailed it overnight to us and wouldn't let us pay him for the shipping! Encouraged, we got our application package (all 50 pages of it) in the mail to the IRS, on time. More Divine Provision But this was not to be the only set of miracles related to becoming a nonprofit. In mid-August of 2000, the IRS had a concern about one aspect of our application, and our case reviewer brought up the issue with us. After kindly explaining the issue and the recent IRS ruling applying to it, she gave us several options we could pursue in order to resolve the issue and obtain our exempt status. The IRS needed our answer within a few days, and our "answer" legally required that LightSys co-founders Greg Beeley and Tim Young hold an official business meeting. Unfortunately, while Greg was discussing this with the IRS, Tim was meandering around among random mission groups between San Francisco and Seattle, and he did not plan to "surface" for another week. A week would be too long! Not knowing where else to turn to locate this exceedingly itinerant Tim Young, Greg called Tim's parents. In order to appreciate how much of a long shot this was, you need to understand that members of the Young family rarely kept each other up-to-date regarding such detailed goings-on. Predictably, Tim's father did not know where Tim was. However, he did happen to know someone who did! While meandering through Oregon, Tim had providentially come across an old friend of his father; that friend had then promptly called Tim's father in Arizona to catch up. Greg then called Tim's dad's friend, who also did not know where Tim was, but he knew someone who did. After yet a third phone call, Tim and Greg were finally in touch, had completed their required business meeting, and Greg faxed the appropriate documents to the IRS. Less than a week later, in late August of 2000, we received our official "tax exempt" recognition from the IRS, allowing us to confidently issue "tax deductible" gift receipts! Not only so, but the IRS issued us a firmer decision than we had expected, meaning we did not have to do as much work to justify our 501(c)(3) status in the years to come.
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Feb 19, 2019: Stories of God's Faithfulness: A collection of short stories of God's faithfulness to His children serving in missions. This blog is dedicated to God's glory and to your encouragement.
We deeply desire that you would be set free to place your full trust in God, not primarily because of our stories, but because you choose to trust Him. But, our hope is that these stories will help you envision walking in a place where your faith can't be shaken by circumstances. Many years ago, pastor Jimmy Seibert of Antioch Community Church said, "Many of us want to see God do a miracle in our lives, but we don't want to be in a position to need one." So, God has to force us into those situations, for His glory and for our joy. Count it all joy, my friends!
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Dec 3, 2018: A Mission Infobank major update!
Visit [link] to browse tens of thousands of Great Commission maps, charts, photos, research documents, and useful internet links (create an account to download high-res images). #missions
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Give to Support LightSys!

LightSys could not exist without God's work through those who give, often very sacrificially, in support of our ministry. Thank you for your interest in partnering with us in this way!

Ways to Give

Below is a list of ways to give to support the ministry of LightSys.

Checks and money orders should be made payable to "LightSys" and mailed to our mailing address.
Gifts by EFT or Credit Card (Visa, MasterCard, or Discover) can be made online. Giving online by EFT (from a checking or savings account) is the most effective way to give a financial gift.
We can also receive Stock gifts. Please contact us for more information. Giving a stock gift can be especially effective because, normally, no tax will need to be paid on the capital gain. It is our policy to promptly sell stock gifts upon receipt; we leave the timing of the donation to your discretion.
We can often receive gifts of Technology Equipment or other Property. These are called "Gifts In-Kind". Please see below for more information regarding what types of in-kind gifts we can receive.

Areas of Need

Perhaps you want to support LightSys, but you aren't sure how to do so most effectively? Here are some tips:

Monthly - Whatever your designation preference, opting to give a monthly recurring gift, perhaps via online giving, can be a real blessing, even if it means it's a smaller gift than you would have given otherwise.
Where Most Needed - You can always give a donation where most needed - that gives us the most flexibility in choosing how to use your gift.
Ask Us - Drop us a note and ask us what missionary or missionary family with LightSys has the greatest support raising need right now. We can connect you with them, so you can get to know them and see more clearly how your donation is helping.
Tech Fund - If you love computer and networking hardware, consider a gift to our Technology Fund. That'll help as we purchase equipment to increase the effectiveness of our team and our work.
Moblization Fund - If you have a heart for encouraging people to get involved in missions, consider donating to our Mobilization Fund. Such a gift will help us as we attend conferences and visit universities to encourage people toward missions involvement.

Gifts of Tech Equipment or Other Property

Most every year, we receive donated computer and technology equipment, and we can give you a receipt describing the equipment you donate. Much of our technology infrastructure runs on high-quality donated equipment! Not only so, but we're able to place donated equipment with a variety of missions organization that have a need, so if you offer to donate equipment, and we can't use it here at LightSys, we can often still find a good home for it for you. Please note that we cannot provide you with an appraisal of the equipment's value.

That said, not all technology equipment will be as useful as you hope it will be, so we have some guidelines for such equipment donations. Please contact us if you have any questions about this.

Laptop computers need to be "business-grade" (ThinkPads, Latitudes, MacBook Pros, and similar) and be less than four years old.
Servers should have all available firmware and BIOS updates applied before they are donated. This is especially true of HPE (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise) servers, for which BIOS updates cannot be affordably obtained by the recipient of the donation; for HPE servers, it is best to apply all BIOS and firmware updates as they become available, to ensure access to those updates. That said, both Dell and HPE servers often make great donations. Servers must be less than five years old (older equipment than that is too expensive to operate - just considering electricity alone). Ideally, servers should have redundant power supplies, ECC RAM, and hot-swappable hard drives.
Monitors must be flat-panels and must have a minimum resolution of 1280x1024 (for traditional screens) or full HD 1080p (for wide screens).
LightSys does not normally accept the following site-licensed brands for donation. Secondhand equipment of these brands can be prohibitively expensive for the recipient to use, due to firmware/software relicensing requirements. If you are able to commit to paying the vendor's relicensing fee (and other associated costs), which unfortunately may add up to far more than the equipment is worth, we can consider a donation of used equipment of these brands.

Cisco
Juniper
NetApp

The following subscription-based brands can be donated if you also donate funds to cover the first year's subscription, since it's important that the donation be immediately usable.

Meraki (with funds to purchase a minimum one-year Advanced Security license)

Donation Use Policies

We understand that transparency and truthfulness are both needed qualities in the nonprofit world today. We hope that the information provided here will help you as you make donation decisions.

Gifts to LightSys are prayerfully managed under the oversight of the LightSys board of directors. Contributions are solicited with the understanding that LightSys has complete discretion and control over the use of all donated funds, in accordance with applicable IRS regulations.
For Missionary Support Gifts to LightSys so that a particular missionary can be a part of our ministry, we apply these gifts in the context of a flexible "pool system", and though the precise amounts can vary based on the needs and circumstances, normally between 90% and 98% of your gift goes to the preference (designation) that you specify.
For Project Gifts, currently 98% goes to the preference that you specify, with 2% going to administrative overhead.
For Where-Most-Needed Gifts, we apply 90% to our areas of greatest need, and 10% is "tithed" to our "Charitable Giving Fund", out of which we sometimes help pay the costs of technology equipment for our clients, or sometimes make monetary grants to LightSys clients in need.
If a project is over-funded, we apply the excess funds to another most-similar ministry at LightSys.

Donations and Financial Accountability

Because we are a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, contributions to LightSys are normally tax-deductible.

We are governed by a six-member board of directors, only two of whom are LightSys staff members, ensuring we have an independent board of directors.

We file IRS Form 990 each year, which documents our activities and finances. You can find our most recent Forms 990, and other information about our ministry, at Guidestar, where we have a Gold Seal of Transparency. Please contact us if you would like additional information or if you have any questions about our finances or ministry.

Guidestar® Gold Seal of Transparency