LightShine International Ministries

For 31 years (since 1995) we have been offering assistance to brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ by helping them build His Kingdom in the hearts of the people of Alaska. We offer short term missionary opportunities for people who love people, love the outdoors and desire to serve our God in places where churches need help in establishing Bible camps and other ministry tools.
That is what we do for leaders in the local church in Alaska. We simply find out what they need to enhance their ministry or native village, and then we send the right team to achieve those goals.
LightShine International Ministries (our full name registered with the IRS) was originally birthed as a follow up ministry to a music outreach to the biker and rock culture. Eventually, LightShine broadened its focus to doing missionary work in Alaska. Tom Denlinger & Jeff Zimmerman are the co-founders of the ministry.
From 1996-2007, Tom personally led teams every year working predominantly with Copper Center Community Chapel. The main focus was on building Strelna Lake Wilderness Bible Camp for ministry to youth and children as a ministry of the church. In 2008, Tom made a plan to start training other team leaders so that more team assignments could be planned and more people influencing others. During that time, the board of LightShine was broadened and many of the people who serve on the board to this day are working team leaders who actively serve in Alaska.
From 2008 to the present, multiple team leaders lead their own teams and Tom’s job as Ministry Director changed from leading teams to overseeing the ministry to keep it on track with the original vision.

In 2017, LightShine Ministries purchased property in Palmer, Alaska to establish a ministry base to house our equipment and tools, and give our teams flying in from Pennsylvania a place to stay before leaving on their assignments.

Board of Directors:
Tom Denlinger, Jeff Zimmerman, Mel Miller, Jaqueline Keener
LightShine Alaska Leadership Team:
Tom Denlinger – Ministry Director
Nancy Shaffer – Director of Events
Tom Law – Food Ministry
Randy Sauder – Director of Team Leaders
Leon Heisey – Director of church and business relations
Jaqueline Keener – Director of Finance
Steve Hoey – Director of Alaska Ministries
Bob and Ange Neuenschwander – Base Directors in Palmer, Alaska

Mission – Vision – Values
Mission: Our purpose is to come alongside local churches, Bible camps and various ministries all over Alaska – sending mission teams and providing resources that will help them make passionate followers of Jesus Christ.

Vision: Our desire is to build the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (Matthew 10:7) through sending mission teams and discipling team members (Matthew 28:19-20) so they make missions a lifestyle.

Values: Our missionary emphasis is defined by prayerful direction from the Holy Spirit, a commitment to excellence in accomplishing every task, the attention to detail and integrity in communication with others, the careful stewarding of the tools and resources entrusted to us, and the faithful pursuit of building lifelong partnerships to keep the Body of Christ strong.