Privacy Policy

Our Commitment to Your Privacy

Life in the Light is a Christian nonprofit organization based in Bulgaria. Our mission includes sharing the Gospel, supporting local churches, training missionaries, and serving communities.

We respect the privacy of individuals who visit our website or communicate with our ministry. We aim to handle personal information responsibly, use it for appropriate purposes, and respect the rights of individuals under applicable data protection laws.

This Privacy Policy explains the types of information involved in our website and ministry communications, why information may be processed, and how you can contact us about your privacy.

1. Who We Are

Life in the Light (registered in Bulgarian as «ЖИВОТ В СВЕТЛИНА») is a Christian nonprofit association (сдружение) registered in Bulgaria under ЕИК 208201231. It is responsible, as the controller, for the personal information described in this policy.

Registered office: гр. Пловдив 4002, р-н Централен, ул. „Драган Цанков“ №34, ет. 3, Bulgaria. This is our registered address, not a place to visit; please contact us by email.

Website: lifeinthelight.org

General contact: info@lifeinthelight.org

Our activities include church planting, missionary training, evangelism, community care, and related ministry initiatives.

For questions concerning personal information or this Privacy Policy, please contact us using the email address above.

2. Information We Collect

The information involved depends on how you interact with our website and ministry.

Information you provide voluntarily

When you contact us, we may receive your name, email address, message, and any other information you choose to share.

This may include inquiries about church services, volunteering, missionary training, partnerships, donations, or other ministry activities.

Prayer requests and personal stories

If you choose to submit a prayer request or share a personal testimony, the information may include personal experiences or other sensitive details. We encourage visitors to share only information they are comfortable providing.

Website and technical information

The operation of our website may involve limited technical information, such as browser or device information, IP addresses, and information necessary for website delivery and security.

Website preferences

The website may store selected language and privacy preferences to remember your choices across visits.

3. How We Use Your Information

Depending on the interaction, personal information may be used to:

• Respond to inquiries and communicate with individuals who contact us.
• Provide information about our churches, ministries, programs, and activities.
• Consider requests to volunteer, serve, or participate in missionary programs.
• Communicate about potential partnerships and ministry cooperation.
• Respond appropriately to prayer requests or personal testimonies where these services are available.
• Operate, maintain, and protect our website.
• Meet applicable legal and administrative requirements.

We do not consider the submission of a personal testimony to be permission to publish it publicly. Any public use of identifiable personal stories requires a separate appropriate permission process.

4. Legal Bases for Processing

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), processing personal information requires an appropriate legal basis.

The legal bases we rely on are: for school applications, taking steps at your request before enrolment; for prayer requests, and for information about your faith or church in a school application, your explicit consent; for replying to messages you send us, our legitimate interest in responding; for protecting our website and forms from abuse, our legitimate interest in keeping them secure; and, where the law requires us to keep or disclose information, compliance with a legal obligation.

Where consent is the applicable legal basis, individuals may withdraw that consent. Withdrawal does not affect processing that was lawful before the withdrawal.

When our forms ask for information that can reveal your religious beliefs or health, we process it only with your explicit consent, which you give with a separate checkbox.

5. Prayer Requests and Sensitive Information

Prayer requests and personal testimonies may contain sensitive information, including details about an individual's religious beliefs, personal circumstances, or health.

We recognize that this information deserves particular care.

When you send a prayer request through our website, we store what you write, the location you choose (if any) and, only if you provide them, your name and email address. Because a prayer request can reveal your religious beliefs or details about your health, we use it only with your explicit consent, which you give with a separate checkbox on the form. You can withdraw your consent at any time by writing to info@lifeinthelight.org; this does not affect earlier processing.

A request for Plovdiv or Burgas can be read only by the ministry leader responsible for that city and by our Super Administrator and Organization Administrator. A request without a location can be read only by our Super Administrator and Organization Administrator. Each time a request is opened, this is recorded. Leaders may keep short pastoral notes with a request. We do not publish or share prayer requests and do not use them for newsletters or fundraising.

We let the responsible leader know by email that a new request has arrived, without including its content; for a request without a location, or a city without a leader, we let our Super Administrator and Organization Administrator know. We do not email you automatically; if you asked to be contacted, a leader will write to you personally.

Please avoid submitting unnecessary sensitive information through general email inquiries.

Submitting a prayer request or testimony does not authorize public disclosure of its contents.

6. Contact, Volunteer, Partnership, and School Inquiries

Life in the Light provides ways for individuals to learn about church services, volunteering, missionary school programs, and ministry partnerships.

When someone contacts us about these opportunities, the information they provide may be used to understand the inquiry, communicate about possible next steps, and respond to the request.

Missionary School Applications

When you apply to the Life in the Light Missionary School through our website, we collect the information you enter in the application form: your name, email address, phone number, country and city, whether you attend a church and its name, any ministry experience you describe, why you would like to attend, and whether you are comfortable studying in Ukrainian. We also record when you confirmed the programme, tuition and privacy information, and the language of the form.

We use this information to assess your application, contact you about it and, if you are accepted, organise your participation in the programme. We process it to take steps at your request before enrolment. Information about your church, faith and ministry can reveal your religious beliefs; we use it only with your explicit consent, which you give with a separate checkbox and can withdraw at any time without affecting earlier processing. If you withdraw it, we can no longer consider your application.

Only the people responsible for school admissions (our Super Administrator and Organization Administrator) can see applications. Reviewers may add internal notes, which form part of your application record and are included if you ask for a copy of your data. We do not share applications outside Life in the Light and do not use them for fundraising or newsletters. When you apply, we send you a confirmation email that does not repeat your answers, and we notify our admissions team with a link that requires them to sign in.

7. Cookies and Website Preferences

Our website may use cookies or similar browser storage to support essential functionality, remember preferences, and provide a consistent website experience.

For example, remembering a selected language or a visitor's privacy preferences may involve information stored in the browser.

Our website does not use analytics or advertising cookies. If we add them, we will ask for your consent first and update this policy.

Visitors can review or change available cookie preferences through our website's privacy controls.

8. Third-Party Services

Operating our website and communicating with visitors may involve external service providers, including website hosting and email services.

Our website may also contain links to third-party websites and platforms, such as social media services. When you visit an external website, its own privacy practices and terms may apply.

The providers listed below process personal information only on our behalf, under the data processing terms that form part of their service agreements with us.

Before introducing new services that process visitor information, we will review their privacy implications and update the relevant disclosures.

The services involved in our online forms are:

• Hostinger, which hosts our website and the database that stores form submissions.
• Cloudflare Turnstile, which checks that forms are sent by people rather than automated programs. It runs only after you start using a form and processes technical information such as your IP address and browser characteristics.
• Resend, which delivers our confirmation and notification emails.
• Google, which provides the sign-in for our staff administration area. Google does not receive the content of form submissions.

Our Watch Online page shows videos from our YouTube channel. YouTube is operated by Google:

• To show video titles and dates, our server requests public information about our videos from YouTube. These requests contain no information about you.
• Our video players are provided by YouTube in its privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com). When you open a page with a video, your browser loads the player from YouTube, which receives technical information such as your IP address and device and browser details and, if you play a video, how you use the player. Google processes this information as described in its own privacy policy.

9. International Data Transfers

Some external service providers may process personal information outside Bulgaria or the European Economic Area.

Cloudflare and Resend are based in the United States and may process data there. Where they do, the transfer takes place under the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (and the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified). To ask about these safeguards, write to info@lifeinthelight.org.

When you open a page with a YouTube player, Google may process your information in the United States. Google LLC participates in the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework.

10. How Long We Keep Information

We aim to retain personal information only for as long as necessary for the relevant purpose, taking into account applicable legal obligations and legitimate operational needs.

Different types of information may require different retention arrangements.

When information reaches the end of the periods below, we delete it.

School applications. If your application is declined, we delete it six months after our decision. If you are waitlisted, we keep it until seven months after the programme starts. If you are accepted, we keep it until twelve months after the programme ends. Applications that never receive a decision are deleted twelve months after we receive them. Internal notes are deleted together with the application.

Prayer requests. We delete a prayer request three months after we have responded to it, or six months after if you asked us to contact you. Requests that were never closed are deleted twelve months after we received them. Notes about a request are deleted with it.

Deleted information may remain in our hosting provider's backups for a limited period until those backups expire. A record of who opened or changed a submission, without its content, is kept for 24 months for accountability and then deleted automatically.

11. Protecting Your Information

Protecting personal information is important to Life in the Light.

Submissions can be opened only by the people whose role requires it, after they sign in with their Google account, and every opening and change is recorded. Our website is served only over encrypted connections (HTTPS), and our forms are protected against automated abuse.

No method of electronic communication or data storage can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

We encourage visitors not to share unnecessary sensitive information when contacting us.

12. Your Privacy Rights

Under the GDPR, individuals have rights regarding their personal information, subject to the conditions and limitations established by law.

These rights may include:

• Requesting access to personal information.
• Requesting correction of inaccurate information.
• Requesting deletion of information where applicable.
• Requesting restriction of processing in certain circumstances.
• Objecting to certain types of processing.
• Requesting data portability where applicable.
• Withdrawing consent where processing relies on consent.

To ask a question about these rights or submit a request, contact info@lifeinthelight.org.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a competent data protection supervisory authority.

In Bulgaria, the supervisory authority is the Commission for Personal Data Protection.

13. Children's and Minors' Information

Some Life in the Light activities involve children, young people, or families.

Our online forms do not ask for information about children.

We encourage parents and guardians to contact our team before submitting personal information concerning children through general website inquiries.

14. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as our organization, website, or data-processing practices change.

When changes are made, the updated information will be published on this page.

We encourage visitors to review this policy periodically to stay informed about how personal information is handled.

15. Contact Us About Privacy

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, how your personal information is handled, or how to exercise your privacy rights, please contact us.

Life in the Light

«ЖИВОТ В СВЕТЛИНА», ЕИК 208201231, гр. Пловдив 4002, р-н Централен, ул. „Драган Цанков“ №34, ет. 3, Bulgaria (registered address)

Email: info@lifeinthelight.org

Website: lifeinthelight.org