Dedicated to restoring broken lives

Betel offers a free residential program for those struggling with addiction, social exclusión and homelessness

How can Betel help me to break free from addiction?

Betel residents work through problems in an environment based on two simple and time honored principles: peer support, where residents help one another in a family-like atmosphere, and meaningful work, which helps to build job skills, diligence and dependability.

Drug/Alcohol free and free of charge

Residents help to fund their own recovery by participating in occupational activities at home or at one of our charitable businesses. This removes the financial burden from their families and the government while restoring self-dignity and a sense of purpose.

Our method is to model freedom

Betel's program is a commitment to daily choice - to aspire to the values and pursuits of a healthier lifestyle as modeled by mature Christians. Residents learn character building principles. They live them out at home and at work, building strong foundations for a stable future.

Betel Worldwide

Today Betel is in more than 100 cities in 20 nations

Radical Financial Principles

Betel believes firmly that entrance should be accessible to everyone, regardless of financial means. We charge no fees. Instead we aim to be as self-supporting as possible, funding daily operations through our charitable businesses and workshops. We gratefully receive donations of food, furniture, goods, vehicles etc.

Annual Reports

Annual Report 2022

Posted on

Dear friends,

When I sat down to prepare our annual letter from the Director, as I considered the reach, extension, and impact of Betel International’s ministry that has touched hundreds of thousands of lives and is today functioning in over 100 cities in 20 nations—I am at a loss for words.


Betel can trace its humble beginnings from the arrival in 1983 of WEC missionaries (Worldwide Evangelization for Christ) in the working-class neighborhood of San Blas, Madrid. Those first ‘pioneers’, who, along with the transformed lives of the first addicts, alcoholics, and marginalized, became the model of what Betel’s program would offer and take to the nations.


Today, after 40 years, Betel’s residential communities and program are supervised and led by our professional and pastoral staff, most of whom themselves have come through Betel’s program to go on to serve as residential directors, staff, supervisors, and work team leaders.


Betel is grateful and proud to acknowledge this amazing ‘fusion’ of faith and professional standards. This unique work has been praised and awarded many accolades over the years. In the year 2000 Betel was honored by the Spanish government and ‘Declared to be of Public Utility’.


It is our desire that Betel remains in the vanguard of those institutions capable of meeting the needs of the ever changing world in which we live—whether they be Europeans wrestling with substance abuse, homelessness and unemployment, or the current surge of immigrants arriving in Europe from the developing nations in the Middle East and Asia, along with refugees from the present conflict and war in the Ukraine. Truly the need for a people and a program like Betel’s has never been greater today.

We thank all our friends who have identified with Betel and our work among the marginalized over the years. We and those who have entered our program are indeed grateful.

The Betel family among the nations

Elliott Tepper
International Director of Betel

View Annual Report 2022