Humboldt organization Kontaktmission is helping the people of Ukraine

JACKSON, TENN (WNBJ)-

Kontakmission USA in Humboldt is part of a global missions’ network helping the people of Ukraine.

“Originally, we were sending church planters into Ukraine to help start churches in Ukraine… but now that is significant. That mission has significantly shifted to more serving the Ukrainian people in a relief aspect," said John Gainer Director of Eastern Europe Expansion for Kontakmission USA.

John Gainer and his family lived in Ukraine for 11 years. They returned to the states in 2020.

Now Kontaktmission along with their partners in Europe is running a refugee camp in Ukraine, “kremenchuk, which is kind of the center for our ministry, where they have a relatively relative more safety, so, for instance, coming true has only had like 12 rocket attacks. And so that makes it safe relatively speaking… people are constantly rotating. So at any one point in time they'll have 150 people moving through,” Gainer said.

Gainer went to Romania to help set up a refugee camp for those fleeing Ukraine, he said, "We're trying to provide a stable place for them to be…. so we have 50 that are permanently living and by permanent i mean three months are living for a three month period in the Romanian refugee camp. And in that three month we get documents and paperwork together so that they can get jobs, so that they can rent apartments and find a more permanent solution within Romania.”

Gainer said the missionaries running the camp in Romania are from west Tennessee, “Calep and Ashley Robertson, are in Romania, and they run the refugee camp and they're actually from Jackson here. And so, you know, these are Tennessee people reaching out.”

John Gainer says that everyone can get involved and help the people of Ukraine, “finances are a huge need, a huge need to run all the operations that we do for the Ukrainian relief efforts. Costs us about $22,000 a month.”

Even if you can't help financial gainer says you can help bring awareness, “The other thing people can do is help spread the news about Ukraine. You know we as Americans have like a two week news cycle and we think about things for two weeks and they're gone. But the war has been going on for 76 days now as of this recording. And, you know, people are still losing their lives. People are still losing their homes. People are still losing their livelihoods.”

Go to (www.gokmusa.org) to learn more about Kontaktmission or to donate.