MIDLAND, Texas — At the Golf Course Road Church in Midland, Senior Minister Allan Stanglin says for years his church has sent aid and food to countries who are in need around the world.
"We have shifted what we typically do to meet a much more pressing need and we want everybody to join us and do it together," Stanglin said.
Now that pressing need is to help refugees who are suffering from the war in Ukraine. "We want this to be food from Midland for Ukraine," said Stanglin.
"We just figured why not actually pack some food. Even if the war ended today, there are still millions of people who are homeless now in Eastern Europe who need food and that's something we can do tangibly. We can get our hands dirty and pack the boxes and put real food in a shipping container that's going to go to the Ukrainian border," said Stanglin.
GCR Church and the First Presbyterian Church have come together for this mission they are calling "For Ukraine." On April 29th and 30th, they plan on packaging 285,000 meals to send in a container to Ukraine and they need the public's help to get the job done.
"So what we would like to do is invite the entire city of Midland and the entire city of Odessa, anybody in the Permian Basin area to come out and help us pack these boxes," Stanglin said.
Stanglin says they're doing this for Ukrainians because as Christians they believe loving and helping others is something Jesus would do. "
Our motto here at GCR is we want to love like Jesus and our lord is one who met real needs. He fed hungry people, he clothed people who were homeless he gave people a place to belong and He met real needs and so if we can do that in some small way and in his grace communicate that love to people who need it the most we're gonna try to do that," Stanglin said.
"For Ukraine" has 1,000 volunteer slots that need to be filled. To sign up to volunteer or donate you can go to GCR Church website.