What began in 2022 with an 89-year-old N’West Iowa man walking into the Justice For All office in Rock Valley has grown into a large and far-reaching network of churches, organizations and individuals helping send humanitarian aid thousands of miles away to people in Ukraine.
JFA is currently preparing to load its ninth container of humanitarian aid for Ukraine in September.
The effort began after Gordie Siebring approached JFA executive director Joel De Wit in 2022, a few months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
Siebring’s son, Gordie Siebring Jr., had been living and working in Ukraine for years, and his experience in agriculture had given him contacts and experience with international shipping.
Gordie Sr. wanted to help his son get humanitarian aid into Ukraine. He could make contacts, raise funds and help gather supplies, but he needed a place where donations could be collected, stored and eventually loaded onto a shipping container.
He asked De Wit whether JFA could be that place.
For De Wit, the request fit naturally with what the Rock Valley ministry was already doing.
JFA is a Christian nonprofit organization based in Rock Valley with a mission of “providing opportunities, building relationships and redistributing resources through caring and sharing in Christ’s name.”
Its vision is “a world without poverty and prejudice, where God’s people live with dignity and hope.”
The organization works with churches, ministries, organizations and individuals to collect and redistribute resources to people in need. Its work includes collecting usable donated goods at its Rock Valley facility, preparing them for distribution through ministry partners, and providing opportunities for people to serve and build relationships.
That existing system of collecting and redistributing resources made the Ukraine request a natural extension of JFA’s work.
“It wasn’t that hard to say yes, honestly,” De Wit said. “I feel like that’s what our ministry is here to do.”
JFA routinely receives physical resources, stores and sorts them and loads them for distribution, De Wit explained. The Ukraine effort required additional logistics, but Gordie Jr.’s shipping experience meant JFA would not have to navigate these extra steps alone.
The first container left Rock Valley in 2022. According to JFA’s marketing and media coordinator, Sue Van Wyhe, seeing a container of humanitarian aid sent to Ukraine was Gordie Sr.’s dying wish. He died in September, and the first container was shipped that November.
Van Wyhe remembers that first collection as something of a learning experience.
“I do know the first collection was like a little miracle,” she said. “I kept thinking, ‘this is really going to happen. We are really going to do this.’”
There were plenty of clothes and donations, and the staff at JFA quickly discovered that shipping hundreds of boxes internationally required a much more detailed inventory than the domestic shipments JFA was accustomed to handling.
Justice For All executive director Joel De Wit and JFA marketing and media coordinator Sue Van Wyhe record inventory for the ninth container of donated goods that will be shipped from JFA since 2022. The container is scheduled to be shipped to Ukraine later this month. Photo submitted
Photo submitted
With each subsequent container, the process became more organized. Today, Van Wyhe tracks individual boxes, weight and cubic feet as organizers determine how to use as much of the container as possible.
What Van Wyhe, De Wit and the team did not necessarily anticipate was how far the network supporting it would spread.
In Ukraine, Gordie Jr. works with his associate, Bogdan Panchuk, church volunteers, and contacts at hospitals, churches, schools, orphanages, refugee centers and other organizations. Those connections help identify what people in Ukraine need right now.
A woman in Ukraine receives donated goods distributed through Justice For All’s humanitarian aid effort. JFA works with contacts and volunteers in Ukraine to distribute items sent from Rock Valley to hospitals, churches, schools, refugee centers and other organizations in need.
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Gordie Jr. communicates those needs back to Carol Groen, who knew Gordie Sr. and has continued working with the Ukraine project. Groen is not a JFA staff member, but her role in the project is vital. She works to make connections with individuals and organizations that may be able to provide the specific items requested for each shipment.
Abby Van Beek, JFA’s community relations and volunteer coordinator, does similar work through JFA, reaching out to churches, organizations and individuals in the tri-state area and beyond to help locate needed items.
‘Somebody knows somebody’Those connections have helped the effort continue to grow. But there has not been a single carefully designed path for every participating church, organization, or individual to become involved.
Instead, one connection often leads to another.
“Somebody knows somebody who knows somebody,” said Van Wyhe. “That has been so true throughout this effort. Justice For All is a faith-based organization, but those aren’t just words; they are a reality. We trust God is our guide, even when we can’t see what the next step will be. Eight containers have now arrived in Ukraine and have been distributed to people in need. Again and again, we’ve watched God bring together people, resources and opportunities at just the right time. What may look like a series of unrelated coincidences reminds us that God is at work, and providing the next step.”
Churches hear about the effort from members. People involved in other mission projects tell someone they know. Organizations learn about a particular need and offer supplies. Donations now come from communities and organizations well beyond Rock Valley.
“The tentacles that it has reached out are amazing,” Van Wyhe said.
She sees that growth as more than successful networking.
“God orchestrates it,” Van Wyhe said. “Very much. We could never do that.”
One of the clearest examples came with the second container.
A couple of Ukrainian men who had come to the United States and are currently working as engineers in Colorado heard about the project and drove through the night from Colorado to Rock Valley, arriving with a large amount of donated supplies. Then they stayed and helped JFA fill the container.
Van Wyhe still doesn’t know how they initially heard about JFA.
For Van Wyhe, connections like those are characteristic of the entire project.
Once donations begin arriving at JFA, she and the JFA team inventory and organize the items in preparation for loading.
Packing the container requires careful planning. Van Wyhe compared the process to a game of Tetris, with volunteers fitting boxes and larger items together to use every available space to send as much aid as possible in each load.
A girl in Ukraine stands with a bicycle received through the humanitarian aid effort that Justice For All is involved with. JFA staff have seen photographs of donated items after they reach individuals and organizations in Ukraine. Photos submitted
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Once the container is filled, the overseas shipping process is largely handled through Gordie Jr. and the contacts he has developed through his years of farming and doing business in Ukraine. JFA prepares a detailed manifest of everything packed inside before the container leaves Rock Valley and eventually makes its way overseas.
Shipping the container to Ukraine incurs high costs. Shipping the ninth container is expected to cost approximately $10,000, with individuals, churches and organizations contributing toward the expense.
For Van Wyhe, shipping the container is simply another lesson in trust.
“Do we know how all that money is going to come in? No. Do we know if it’s going to come in? No. Have we ever been short? No,” she said.
At the same time, she sees that history as an affirmation from God.
“Are you willing to take the next step of faith?” she said. “It’s such a faith step.”
Once the container arrives in Ukraine, Gordie Jr., Panchuk and volunteers distribute the goods to hospitals, churches, schools, orphanages, refugee centers and other organizations that have expressed a need for them.
From Rock Valley to Ukraine For Van Wyhe, photographs sent back from Ukraine help transform a 40-foot container packed with hundreds of boxes into something much more personal.
She remembers seeing a bicycle being packed into a container here in Rock Valley and later seeing a photograph of a little girl in Ukraine with that same bicycle. She has seen photographs of donated chairs being used by people there. She has seen a picture of a mother who received diapers for her child.
Those moments provide a glimpse of what happens after something leaves a donor’s hands.
“You see those people sitting in the chairs that we donated,” Van Wyhe said. “We see that a woman is actually taking diapers and is going to have a diaper for her child.”
The ninth shipment will include 100 mattresses expected to be used at refugee centers or hospitals. Other requested items include medical supplies, wheelchairs, blankets, clothing, folding chairs and bicycles.
Adult bicycles remain in particularly high demand, and used bicycles and parts can be repaired in Ukraine. Hope Haven assists with refurbished wheelchairs, while electric wheelchairs are also needed. Canning jars, rings and new lids are being requested because refrigeration can be limited.
For Van Wyhe, each object represents an individual need.
A blanket stored in N’West Iowa can eventually warm someone in Ukraine. A wheelchair can provide mobility. A bicycle can become transportation. Chairs no longer needed here can be used to provide a place for people to sit and worship.
And although donors occasionally get to see photographs showing where particular items ended up, Van Wyhe said most will never know exactly who received what they gave.
“The odds of you seeing what you’ve given or done is between you and God,” she said.
‘God’s economy’ Van Wyhe has heard the question before: Why send resources across the world when there are people who need help close to home?
For her, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
“People give to their families,” she said. “They give to their churches and communities. They support needs elsewhere in the United States. And sometimes something farther away touches a person’s heart.”
Van Wyhe traces some of her perspective to international mission experiences dating back decades.
During a mission trip to Nigeria, she remembers working on a hospital project through Samaritan’s Purse. One day, a man walked past her praising Jesus because he had been able to eat that day.
Van Wyhe remembers him giving the credit not to the Americans or the organization that had assisted, but to God, who had used someone far away to provide what he needed.
To Van Wyhe, the resources people possess ultimately belong to God. Giving something available here to someone who can use it elsewhere becomes, as she described, a “redistribution of resources to share.”
That doesn’t require everyone to travel overseas or make a large donation.
It might mean writing a check. It might mean going through a closet. It might mean a church organizing a collection or someone realizing something is sitting at home that another person could use.
“You do what your heart tells you to do,” Van Wyhe said. “How God uses it is really his call.”
She encourages people to consider a simple question: “Do you feel that you can make a difference in somebody’s life?”
And occasionally, the person who donated something gets the unexpected gift of seeing the answer in a photograph from thousands of miles away.
“The magnitude of being a part of that,” Van Wyhe said, “is nothing you can buy.”
Ninth container set for September The ninth shipment is scheduled to be loaded at JFA in September.
Donations are being accepted through Sept. 21 at JFA, 1335 Valley Drive in Rock Valley.
Along with the 100 mattresses, organizers are seeking laundry detergent and cleaning products, toilet paper, adult bicycles and bicycle parts, wheelchairs, dog and cat food, tools, diapers for all ages, quilts and blankets, folding chairs, baby and infant formula, medical and first-aid supplies, canning jars and generators.
Clean, gently used clothing and footwear, nonperishable food, personal hygiene products, school supplies, bicycle accessories, yarn and knitting supplies and camping supplies are also accepted. Food should be packed separately from other donations. Boxes and bags should be labeled with their contents and marked “For Ukraine.”
Four years after one N’West Iowa man walked into JFA and asked whether the ministry could help, that next step is now container No. 9.
And the message from Ukraine is that help is still needed.
“I am so glad that you and your people have not forgotten about us because the need is still very, very real here in Ukraine,” Gordie Jr. recently told organizers.
For more information about JFA, visit jfa-nwiowa.org.