By Jeremy Reynalds

No matter where people live, people wanting to make a difference can still make a significant impact for the cause of peace and reconciliation in the embattled Caucasus region of Eastern Europe.

They can do so by donating badly needed funds.

According to a news release obtained by ANS, a focal point for Protestant humanitarian aid in the Russian-controlled areas of North and South Ossetia is the Vladikavkas/Russia-based “North Ossetian Mission of Christian Compassion” (NOMCC).

Thousands of children from the war zones are presently camping in schools and other public facilities in the region of Vladikavkas in North Ossetia-Alania.

NOMCC wrote in the news release, “We are ready and eager to offer the children suffering from the war in South Ossetia spiritual and material aid.”

According to NOMCC, program costs per child are estimated to be about $42. The mission said the goal is to support between four thousand and six thousand children (helping six thousand children would cost about $252.000).

NOMCC said the Russian government has requested the mission’s services ; Baptist aid shipments out of St. Petersburg have already arrived.

NOMCC played a major role in channeling aid to the neighboring city of Beslan following the school massacre of September 2004. That horrific event also claimed many Ossetian lives.

NOMCC was formed in 1990 by Rev. Peter Lunichkin, now the St. Petersburg-based head of Russian Baptist Union social programs. It has been allied with Germany’s "Light in the East" mission from the beginning, and has in that capacity also been involved in evangelistic programs.

For more information go to www.baptist.org.ru/news/engl...

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