Representatives of the central Asian nation of Tajikistan expressed gratitude recently to the American people, including minister John Kachelman, for “providing humanitarian assistance to vulnerable populations.”

Kachelman, who preaches for the Judsonia, Ark., church, coordinates shipments of medical supplies and relief to suffering people in some of the world’s most remote — and hardest-to-pronounce — nations.



Working with Counterpart International, a program of the U.S. State Department, the minister has sent items donated or paid for by church members to former Soviet nations including Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Ukraine.

Kachelman has coordinated about 10 container shipments to Tajikistan, each containing thousands of pounds of mattresses, bed linens, clothing, furniture and medical supplies. Children orphaned by a five-year civil war in Tajikistan received much of the aid.

At a recent conference in Bishkek, the capital of neighboring Kyrgyzstan, representatives of the Gissar District in Tajikistan presented a certificate thanking Kachelman for his work. The minister was unable to attend, but a representative of Counterpart International, Rang Hee Kim, accepted the certificate on his behalf.

Kachelman has coordinated a shipment of hospital beds and hundreds of boxes of medical supplies to Kyrgyzstan, which is 75 percent Muslim and, just as Tajikistan, has no known Churches of Christ. “I trust the Lord will use our efforts in some unknown-to-us ways,” Kachelman said.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, see missions.kachelman.com.