LYN Community Corp

Ukraine is home to the world's oldest humanitarian crisis — and its elderly are the least visible casualties of the war.

Ukraine has the highest proportion of elderly people affected by conflict of any single nation on earth. Roughly a quarter of the country's population is over 60, and in the east, a third of everyone needing humanitarian aid since 2014 has been over 60.

These are men and women who spent their entire lives serving their country, and who are now living out their final years displaced, isolated, and often without consistent human presence. Many have families who fled. Many live in ill-equipped shelters or overcrowded state institutions, unable to reliably access medication. Their pensions cover some basic needs — never all of them.

The window to act is narrow, but the need is not short-term. Even if a ceasefire or peace agreement is reached, this crisis will not end. Destroyed civilian infrastructure, displaced communities, and collapsed local care systems have created a generational deficit that will take decades of sustained, faithful investment to address.

Mercy Houses: A Real Home, With Dignity

A home without people is just a building, and care without a place to anchor it cannot endure. Mercy Houses join the two.

LYNC purchases and renovates homes in rural and receiving communities and converts them into Mercy Houses — residential facilities where displaced and isolated elderly adults are housed, fed, cared for, and known by name. We provide ongoing operational and structural support, ensure long-term oversight of each facility, and train local staff in leadership, fundraising, and ministry sustainability so that every house can carry the work forward on its own.

We now operate seven Mercy Houses across Ukraine. An eighth facility is under renovation and will accommodate 25 additional residents, and a ninth property has been identified and negotiated for acquisition.

Why This Matters More Than It Sounds

A chaplain working alongside our teams on frontline evacuation missions reports that the vast majority of elderly residents refuse to leave. Not because they don't understand the danger — but because they believe no one is waiting for them on the other side. They see themselves as a burden, and so they choose to die at home rather than be evacuated to nowhere.

Mercy Houses give these men and women a reason to believe someone is waiting. With a place to go and people to receive them, they find the courage to choose life. Our field teams have documented residents who waited weeks without a single visitor, who said they wished to die, and who turned back toward life only because someone kept showing up.

That "someone" is funded by partners like you.

Where Your Gift Goes

Our GivingTuesday goal is $200,000. Here is exactly what it funds:

$100,000 — the next Mercy House. A property serving up to 60 residents has been identified and negotiated. Total project cost is $200,000, and we have already secured half. Your gift completes the match, dollar for dollar.

$50,000 — finish the renovation already underway. Twenty-five more elderly adults move from a shelter or a state institution into a real home.

$50,000 — carry all seven houses through winter. Heating, food, medication, and staffing for the hardest four months of the year, when costs run highest and the stakes are plainest.

Every gift at every level goes to one of these three. Smaller amounts land where they're needed most:

$50 — a month of food and basic supplies for one resident

$150 — winter heating and warm supplies for one Mercy House room

$1,800 — one house, one month of winter operations

$5,000 — a month of operations across all seven houses

Without matching partners, the ninth property is lost, the renovation stalls, and the seven houses we already operate face a winter of hard choices. Proper care requires a minimum of two caregivers for every 15 residents; three is optimal. Labor, food, medication, and renovation all fall outside what residents' pensions can cover.

More Than Mercy Houses: LYNC's Wider Work

LYN Community was founded in 2010 and incorporated as a U.S. 501(c)(3) in 2017. For more than fifteen years we have worked at the intersection of community development, spiritual care, and humanitarian response across Eurasia. Alongside the Mercy Houses, your support helps sustain:

Ukraine refugee and IDP response — direct assistance to internally displaced families and people living in and near active war zones, delivered through local church and community networks.

Cross-Cultural Religious Literacy (CCRL) — LYNC's flagship peacebuilding program, equipping leaders to know their own faith, understand their neighbor's, and work together across those differences. Our CCRL Summit in Kraków convened practitioners from Ukraine, Central Asia, the South Caucasus, the Middle East, Indonesia, and the U.S.

Religious engagement roundtables and multi-sectorial relationship building — convening faith leaders, government officials, and civil society across Eurasia to re