Thursday and Friday
Today is our last clinic day. We were at Pastor
Mario’s church in La Ceiba. We had a
great clinic day today. We saw 52
patients and gave out 27 prescription glasses. The people were great and I hate
to leave today. I put my hands on Nana’s
shoulders again this morning and she laughed because she knew I was putting the
weight on her shoulders again about evangelism. We both laughed and she said
she would do her best. I walked up to her later and she said that one more got
saved – one more for Jesus.
Many of the people today seemed to have the worst
vision problems that we have seen on this trip. We discussed the possible
reasons why. Pastor Mario said that the
people won’t wear any sunglasses. We noticed that they rarely seem to wear the
sunglasses we give to them. That is a major cause of cataracts and pterygium.
Also genetics could play a part in it but I think it is mostly the environment
and lack of knowledge of personal eye care. When Mary comes on the trip with
us, she makes sure they know about personal eye care. We miss you Mary (you
too, Guf)!
We had a young boy who is 13 come to our clinic. He
had 20/200 near vision and had difficulty reading the far vision chart. We had
to dilate his eyes and then use the retinomax. We got him corrected to 20/40
with the eyeglasses we had available. He was very happy to be able to see so
much better. Later after we left the
church as we were driving down the road, we saw one of our patients walking
down the road. He had on his new glasses and had a big smile on his face. It is
these kinds of responses that make this so incredibly rewarding.
Yesterday we went to the bodega (our small
warehouse) at the girl’s dorm at Cruzadas. We had a work day where we swapped
out the old cardboard trays with the new plastic trays in our inventory trailer.
We also replenished the inventory. Finally we went to the girl’s dorm and
tested all the girl’s vision. Everyone’s vision was very good so we didn’t need
to give out any prescription glasses. Tomorrow will be a brief work day again
at the bodega and then a day of rest. We will be flying home on Sunday. This
will be bitter sweet as it is every year. I want to be back home with family
and friends but I always leave a part of my heart here.
Summary of totals:
Total number of patients: 581
Total number of prescription glasses: 242
Total number saved: 15
Es una cosa de Dios! It’s a God Thing
Bucket, our team leader, with a couple of the children
Pastor Mario and some of the youth who helped us today with their new sunglasses
