Monday November 3rd.
Today was busy! But fullfiling and fruitful and full of love and God moments.
We began our day with breakfast and devotions and then headed to the Tocoa site to begin our various different missions for the week. Optical got busy getting ready to see patients and all in all we saw a total of about 76 patients today. There were many moments with some challenging cases and difficulties finding the right glasses for someone but for the most part we were able to send anyone that needed them home with some good glasses to improve their vision. There were so many moments of happy smiles and even tears and lots of love to go around. Too many to list. One particular moment was when I had gone through about 60 pairs of glasses to find the right fit for a girl that had a very difficult prescription in one eye. Her other eye barely needing anything. She was struggling in school to see and was clearly getting frustrated that every pair we tried didn’t work. She was only 12 and it broke my heart to see her break down and cry. But I hugged her and told her it was going to be ok, and we would not give up trying to find her something that would work. We kept changing the rules in the program and changing allowances and doing everything we could to try to find the right pair. I was internally starting to feel at a bit of a loss but was trying not to show it. We got a text from one of our other team members. Catherine had gone out there to grab lunch and was talking with the other team members and explaining the situation, when one of them said, just pop the lens out of the other side of the glasses, on the eye that doesn’t really need the prescription. Goodness, that was something I didn’t even think to do. But it was brilliant. We clearly were not going to find what we needed and a simple solution could solve our problem. So I did. I popped the lens out of the non prescription side and had her try them. She smiled so big and looked around the room. She was focusing so much before on how blurry the other side. But with that lens gone she could actually see – out of both eyes! The lesson that I seem to be slow to learn, is ask for help! Don’t try to solve it all on my own! A simple solution from another team member saved the day. I was grateful and happy that this worked out!
We saw people from several far away places too. They had come from at least a few hours away to be seen and were very thankful that we were able to get them glasses.
The construction crew got busy digging the holes, bending rebar and preparing to put up posts for the new covered porch area on the caretakers house at the Tocoa site where the Crie is. They had a few hiccups along the way, but had a good day working with some of the local folks and solving problems.
Home visits and BECAS crew had a very fruitful day with meetings with the coordinators and spending time visiting local families and bring in care packages. We had several amazing moments during the home visits. One little girl we met last year who was struggling in school due to some medical issues, we met at a home visit and didn’t know we were going to see here today. She was thriving in school and was healthy! The BECAS program is doing wonderful things keeping kids in school and encouraging education.
I’ve been having a few problems blogging on the web site so my blog has not had pictures and I’ve been keeping it short due to the issues. But I’m hoping to have it fixed soon. I’ll add more to the previous blog posts and catch up as soon as i do!
It’s late, I’m tired! But my heart is full
