Eye clinics

I finally have some time to sit down and write about what we have been doing here in South Africa. A lot has happened in the last week so this will either be a really long post or I'll have to write part of it later. On April 19, a group of 10 of us from Lutheran Church of Hope and 1 from Gloria Dei Lutheran Church left Des Moines for Johannesburg, South Africa. After a 2 hour flight to Atlanta, an 8 hour layover, a 19 hour flight (with a 2 1/2 hour stop in Dakar, Senegal), we made it safely to Joburg. We were met by a team from Blessman Ministries (BMI), the organization we are partnering with (more on them later but check out their website at http://www.blessmanministries.org/).

We stayed at a beautiful bed/breakfast just 15 minutes from the airport. We were surprised at the accommodations since we were prepared to sleep on church floors. We had a great evening of pizza and connecting with our new BMI friends. Sunday we drove about 3 hours north to Rustenburg where we would be staying for the week. Again we were surprised by the beautiful hotel we were staying in. We each had our own room and mine was like an apartment with 3 separate rooms. Each night we returned to the hotel with an amazing dinner prepared by the hotel chef.

Note to anyone considering coming on this trip in the future. Our accommodations were very unusual. The school district with which we are working is responsible for accommodations and generally the teams stay in hostel-type dorms and move to a different one each night. So to say the least, we were extremely lucky.

On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (Wednesday was election day and thus a holiday so no school) we went to a different school each day and set up eye clinics. Because I'm going to be doing 2 additional outreaches, I was able to learn most of the jobs in the clinics over the four days.

Here's how a typical day unfolded: we met in the dining room for devotionals at 6:45, had breakfast, then packed up our stuff for the day and drove about an hour - two hours to a school. We set up a registration table, a counseling area, an area where the kids eyes were scanned by a retinomax, and a glasses distribution area.

First, kids were lined up and pre-screened by looking at the E chart. Anyone with 20/30 vision or better was given a book called the Book of Hope and sent on their way (check out this great ministry called OneHope at http://www.bookofhope.net/). The book has lots of teachings about Jesus aimed at the appropriate grade level.

For those children who had worse than 20/30 vision, their eyes were dilated and then 30 minutes later one of the team viewed their eyes with a retinomax (some kind of machine that tells us what eyeglass prescription they need - it's more complicated than that but I'm not exactly sure yet how it works). A script was printed and the child waited for a counselor.

As a counselor, we did three things: determined which eyeglasses worked best for the child, did a teaching on HIV/AIDS and talked to the kids about how much God loves them. The eyeglass part was pretty easy...we had the child hold up one pair of glasses and then another pair...then they choose which is better.

The AIDS teaching was a little harder in the beginning but we eventually were comfortable with it. Talking about sex, condoms, God's plan for marriage, etc. isn't something most of us do with regularity so it was uncomfortable at first. Many of the kids have been directly affected by AIDS and some of had one or both of their parents die from it. South Africa has one of the highest incidence of AIDS in the entire world.

Talking about Jesus was the easy part...I could probably do that all day! We ended with prayer and sent them to the eyeglass distribution area where they would pick up their eyeglasses. At the distribution center, we would verify the prescription was correct and then adjust the glasses to fit their face. Off they would go with their new glasses!

Eye clinic photos:

Tamara teaching about HIV/AIDS




Susan with a new friend

Teaching children VBS songs while they are waiting to be screened

Beautiful with new glasses

Singing

Rob praying

Terry using the retinomax

Abby praying

Me with my new friends

Kelsey

Caleb checking the eyeglass prescription

Brad working hard at drinking his tea!

I have a lot more to write about but will save that for tomorrow. I have a test in my advanced physiology class so I'll be studying tomorrow rather than working. My Hope team left yesterday and the Blessman team left today. So there are three of us left here living in the Blessman's beautiful home.

More stories to come about safaris, orphanages, and living on a game farm!