Michele in Africa

Sorry I haven't posted anything lately but I've spent the last week in the middle of nowhere without internet access, literally. We did another outreach in Mpumulanga province and stayed in an old bunkhouse on a farm. We were pretty much in the middle of cornfields - actually the area was very similar to Iowa.

I don't know the exact number but we saw hundreds more kids and gave out as many glasses. We had a team that consisted of a husband and wife from Vancouver, one from New Mexico, one from Florida, 8 South Africans and the three of us from Blessman Ministries. Jennie, from Vancouver, is an optometrist which was really helpful considering some of the diseased eyes we saw. For one little one, she diagnosed cancer of the iris.

Here are some of the woman on the team

Kim
Lauren
Lisa
Jennie
Me
Sebenzile (front)

Some of the men on the team

Elmond

Min

December

Lucky

Kids lining up at one of the schools

New glasses

Tondo (r) talking to a girl about HIV/AIDS

Prescreening the kids. The schools are supposed to prescreen the kids and only send us those with problems seeing but they almost never do this. So before we dilate their eyes, we prescreen them using the Snellen chart. If they pass the prescreen, they get sent back to class since they don't need glasses.

Waiting to see Dr. Jennie

Dr. Jennie with a 12 year old boy with HIV. This is the saddest thing I've seen so far. This little boy looked like the walking dead. He was the size of maybe a 7 year old and he had no affect at all...you couldn't get him to smile, talk, respond in anyway. Both of his parents have died from AIDS.

Me using the Retinomax. I pretty much did this all week except the last day. It's a machine that scans the eyes and gives a preliminary prescription for the glasses. I didn't get to interact much with the kids this week since I was doing this particular job but it was still a great week. As the kids lined up for me to scan their eyes, you could see the fear! I'd spend a minute explaining to them that it's just a light and I wasn't going to touch their eye with it. I said the same thing hundreds of times this week.