Global Aid Network Mission Reports

Reported by Marilyn E:

What you see first are brown curls bobbing as the small girl bounces from place to place, dancing to a melody only she can hear. Then you see the adhesive patch over her right eye and—observing more closely—the nearly white left eyeball. She is one of the 40 children from a school for the blind who unexpectedly arrived at today’s vision clinic. (We learned later that this precious little girl lost the sight in the one eye due to cancer and it is very likely that the disease is spreading to the other.) We’re still not exactly sure why they came—perhaps they heard that dental care might also be available—but once they arrived, we scrambled to gather enough information to offer what we could. In most cases we could do very little except offer our love in the form of hugs and small candies, even as we struggled to hide tears at this tragic situation. Two of our dentists left their posts to play their guitars and sing for the children. You didn’t need eyes to sense love.

One small boy who in North America would be legally blind, was examined and fitted with the strongest lenses in our supply thus enabling him to make out dim shadows across the room. His brilliant smile could not be hidden as his friends and teachers greeted him with applause.

This is why we came.

Reported by Bob E.:   

Our registration records prove that over 1000 children received personal attention in the vision and dental clinics over the past 24 hours, but numbers cannot describe the joy in the hearts of Global Aid Network team members who hugged and smiled, tested small eyes, comforted and treated frightened dental patients, made eyeglasses and offered healthy teeth and vision instruction.

Words of the textbook are now visible to a little girl, and several small boys with rotting teeth are finally without pain after the American dentist extracted this cause of potential disease. A woman in beautiful national dress hugs a Global Aid Network worker who assures her that her daughter’s glasses will allow her to clearly see a sunset.

Busses were almost two hours late this morning; how would we get everything done with such a delay? What was delay to us was God’s appointment time. Dr. Tony, one of our optometrists, had this extended and uninterrupted time to answer deeply the spiritual questions initiated by several interpreters.

Our bodies are weary and sleep beckons. Tomorrow will be full with more opportunities to serve.

Before going to breakfast this morning, that all team members arrived safely with no missing luggage and eager to get underway. After checking in to our rooms, we were taken to lunch on the beach, then back to the school to for orientation and to begin setting up for the clinics. We will have a short time of “sharing” together mid-morning, then to lunch and back to the school to finish setting up for the opening of the clinics tomorrow a.m.

The dentists and doctors on our team have made plans for dental clinic, cleft lip surgeries, and vision clinics for the week.  It is expected that fourteen patients, mostly young children will receive surgeries primarily for cleft lip. 

It appears that we have sufficient interpreters this year, which, of course, is a critical issue.

Communication with our local hosts about starting the clinics tomorrow in an efficient and smooth flowing manner is greatly appreciated. The large size of our team, the number of work stations, and the number of students we are scheduled to see this week have potential for producing a certain level of chaos, but with proper planning we hope to reduce that element to the very minimum!