I wanted to come back with a few pictures, stories, and thoughts from our Guatemala mission trip and the use of the Eye Doc in a Box system. First, thank you, once again, for your dedication in training us and supporting us throughout the process–including this follow up. We appreciate you!
The numbers:
Between the two teams, we gave out 238 pairs of glasses (not including sunglasses).
The stories:
I’ll highlight a few stories that were really impactful for us. We had one patient, a man born without legs or arms, who was very near-sighted (he couldn’t even make out the figure at the top of the eye chart). We worked the EDIAB system and finally found the right power for him to see with 20/25 vision! The look on his face when he put on his new glasses was indescribable. He had happy tears in his eyes! He was so grateful, he gave us all hugs and asked to take a picture with us. That moment is one we ALL will remember.
We had another patient who had suffered a head injury as a child, which caused near-blindness in one eye. The vision in his other eye was pretty poor, too. Previously, he had received glasses to correct that eye’s vision, but they had sadly slipped off into a well and he didn’t have the opportunity to get a replacement. Though we couldn’t fix his damaged eye, we corrected the usable side. Those glasses were like gold for him–you could see him smiling from ear to ear!
A really tough case for us involved a teenager who came to be evaluated. Honestly, I don’t remember how strong the glasses we gave her were, but in the course of speaking with her, we found out that she was a victim of human trafficking. She was given away by her family and taken from her hometown 5 hours away to work the shop of a local store owner. The situation was incredibly complicated, but you could see the pain and sadness in her eyes. We felt pretty helpless with her and that what we could do was so little. We gave her glasses. We encouraged her as best we knew how. We prayed fiercely over her (and continue to do so). And then she had to go back to work. My heart still aches for her and for the MANY people around the world who are in similar situations.
EDIAB Feedback:
Truly, the system you have refined is SO accessible and helpful for lay people. The training, the kits, the manual are all incredibly well put together! We were able to adjust the clinic flow based off of our location and the size of our space without any difficulty, and we were able to supplement the eyeglasses with a more comprehensive eye exam by a trained professional. We went at a slower pace, prioritizing the experience over the number of patients we could see, and I think that was helpful for us, especially as first-timers. I want to give a special shout out to the “Power Combinations” page in the manual as that was extremely useful for us as we calculated the flipper combos. I genuinely don’t have any negative feedback, or anything I would’ve changed in regards to the EDIAB system.
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for the work you have done and continuing to do. The impact of this system is far-reaching and the ripple effect for the Kingdom of God is priceless. Thank you.