The Blind Shall See

Here is the second of Dave's two God Stories from his time in Kenya (once again in his own words).

"The blind receive sight,
the lame walk,
those that have leprosy are cured,
the deaf hear,
the dead are raised,
and the good news is preached to the poor."
Matthew 11:5

I went to the first day of clinic and there were maybe one or two people with the complaint of not seeing very well, but I didn't realize that we had brought any glasses along. At the end of the first day, I walked through the little pharmacy area to see what medications we had a lot left of and review the medicines we had left to give out for the following days. It was then that I discovered we had brought five pairs of glasses. Two of them were prescription glasses, two of them were sunglasses, and the final pair was a thick pair of coke bottle looking glasses with weird yellow writing all over them. There was an L on the left and an R on the right and there were circles and lines on both lenses. The lines could not be removed. I remember making fun of the glasses and putting them on. Others laughed at how funny they looked on me. I didn't think there was any chance that anyone could possibly use them or even more so be caught wearing them. I wondered what kind of joke it was that these had been sent along. I put them back in their case not thinking much more of them.

Late in the afternoon the following day I had a patient come to me with the complaint of not being able to see further than a foot past her face. I didn't notice it at first but when I put my penlight up to examine her eyes I was surprised to see that her left eye did not have a pupil. She told me she had surgery many years ago and she had lost her sight in that eye. The eye was left deviated inward slightly. Her right eye was normal on exam but had minimal vision. So I told her we had five pairs of glasses and I would go get them to see if any of them would improve her vision. To my disappointment when I found the glasses there were only two pairs remaining. One pair of sunglasses and the bizarre coke bottle spectacles. I picked up both pairs and then had a glimmer of hope. This lady had terrible vision and this funky pair of glasses was nearly a centimeter thick. This could work!

I had her put on the crazy glasses and instantly she swung her arms out to the side and said, "I can see!" My translator, Joy, and I sat there somewhat stunned and quizzical thinking in our minds that this couldn't really be true. Joy even grabbed a box of gloves that were sitting on my exam table and held the box about three feet away from the patient and had her try to read the writing on the box. I didn't understand her words as they were spoken in Kiswahili but Joy could understand them and excitedly exclaimed, "She can see!"God can do miraculous things in hopeless situations!

Upon returning home, I received an e-mail from one of the SC teammates. It told the rest of the story. She told me that a patient of hers had given her the glasses to take along. When she saw her patient upon returning to the states she told him the story of the young woman who was in desperate need of glasses and the whole story about me and her and how she praised God when she could see. He then proceeded to tell her the story behind those glasses. The glasses had belonged to his severely mentally handicapped 46 year old sister. He said he did Google earth, got out this big map of Kenya, zoomed in on Mbita, explained to her what a missionary is, and what we were doing there. She wanted to be a part of it so she donated her glasses! The markings were all done by the Optometrist to help communicate to her while he was trying to figure out if her vision was changed and to assess if they were working because it is so difficult to communicate with her. The man said his sister would be thrilled to hear that she had helped in her small way by donating her glasses.

Once again, I am speechless and humbled. All praise, glory, and honor be to our God!