Second vision clinic / first construction day

Today was a first for me: our team divided into two groups, with five members going to Gituamba to work on a construction project and eleven going to the Bahati Sub-County to do a vision clinic. And I didn’t choose construction! For those of you who don’t know, my everyday job is a general contractor, so it’s what I’m comfortable with. I’m also not overly social, to be honest, so it’s somewhat of a way to escape. I know in some prior year trips, I have recognized after the fact that I have missed out on some special opportunities because I chose the “safe” construction jobs. But this year was different: because of my involvement in setting up the vision ministry and my personal experience with having my vision saved because of others, I chose to watch the construction from afar today.

At our wrap-up meeting tonight, I got to hear the construction team’s experience of a great day. They were able to work on saving and expanding the home of an elderly, ill man in Gituamba whose stick and mud Home was in significant danger of collapsing due to termites. Others had previously started replacing heavy mud walls with corrugated iron sheet over a steel frame. From the description of the labor involved, I think I might have made the wiser choice today! That team wore themselves out hauling away the old walls and building new. I’m disappointed but I have to do a vision clinic again tomorrow 😂.

The vision clinic was done at a local hospital in Bahati. This was done in conjunction with the local Rotary group and the Rotaract Club of Bahati as part of Rotary International Kenya Eyecare Project 2019. They worked side by side with us in screening patients for prescription and fitting them with either distance glasses and or reading glasses if necessary. We saw 203 patients, dispensed 128 pairs of prescription glasses and issued 46 pair of reading glasses. To say that we had some satisfied customers is gross understatement. A common comment was “ I’ll be able to read my Bible again”! Those of us who have experienced vision issues know how precious sight is and we get doubly blessed seeing others have their sight improved. It was a joy to work alongside our Rotary and Rotaract friends and benefit from their enthusiasm and ability to act as interpreters. It was absolutely a great joint effort for almost 8 straight hours. And we get to do it all again tomorrow. We had hundreds of people wait in line for hours and have already registered 70 for tomorrow. It’s going to be another great day!