4/22/2023

This was a long productive day! We served more than twice as many people as yesterday! 

There were so many people lined up when we arrived and a young lady told me in the afternoon she had been waiting 6 hours, with a toddler and a baby on her lap. She said her mother had brought them lunch half way thru the day thankfully. The need is great here to be willing to sit or stand for hours waiting for some glasses. This woman in particular needed -3 strength glasses, which is stronger than mine are so I know how much this will improve her whole family’s daily life. 

Very hot day today and the church members hung up a tarp over the people in line to  protect them from the heat and sun. We stayed almost 3 hours past scheduled ending time so we could serve everyone who came.

A few of our stories from today-

-a woman my age just wanted to be able to read her bible again. So much scripture is in her memory but she wanted to know more. Her face beaming when the world becomes clear 

-child that had trouble seeing the whiteboard at school even though she sat right in the front. I couldn’t get her tested to a number as she has 1 eye very bad. The distribution team worked diligently and patiently trying different glasses until her face lit up brightly!

 -a young lady with such a funny sense of humor had Charli and I in tears. Was joking she couldn’t do the chart properly because one of her fingers was missing, slammed in a door playing with her brother as a child and off it popped. At the clinic they asked her if she brought it in with her so they could reattach it. At home they found her finger being carried away by ants all chanting Barbecue, barbecue! Lol. Charli saw her down the line later and she held up her hand like she said the ants did and called out barbecue, barbecue!😂

-a truly Mayan woman Bill had the pleasure of meeting. She spoke English and Mayan, which as 2 dialects. 

-a woman was heard screaming as she left the area, “I can see! I can see!”

—the elderly woman that I was unable to get a number for, was passed up to Kaleigh who worked so long and patiently, trying on many many of the specialty strong glasses until she smiled so hugely. She needed a -10! Probably nearly blind but not ready to give up on life yet! She was so thankful and grateful❤️ I was so relieved we could help her.

-The gentleman who was going through some healing and the nearby team jumped right in to pray over him.

Last night Al , who works on the final step, said that when the glasses are fitted to their own face, cleaned and put on, the grins are huge and their happiness is so clear. 

While we are blessing  people of Belize with better eyesight, they in return are blessing us all with their smiles, hugs and thankfulness. We are all so happy to be here!