Here is a testimonial from the team leader: Click this Link to see a video of their trip.

Hope you are well. Gerry and I are recovering from a very busy but impactful trip to Catarman, Philippines. We had a team of about 120 volunteers and between the medical, dental, surgery and eye team we were able to treat almost 10,000 patients during our time there last week!

In the Eye Clinic, we had about 25 volunteers who were able to provide glasses to about 4,700 patients throughout the week. We had some great patient experiences through the week. Below are some examples:

1. Many children and teens who have never had glasses and could not see the blackboard at school. We had several who were absolutely delighted to see for the first time at a distance.

2. One woman from the country heard we were coming on the radio and walked 10 miles to see us because she could not afford a tuk tuk fare. She only had one eye that was -8 so we gave her an eye patch and a new pair of glasses now she can see!

3. Another woman could not read her Bible. When she put on the glasses she started crying because she said the last verse she read was John 3:16 and it was the first verse she read (on the reading chart) when she was able to see again!

4. A third woman said she broke her glasses decades before and could not afford to buy new ones. She runs a ministry that feeds malnourished children in the rural areas of North Samar, and rejoiced at the fact she could see.I could share many more, but as you know, your ministry makes a great impact. Thank you!

Hopefully the equipment shipment made it back in time for the next group. I wanted to share some feedback in preparation to our next trip in 2 years and also regarding some of the notes I left in the equipment boxes.

We had a very efficient set up this year thanks to Gerry and the advanced team. We queue about 30-40 patients up at a time and run them through a triage station to determine what their need is - near sighted, far sighted or both. If near-sighted or both, then they get the autorefractor exam. We place the ticket in a bucket/small box and then have the runners go select 4-5 matches. Gerry set up the glasses in a roped off

area that sat above the clinic so the glasses would be safe. We would give each patient a number and when their number was called they came up for their fitting and left with the glasses that was best for them. If patients were far-sighted, then they were sent to the readers station and using the reader cards, we gave them a few options of different strengths to find the right pairs. This set-up ran very efficiently. We saw on average

Some of the trays we had from 2 years ago were destroyed, so unfortunately that is why we were unable to use 6801-7646. We kept those back and deleted them from the inventory so that the software would not match them in the field during the week. We would like to order some more trays and boxes for next trip and then add the 6801-7646 inventory back into the complete inventory for next trip.

Before leaving, I reconciled the empty slots as best I could. Probably not 100% perfect, but the inventory that you downloaded from the Primary PC is the most accurate and should be used for our next trip when we scan and replace.

All in all it was a great trip. I will send you some of my personal photos and videos if you would

like them for your website. We also plan to put together a more professional video for you in