I have been someone who has participated and of late ran optical missions, for a number of years. Our missions are always in Honduras and we have worked in a variety of different places in the country. Our missions these days take us to a small town called La Ceibita and it is part of the greater metropolitan area of Tocoa. Tocoa is fairly far from any major airport and it takes a solid 8 hours to get there from the two major airports in country. But every hour spent travelling is so worth it to see the wonderful smiles on people’s faces when they can finally see clearly again, the tears when they realize they can read their bibles, and see their children and grandchildren’s faces clearly. Every minute of this ministry as challenging as it can be sometimes, is worth it.

We could not do this ministry without Holland Kendalls Optical ministry. The equipment he has for us lay folks is easy to use and usually pretty seamless. It doesn’t take long to learn how to use the equipment and we can get through often 70-100 patients a day!

I have so many stories to share about things that have happened and things people have said to me over the years, it would take too long. My favorites are the people who just grin from ear to ear and no words are needed to know that this person can finally see. This past trip I had a non verbal young man with down syndrome come to my clinic. It was difficult to communicate and we went through a bunch of different glasses because none of them were working for him. Finally I think after about the 15th pair, he put on a pair of glasses and smiled so big and started tearing up. He kept staring around the room and picking up things to look at. Or the women who was blind in one eye and had a cataract in the other – by some miracle we were able to improve her sight even just a little bit. If that’s not worth it, I don’t know what is!