Our church lst sent missionaries to Liberia, West Africa in 1916, and has had a missionary presence there ever since.

In the 1980's a 14 year long civil war broke out, and the missionaries had to leave town, quick! Our church has continued to support the local pastors who had been raised up by our missionaries. My pastor husband & I visited them 3 years ago, and saw that the work had blossomed & flourished under their leadership, and the Lord gave us a new burden, to bring medical, dental, and optical help to the Liberian people.

January 2011 we brought a 16 member medical team to Liberia, which included a 4 person optical team, along with several wonderful Liberian helpers. The team fitted 400 with prescription eye glasses, and about 250 with readers. We ran out of the smaller strengths, and we would double the amount of those, should we go to Liberia again. God willing, we would love to go again!

As we were preparing the room on the very lst day of the clinic, we quickly scanned a Liberian helpers eyes. I continued

about my business of getting things ready for the lst day. After a bit, she came up to me, interrupted my train of thought, and very excitedly told me that she could now see clearly! She hugged me, and said that she could not see clear before. I was very happy

to be interrupted, with such good news! She had received bi-focal's, and her job was to retrieve the glasses from the large inventory of eye glasses. She worked with us for 4 days.

A young boy who received very thick eye glasses, said that he will now be able to read when he goes to school, & won't get headaches at school. An adult woman said that she can now go back to school, now that she can see.

Another woman stopped me during the 4th day of clinic to hug me, and to say, "Praise God, I can now see clearly!!!".

When at the airport as we were going to fly home to the States, a airport worker came up to one of us on the team, and said that he saw on the x-ray machine that we had alot of eye glasses, and that he needed glasses....."do you have any gasses for me?"

The team member pulled out his handy dandy John 3:16 reader test, and tested his eyes. Sure enough, he did need readers. So the team member gave him his own personal favorite pair of readers, and gave him the test again, and the man could now see clearly.

It was alot of work to prepare, to go, and even to come home, but if the people were helped, and if they wear their new eye glasses,

it's worth it. It seemed as if God hand picked our team, as each one was good at their particular "job". Each one was passionate about helping people to see better, and is wanting to go back to Liberia, should the Lord lead us to go again.

The Holland Kendall Optical Ministry is a wonderful ministry enabling many to be trained to go out on the field to bring better sight to thousands each year. Not only are the teams trained, but Holland is so kind to take your calls with questions, and S.O.S. calls.

"How do I do this" "I can't get this to work!" "What did I do wrong?", etc....If the Lord is sparking your interest to do this somewhere in the world, I encourage you to listen to the Lord's calling. Take a step of faith, He wants to help the people even more than you do,

so you can be sure that the Lord will be with you and help you every step of the way.

( Holland - the last couple of photos are people waiting to be fitted with glasses, & the one of "John sorting glasses", he is sorting the reader glasses from Lynn Roberts )