Day 4: Emotional Impact

Today, we fitted another 89 people for glasses, some of whom needed both readers and distance glasses.  A grandmother brought in her 9-year-old granddaughter because she wasn’t doing well in school.  Her granddaughter needed both distance and reading glasses, so it’s no wonder she was struggling.  When a team member asked the grandmother if she needed glasses, she said, “I can only afford to buy them for one of us.”  It’s hard to describe her response when she learned she wouldn’t have to pay.

We fitted a man in his 40s who had never had a pair of glasses.  His prescription was incredibly strong and it was astonishing to see the difference when he put on those glasses that worked.

An older couple, Maria and Abelino, came through together.  They had gone several years without effective glasses.

A young man came through the clinic who had his glasses broken in a motorcycle accident.  He had been without for nearly a year.

These are just a handful of the stories we’ve heard today.  We expect to give out nearly 500 pairs of glasses while we’re here.  To get those 500 pairs fitted correctly, we brought 4,100 pairs of glasses with us.  Every single pair of those glasses was donated by someone, transported to the Most Ministries office in Ann Arbor, repaired, cleaned, Rx identified, and packaged and labeled.  By volunteers.  10,000 glasses had to be received and processed to get the 4,100 specific glasses we needed to bring with us. 

If you have old glasses, please donate them.  Your strange prescription may travel 3,000 miles to another country and give someone clear vision for the first time in their adult life.  Your lower-prescription readers may get added to the inventory that makes up 50% of what we give out.  Your pair of glasses with different prescriptions in each lens may surprise and delight someone when they fit just right.

Every pair matters.