A Great Team

Just for future reference, a week and a half is too short for a visit to Bongolo! We had the most encouraging visit from a group from Redding, California this last week, and it was tough to see them go. So for our readers, plan at least 3 weeks when you come!

The group was the Trent family (an ophthalmologist, his wife, and their 3 kids ages 8-16) and their friend and coworker Fred, who all came out to make my (Wendy's) life easier at the eye clinic, and to help us get started in our life and ministry in Gabon. They brought lots of medical supplies, did cataract and glaucoma surgeries, spent many hours organizing the eye clinic equipment and medications, and in the process they even discovered that we had things we didn't know we had - items that had been tucked away in various cupboards in the distant past.

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We spent many fun evenings together - one of their favorite sayings is that "at Bongolo, there's a party every night!" And we did have a LOT of fun!! You can see from these pictures that together, we had the capacity to be wacky enough to attract some attention. (That golf cart was actually driven that way, over rough roads - that was not a pose!) We also had good meaningful conversations, vacation Bible school for the missionary kids, dreamed together about the future of the eye ministry here, and spent time in praise and worship of our Lord, who has given us so many good gifts.

A great sequel to their visit (which the team doesn't even know about yet) occurred two days after they left. A 9-year-old boy came in who had lost his left eye to an infection or trauma when he was 2 years old. His left eye was phthisical (shrunken) and couldn't be saved anymore, but what we did have to offer was an eye from an artificial eye set that the visiting team had found during their organizing! Artificial eyes don't see, but socially he will be much more accepted by his community in the future, which will help a lot with friends at school, employment, having a family, etc.

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When the boy first tried on an eye and saw himself in a mirror, he was speechless and started to cry. We weren't sure if it was because the eye was uncomfortable, or if he was so shocked that he was overcome. We gave him a smaller eye to be sure it was comfortable, but then he seemed to be afraid that it would fall out if he made any sudden movements, so we tried to get him to play and run around a little instead of walking around so stiffly.

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He went home that night but the eye actually did fall out, so he and his mom were back the next morning, wanting to try on the first eye again....But that day (yesterday) there was a significant difference: the boy was smiling, laughing, and moving easily - he even looked eagerly into the box of artificial eyes to find his new one. We put the new larger eye in and he was still smiling and said it didn't hurt, and he liked seeing himself in the mirror; we figure it turned out that he just needed some time to adjust. After all, it's a big change!

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If the Trents and Fred hadn't come, I would have simply turned this child away, and 6 months later when I'd found the artificial eyes I would have been sad that we hadn't known they were there earlier. What great timing God has, and how perfectly He schedules our every encounter.

I have to use this opportunity to ask any more ophthalmologists out there to also come and visit us here in Gabon - especially to teach the African resident who will be arriving at Bongolo Hospital this September. He will be doing a 3-year ophthalmology residency, but as of this moment, I am his only preceptor and he is the only resident. It would be great to see him being taught by multiple ophthalmologists with skills in various areas during his training! Please pray with us that this happens.