Are you getting tired.....?

Are you getting tired of our eyeglass stories? My journal will think this is all we have done, lately. It isn't, but somehow, just when we think we'll get a breather Heaven gives us a kick and tells us to get moving again.

The most amazing thing happened on Monday. We had to turn down two Mission requests for glass clinics: Honduras, Comayaguela Mission and Central Mission...both during their zone conferences where we are doing health lectures, and we felt very badly about this.. We were completely out of inventory of the lower numbers. This means over a thousand pair of glasses have already been distributed throughout Costa Rica and Guatemala. We knew we would be getting glasses in Feb. and March, but until then, we were out of business. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday we made it a matter of prayer...really thinking that we couldn't possibly find anything and that we were asking for the impossible. Surely glasses couldn't/wouldn't drop out of the sky. Well, they did! Sort of!..On Monday we had gone to the Central Clinic for health exams and the Mission Mom asked us to look in some sacks they had found off in the corner. They were garbage sacks full of glasses. A year or so ago a scout had an eagle project to collect glasses and sent them to Guatemala. No one knew how to dispense them and so they were put away. We had to laugh. glasses did, essentially, "drop into our lap". We have enough to do several clinics of a considerable size now, and this will hold us until February and March. We are not working on our second, maybe third, thousand. Then we will quit, I think. Dad is the key to all this success because he knows, intuitively - and of course because of many years experience" how to measure powers. If only we could communicate, somehow, with this scout and tell him that his glasses will now be used. Our grandson is doing another project in Chicago for his eagle project and how we bless these young men and the scouting program that promotes such activities.

Of course, some of these glasses will be lost, unused, broken by chldren, sat on, etc., but we figure that even if 2/3 are making a difference then it is certainly worth it. If we give 2,000 glasses away, then over a thousand will be used to help make a quality difference in someone's life.

We see some other major benefits, totally unexpected about this project and just as worthwhile. First, except for dad, the parents and missionaries, children take over this clinic. They run it and have ownership in it. I sit and play with babies, take pictures, hug people, etc., because the town people take over. The missionaries, wherever we are, figure out how to do the clinic in about 10 minutes. We have a great system and it is very orderly and professional and everyone loves it.

Second, these clinics make these people in the far reaches of Guatemala feel that someone loves them and is aware of them.

Third, the children - 9 - 16 or so in age, are fascinated! They are incredulous with the magnification part of the glass. They can't stay away. They see us work with the printed page, "Where's Waldo" is a hit, and they see the importance of reading. Many children don't go to school nor do they, if they even begin, go past the primary grades. There is no follow-up, no requirements enforced and so unless the child is motivated (or the parents are) the kids stop going to school. In one clinic we had a 11 year old boy named Ricardo (or something like that) stick with us all night. At the end of the evening he told us he wanted to be a doctor. He probably will never have that chance, but what if he did?

Fourth, generous people from all over the US have really been the privot for the project. The glasses are a symbol of caring. Each glass represents someone we love. This project has been a way, and a worthwhile way, to connect our world with a third world country. Guatemala is two countries, actually, with a modern segment of society very similar to our own, and a major portion of the country being very needy and economically depressed. Much of that latter part of Guatemala still is a hundred years behind. And yet a funny sight is seeing women in their traditional dress, walking down the street with a cell phone at their ear.

There are so manyother surprising benefits of this program, but it is late and we just returned from a zone conference.

Something surprising and very affirming seems to be always happening.
There have been other PR purposes, none of which we would have ever imagined.

I promise, with my fingers crossed, that I will try to talk about other things from now on.