Tanzania 2025 glasses clinic

 Good evening everyone.  Thanks for keeping up with our blog. I don’t feel like i have a lot to share today. We had a short day of clinic so we could stay on schedule for our next adventure. With the short day I haven’t seen a head count for the people we served. We did bring all of the students through at the end of the day. The majority of them got sunglasses so they were all looking cool before we left. Laurence had a closing ceremony where we handed out thank you cards to all of his staff and family. We couldn’t have done this without all of their help and support. With hugs and sad goodbyes we squeezed back in the van and headed down the dusty road.   For those who aren’t familiar with what we are doing here I grabbed a couple photos of the charts we used for testing. You will also see the students lined up for their glasses. Plus all of the bags we used to carry all of the glasses with us to Arusha.  Onto the next adventure. After leaving Next Life Laurenc...

 Good evening. Look at you coming back to check in on us. The day started out the same but I do have updates. Started out with breakfast, pharmacy stop, rough ride, and we’re back at Next Life. First thing after getting the head count we were able to service 85 people today. Pretty straight forward for the most part. A handful of kids came in and were able to pick up sunglasses. But we did have a few struggles again with the elderly. We were able to fit all but two with the glasses. Those two were able to make use of the mobility canes that we brought with us. These individuals had family members help them up the stairs and into our clinic. God willing it did not take them long to start picking up on how to use them and they were able to walk out on their own.  Turns out the carpentry boys had been working on a table and chair set. I’m not sure if they had it all finished today, but there are progress photos. Alan (one of the Iowa member) did some snooping and checked out the ...

 Welcome to the day 3 Tanzania trip Blog. Not a ton changed from yesterday. That being said Laurence had to fix some exhaust issues from the end of yesterday so we had a nice “quiet” ride today. Mary greeted us with tea again but not all of the kids were working in the sewing room. Some of the boys had moved out to a work bench and had started on some wood working projects. Hopefully we will get to see their projects come together before we have to leave. Luckily we were able to service 65 clients today most were a breeze but both testing stations had a couple people that tested us. Just means it was a lesson we needed to learn. I personally had a bit of free time before we left so I went and took a closer look at the front gate. I was told they have been paving this wall and gate for the last couple years. The goal is to create a safe place for the kids along with girls dorms to come in the near future. One thing I will never be able to understand is that some of the kids are walk...

 Welcome back for day two. This morning we gather for our breakfast at 8am in hopes of getting a little earlier jump on the day. We crammed into Laurences van knowing the bumpy hour ahead of us but with each trip it doesn’t seem as bad as the last. Mary greeted us with tea when we arrived at next life. Afterwards Laurence had us spend some time meeting with the students in the sewing class they provide. He had us do one of the stranger ice breakers I had ever been a part of. We then manned our stations to help fit some more glasses. Both of our testing stations had a couple of tougher clients today. You will see in one of the photos of Franki. We had to go all of the way to a +9 prescription for his glasses. If that doesn’t hold any significance to you don’t worry it wouldn’t have made sense to me either until I had to help with it this afternoon. We ended up having people come to the clinic until 4. With supper being our next stop we headed for Kahn’s Barbecue. This gave us some q...

Most ministries arrived at Tanzania safely and had an hour drive to Arusha. We made it safe to Maasaisafari Center and took awhile to get use to Tanzania time. The first morning of the eyeglass clinic, we had a great breakfast and then headed to Mbugini to set up for the clinic and it was just beautiful to see everyone wave  and smile when we got there. We had amazing tea made by a wonderful lady named Mary and then we set everything up, so people can start heading in to get their glasses. We all had our own stations and translators to help us communicate and it went pretty smoothly. We all had a fun time and everyone got along great and smiled while we got to help these people who have a hard time seeing or can barely see, and it just made our day while we helped 40 people. Next, we packed things up and Laurence brought us to a nice restaurant called Fifis and we laughed and had a great time. Lastly, we went back to the motel and did devotions and got together and sang, and then f...