The First Clinic

 Today was a long day full of joys as well as a few challenges.  We left the guest house at 7:30 am and joined the Caring Friends team for song and prayer.  Then we travelled for an hour and forty five minutes to the clinic held at a local church.  The ride was a bumpy one.  ( Our driver calls it an “African massage”). We set up the clinic in the small sanctuary — no water and no electricity, no indoor plumbing.

We were able to serve 70 people, from children to age 85 with glasses.  It is so rewarding to be able to do something so small yet so impactful for people.  There is only one optometrist in a huge area and eyeglasses cost a fortune.  Some of the people tested have very poor vision.  Imagine if we had to struggle under those circumstances along with all the other challenges that these brothers and sisters face.

On the way home we encountered heavy rain.  It is the rainy season here.  South Africa has planned power outages — called “load shedding”.  One took place as we were close to home and it meant that we couldn’t eat at the restaurant as planned.  Fortunately we had power when we reached the guest house.  Load shedding occurs several times a week with some advance notice that isn’t always accurate.

I was too busy to take photos of the clinic but will try to do so on another day.  

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