Mission stories

AFRICA 2018

A LIFE CHANGING SOCCER BALL

You came to do medicine, but I came to have fun. It all started when my neighbor showed up with a new soccer ball. He said he had gotten it from the Christian Medical Clinic down the road. I was just standing there, he said, when a white lady in ...

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HAITI

I recently returned from Haiti where Vision Outreach and Southwestern Medical Clinic joined forces to perform 61 sight restoring surgeries. At one point, a husband and wife of 48 years were laying side by side on surgical beds. After surgery, the husband said, “Thank you so much for your service. There is no way ...

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AFRICA 2017

A boy named Auboo was leading his blind father with a long stick, down a hot and dusty road in Central Africa. Their poor family could no longer support them, so they had to beg and seek shelter as they wandered from town to town… UNTIL the day that everything changed. A van stopped and a man stepped out and asked...

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

The whole town of Moca is still talking about you that the compassion and love you gave to all of them. My phone is ringing every minute; people are just crazy about the project in the best way. The boy that Dr. Cooke did with congenital cataracts who was blind (Juan Daniel) is 20/30 and he is is very happy, I wish you could all see his face.”

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ECUADOR

I just returned from a great surgical mission trip to Ecuador. Dr. Stan Pletcher was my mentor for my first mission doing Manual Small Incision Cataract Surgery (MSICS) and was a great spiritual and surgical leader of the team. In a nutshell, it was an incredible experience personally for me and learning to do MSICS was a wonderful experience.

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HONDURAS

I had the honor of being part of a VOI team of 12 incredible people who traveled to San Pedro Sula, Honduras in April of this year. While there, with the help of the local Lions Club and their amazing staff, we were able to perform 200 cataract surgeries on patients with significant vision loss who otherwise would not have had the opportunity for ...

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NICARAGUA

"“A wonderful experience in Nicaragua.” Part of me is reluctant to sit down and write my thoughts and observations because it is so hard to put in to words, but I am also concerned if I don’t do it now time will pass and I will never write this email.

I don’t expect to find the words. .I am not sure....

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GRANADA

The Vision Outreach team was invited back to Granada, Nicaragua, in mid-October this year…..the purpose was twofold — VOI was asked to join with the Granada Lions Club in celebration of its 50th anniversary as a benefactor for those poor that suffered the adverse affects of impaired vision. VOI was also asked to...

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BORNEO

"I see about one bilaterally blind person a year at my practice in Minneapolis," stated Steve Anderson, MD, my friend and co-worker in the mission field, We saw many bilaterally blind people per day on our month long outreach to West Kalimantan.

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