Monday's Programs and Mission

Monday we ate breakfast and had devotion. We split into two groups and some of us headed to Sacramento for eye clinics and some of us went to a Catholic school for the blind.

Those that went to Sacramento didn’t know exactly what to expect but knew that God was in control. Ray and Jennifer sat with a translator and patiently tested each person. Kent, Sarah, Pat and Paul helped with testing for distance. The people were very patient and waited outside in the sun as we slowly progressed. Susan and Meg handed out the right strength glasses and retested the people once they tried on their glasses to make sure it was the right prescription. The majority of people only needed reading glasses but a few people really needed a huge vision correction. With our first eye clinic under our belt, everyone felt better about our abilities and we knew that God was sending us people that really benefited from this clinic. Each person not only improved their vision but they also improved their spiritual life by being prayed with before leaving by the church’s pastor. In about 4 hours, we had seen 81 people!

At the school for the blind Tim Snyder met with the principal and discussed our plans. We were a little worried that they wouldn’t be as receptive to our programs since there are problems between the Catholic and Protestant churches here. We shouldn’t have been worried though because they were very excited about our visit and welcomed us with open arms. Again, God was in control.

We were greeted by singing from 33 blind children. They sang beautifully and as a soloist’s part came they would stand and sing loud and clear.

Roxy, one of our interpreters then told a Bible story to the children.

Many of their instructors joined us when we distributed faith bracelet kits with beads. Each of us helped the children make the bracelets and they were very proud of them. The beads on the bracelet represented different aspects of faith.

Yellow – God created light
Green – God created the Earth and trees
Blue – God created the oceans, water and seas
White – God’s purity
Red – God’s shed blood
Black – Death and the darkest day
Clear – God’s crystal clear vision of how we should live our life

As we finished making bracelets the children and the blind instructors were fitted for canes. When we came to the school, 33 children shared 8 canes. When we finished they each had a new cane of their own. Their smiles and laughter expressed how excited they were to have the gifts.

That evening we met back at Comunion where Tim started his discussions with the Servants Academy group. The ladies met and did a colorful craft made out of plastic canvas. It resembled a seashell and could be hung to twirl in the wind. Sam started teaching karate to the children and Dale, Raymond and Doug started teaching a group of men to make pens on the lathe at woodturning.