Serving Christ in Santa Cruz: May 30-June 7, 2019

We safely arrived and were greeted early in the morning with flowers and a tremendous amount of enthusiasm!

We gave the gift of much improved eyesight to 1550 Bolivians (young and old) plus we gave high grade fluoride treatment to the teeth of most Eden students! During our Sunday service at Eden, Kathy Johnson led our vision team in singing the first verse of “Amazing Grace” which was followed by Koreans singing it in Korean, Bolivians singing it in Spanish and finally, everyone singing it in their native tongues – all singing together in Christ.  This became our mission theme this year.

Bolivian Vision Mission

The journey begins early in the morning standing in long lines outside the Eden School waiting to enter the Korean Mission Center

Our 9-member vision team saw and gave out “distance prescription glasses” and/or “close-up readers,” plus dark glasses. Many were grateful to see a clock on a distant wall for the first time and actually read the correct time on that clock. Older adults could read books for the first time, and seamstresses could clearly see their handiwork with the help of “readers.” Everyone was grateful to receive dark glasses in a land where the sun is hot and almost always present.

Pictures of our workers fitting and evaluating the effectiveness of glasses.

Two Bolivian dentists we have worked with for years taught the senior Eden class how to paint fluoride on their teeth. Then these seniors painted fluoride on all the teeth of Eden students down to grade 1!! What a great student project – everyone was happy to work toward protecting their teeth long term.

American Airlines cancelled flights going to and returning from our trip and several of our group got sick for several days but have pretty well recovered by now. What we did during our mission trip will have lasting beneficial effects for many people, all year long. Thank you for praying for our mission team this year and our trip to Eden. You, too, were with us in Bolivia.

~ Bill Miller

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