Welcome
If anyone gives even a cup of water to these little ones because he is my disciple,
I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”
Matthew 12:42
The 2023 medical mission trip took us to Lipova, Romania. In total, 1,220 patients were seen by the dedicated medical team. This included 38 patients and staff seen at a psychiatric facility in a village nearby.
This year, doctor Gabe Jacob and his wife Joana along with their 2 kids joined our team. He brought two awesome technologies that we never had before: one is a camera that took pictures of the back of people’s eyes (the retina) and another was an Icare tonometer used to measure the pressure inside one's eyes (glaucoma).
This year we went to Europe - Romania. We visited and set our clinic in Hidiselul de Sus (close to Oradea).
As in previous years, our team consisted of adult and young volunteers. This year they came from Romanian Baptist Church in Milwaukie, Oregon. Together we performed eye exams on over 650 patients and dispensed about 800 pairs of prescription or reading glasses, as well as over 800 pairs of sunglasses. We treated many with dry eyes, allergies, glaucoma and infections.
Many New Testaments and hundreds of religious flyers were provided to our patients while waiting. Also over 200 gifts for children were donated.
We were asked, and provided, 125 pairs of reading glasses for those in need from Dej county.
We decided to set up our first medical clinic on the continent of Africa, in the fall of 2018. We chose Buyaga town in the Bulambuli district of Uganda. Our desire was to help the extremely needy people there, as well as Hannah Christian Aid which has a campground and a nice mission there.
Our team consisted of about 15 people from the United States and one from Romania. We performed eye exams on almost 1300 patients and dispensed about 1000 pairs of prescription or reading glasses, as well as over 850 pairs of sunglasses. We treated many with dry eyes, allergies and infections. We also saw many people blind from cataracts, including several kids under the age of 14 which were blind due to severe congenital cataracts.
We left a fully equipped eye exam lane standing for future clinics, as well as over 11,000 pairs of glasses. We are praying for equipment and finances for a future cataract clinic, so we can help the many blind kids and adults in that area.