A New Eye Chart in Ecuador

Last week a team from Harrisburg Baptist Church in Tupelo, Mississippi traveled to the mountains of Ecuador for a medical missions trip. They stayed at a hotel located at 7000 feet above sea level, and during they day they ran a free clinic for a village at 10,500 feet. Several area doctors and nurses went on the trip along with other volunteers. Over a four-day period they saw 1600 patients. B. J. Lundy told me that he was the optician, which meant that he gave the eye exams. Since they didn’t have a regular eye chart, they used the back cover of the Spanish version of An Anchor for the Soul. They put the back cover on the table and had the patients read it until they could see it clearly. Because they brought hundreds of pairs of glasses with them, they would have people read a little bit, put on a pair of glasses, read some more, try another pair, until they could see the text clearly. Then they would give them the glasses to keep. Besides being a good eye chart, the back cover text provided an open door to share the gospel. The team gave away all the Spanish Anchors they brought with them.