History, Real Life, and Faith
The Rio San Juan area of Nicaragua is such a poor area that health care opportunities are far flung or often unavailable. One of the reasons our church, along with the Santa Rosa Sunrise Rotary Club and other partners with San Juan Rio Relief, have returned for five years to run eye glass clinics is there is no optometric help in…
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I visited Nicaragua in 2011 to serve in an eyeglass clinic. Twelve members of our church, St. Mark Lutheran, handed out 500 Bibles, nearly 2000 pair of glasses, and saw 1079 folks. A total blessing and a terrific trip for all of us. We flew to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, on TACA airlines and thence to San Carlos at…
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When I signed up for our church’s glasses ministry, I suddenly realized I’d never been on a missions trip before. Then my husband reminded me we painted an orphanage in Juarez, Mexico, once. I’m not sure that counted. We stayed at an American friend’s house with a shower, and crossed the border daily. This time, we headed up the San…
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I didn’t realize for a long time that we had a blind dog, nor that I had become a seeing-eye human. Sure, she fell off the walkway a couple times and stumbled over the curb, but for the most part Suzie trotted beside me as easily as she always had. The fact we walked a broad path around Spring Lake,…
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My dog Suzie is blind. It seemed to come on quickly. From the time I first questioned whether she might be having a seeing problem to her diagnosis–two days. But in hindsight, it crept up and fooled us for a good three months before the dog ophthalmologist pronounced her stone-cold blind. How could I not have suspected? Why didn’t I…
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I grew up in a community of multi-lingual people, or polyglots. My own mother, born in Sicily, spoke Italian as her first language and occasionally explained things to her mother in her native tongue. Our family babysitter was from Yugoslavia and routinely argued with her husband in various Slavic languages. I went to school with children who spoke Spanish and…
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