Healing the blind

1. When did you start going on the mission trips? I’ve always liked to travel, and I’ve always thought I wanted to do something along these lines. The first one I went on was back in 1992, and it was an opportunity to go to Nicaragua with an optometrist who invited me to go along. At that time, their group was taking several thousands of pairs of eyeglasses. I went as a surgeon.I think it’s kind of a neat way to see different places you otherwise wouldn’t get to see. It’s a way you can kind of give back. We’re given a lot in life, I think. 2. Is there anyone you have helped who sticks out in your mind more than maybe the others? I think every trip there’s one or two people who stick out.I went out to Honduras a few years ago, there was a little boy who, at the time, was the same age as our youngest daughter. He came in, and he was 6 or 7 years old. His mom said he was born with normal vision. At about 4 or 5 years old, he started bumping into stuff. It got to the point where he became very introverted. He wouldn’t go out and do anything since he’d bump into things. He had cataracts in both eyes. …The next day when we took his patches up, he was still very afraid. You could see him open his eyes and look around. I don’t think he knew what hit him. He didn’t have any front teeth. He would still look up at me, but he’d started to look around. You could see his eyes start to light up a little bit. He had this big, toothless grin. 3. Is it pretty emotional for you, when people realize they have their sight back? This is why you do it. People come in and give you hugs. They’re not paying us anything. We donate our time and actually pay to go down there. That’s why we do it. It’s like you get to be a rock star for them.Coming in there once, one of my friends took a video as we walked in there. We walked in there like rock stars. They’re all standing up, cheering for us. 4. Do people kind of know who you are when you go? In Nicaragua, they kind of do. I’ve been there probably 12 times already, including twice this year already. They kind of know me.When we were supposed to go to Bolivia last year, we canceled because of a gas shortage there. So we called a missionary friend in Nicaragua. Within 24 hours, they had 160 people lined up. We just changed our flight. I could hear her in the background calling the hospital: “Pajka’s coming!” They came in on a Sunday with all the nursing staff, even if they were off usually. 5. How many people do you take with you? We’ve gone with just me by myself or up to six, including a couple nurses and optometrists and however many surgeons. We had one team with 15 and three surgeons. 6. What’s your favorite part about going over there? I like taking their patches off the next day and listening to their stories. I like joking with them and asking them how long they haven’t seen.The places I’ve gone are poor. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Nicaragua’s the second poorest, and Bolivia is the third.A lot of these places have gotten to the point where a lot of them have lost hope. They feel like people have forgotten them. They have zero access to any care.They don’t have high expectations that it’s really going to make much of a difference for them. Some of it is a shock when you take the patches off that they can see stuff. It takes some of them a few minutes for it to sink in that they’re actually seeing again, that it’s real. It’s a delayed reaction. They cry and walk around. A lot of them just hang around, thanking you and thanking you. It’s almost funny.Like I said before, it’s like getting to be a rock star.