July 19 began early as our eye team—Craig Chaya, Max and
Kristi Woesner, Jessica Norman, and I—gathered at the airport, along with a
small mountain of luggage. A few hours
later the plane successfully lifted off, despite all that we brought, and
transported us to the beautiful garden island of Pohnpei. We were met by our host John Schroer, who transported
us and our equipment to the hospital, and then to pick up our temporary Federated
States of Micronesia medical licenses.
At the end of the day we hiked to a scenic overlook and enjoyed the view
of the island at sunset.
The next morning was spent at church. One part of the service that stood out to me
was the beautiful harmonies of the youth during Sabbath School. That afternoon, we went snorkeling with
thousands of beautiful tropical fish, and five large manta rays, and were
amazed at God’s creativity and power.
Sunday morning our work began in earnest as we unpacked and
set up our equipment. Around noon,
patients began to trickle in, until we soon had over 20 patients in the waiting
area. Dr. Bob Wresch and Betty Jo had
made a trip to Pohnpei earlier this year, and screened almost a hundred
patients in preparation for our trip.
This first afternoon was spent evaluating those who had been determined
to be good surgical candidates. These
were patients with severe cataracts, with most unable to see even the big “E”
on the eye chart. Ninety percent were
legally blind, and had to be brought by a family member or friend, as they
couldn’t see well enough to get around.
Monday morning we began operating, while Kristi and Max
began seeing patients for eye exams and eyeglasses. We operated all day, starting seeing
patients at 7:30, and completing our last (ninth) surgery at 10:30 pm! We were worn out, but upbeat about what we’d
accomplished so far. The following day
we were able to do ten cases, and finish earlier – 10 pm! Wednesday, our final day to operate, we
performed nine surgeries, and finished at 8:30 pm. Craig Chaya took the time to interview one
lady before and after cataract surgery.
She was a sweet lady in her 70’s who told how her poor vision had forced
her to be completely dependent on her family for everything for the past 3
years. She couldn’t even do simple
things, such as go to the bathroom, without assistance. She had previously loved to work outside in
her garden, but hadn’t done so in three years.
We performed cataract surgery on both eyes during the three days we
operated, and the last day we were there, she seemed radiant. There were many beautiful smiles from our
patients, which were the best thanks we could ask for!
Max and Kristi were quite busy as well in clinic, seeing a
wide variety of patients – including the nursing staff and government
officials. Thursday morning we saw the
patients whom we’d operated on the day before, and then quickly packed up our
equipment. After grabbing a few
souvenirs, we headed to the airport.
Once onboard the plane, we quickly fell asleep, exhausted from our work. We were blessed to be given this opportunity
to help open the eyes of this small group of patients in Pohnpei. God’s hand of blessing was present in a few
obvious ways, as well as many small ways too.
In closing I’d like to share a few of these in hopes that they will encourage
you in your walk of faith.
Prior to our departure, we were in need of some steroid eye
drops. We took all that were available
from our SDA pharmacy (thank you Dr. Ken Lee and associates), but were still
short by 30 bottles. Upon arriving at
the hospital, we looked through the supplies that previous eye teams had left
behind. There was almost nothing
there—except for about 40 bottles of these particular eye drops!
We had been told by our host, John Schroer, that the local
staff were unlikely to stay past five to help us. But three faithful hospital employees were
there with us from the minute we arrived, until we left late at night. We simply wouldn’t have been able to
accomplish what we did without their help!
There are many more, but the final story I want to share involves
the ultrasound unit we use for cataract surgery. It worked beautifully on Monday. But on Tuesday morning, when we started it
up, it kept giving us error messages. Dr.
Chaya and I tried changing out the tubing and the IV solution. Next we changed out the cassette that the
tubing plugs into. It still gave us the
same message. I flipped thru the manual,
but found nothing to help. We tried
changing the tubing and solution a second time.
Then we changed the cassette a second time. We didn’t have many cassettes and they can’t
be reused once we take them out, so we were concerned about changing these out
too many times. Still no luck … One last time we changed out everything (IV
tubing and cassette). And we finally
did what we should have done earlier (no we didn’t kick it), we prayed over the
ultrasound unit. And I’m sure you know
what happened next—yes, it worked perfectly!
