Blessings in Belize

By Kathy Hahn

Last month, my husband, Bill, and I were blessed to go on our second MOST Ministries eyeglass mission trip. Our first trip was to South Africa. You can read about that trip in the blog written by my husband, Deacon Bill Hahn, called Bringing Sight and the love of Jesus to South Africa. 

The above-mentioned Bible verse was used in two of our devotions during the trip. This was only my second mission trip but in both cases I was struck by our mission team. This is a group of fellow Christians who live together, work together, eat together, pray together. A week could be a long time to be in constant contact with a group of virtual strangers. Instead, it was a true blessing.

This latest trip was to Belize. During mission trips the diversity of the body of Christ is highlighted. This mission team was a group of ten from four different states, ages 20 to 65+. Some of us knew a couple of people ahead of the trip; two of us didn’t know anyone. For many of our group, this was their first short term mission trip. Three of us had previous experience on an eyeglass mission trip.

During our trip to Belize, we traveled to the somewhat remote (non-tourist) city of Orange Walk Town. This was our base. From there, we traveled to three locations where we held four and a half clinic days.

We had a brief training session before the clinics started. There are basically six stations that are set up for the clinic: evangelism/eye health; medical evaluation; testing; dispensing; re-testing; fitting. As a group, we needed to quickly choose an area to work in at the clinics.

This is where, many parts of one body becomes evident. I would say that we each tried two or three different stations throughout the week. It was amazing to watch how all of us worked together and discovered which part of the body was our strength. I would say that by the third clinic day we were operating as a well-oiled machine (body).

We were able to work as a body of Christ to help over 800 people and give away over 1,000 glasses. That was a true blessing for the people of Belize and for us. We were also blessed to get to know each other as friends. We had great talks and laughs, shared pictures of our families, prayed for each other, and played Yahtzee.

It is a joy to reflect on the many people that were helped during the clinics. We had experiences from dramatic to plain. We helped two people (a man in his 30s and a boy of 12) understand that they were blind and taught them how to use a walking stick, 'dramatic'! And we had the 'plain' task and joy of helping school children and adults be able to see to read. In both cases the body of Christ was used, and the love of Jesus shared.

Ten virtual strangers in a strange land, eating strange food and doing strange things shared the love of Jesus and helped people see. As Christians, we all have our role and the Holy Spirit who brings us to Christ, works through and among us in different ways but for one purpose: to help others see Jesus and to help them see across the street!