Restoring Vision in Haiti

by Neil Moseley

 Dr. Kenneth Foree tells a story about a patient who had just been the recipient of free cataract surgery on one of his many trips to Haiti. After the bandages were removed and the man took a moment to focus, he began to shout with joy and to identify everything in the room: chairs, tables, pictures, acquaintances, things that only a day before had been indiscernible. Dr. Foree says that there is nothing like the reaction of those who have been blind, at the moment when they again can see. Dr. Foree, his wife Lila, and I experienced that very thing, but it was not the Haitians whose sight was restored, it was our own.

I can’t really pinpoint my expectations, but they were at least a foot shy of optimistic. We had been invited, at last, after years of waiting, to return to Haiti to assess the condition of our Eye Care Clinic in Petit Goave, a town on the coast of Haiti that has received HPUMC medical mission teams since 1976, teams that had restored the sight of thousands in the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.

I cannot say exactly what I expected to see, but what I knew for certain was this: HPUMC had sent a lot of teams to Haiti (32 all together); that the eye clinic was our longest-standing global outreach effort (31 years); and that political turmoil had prevented us from returning for more than four years. I also knew that the Forees who have been leading this charge for more than thirty years, loved this mission with all of their hearts; that they can barely speak of it without being overcome by emotion; and that, more than anything, they feared that we would arrive to see the clinic in disrepair and that HPUMC’s efforts in Haiti would pass quietly into the archives of this church’s great mission history.

After our invitation, we made our arrangements with caution but without hesitation; we collected supplies and tagged our luggage, and boarded a plane and hoped for and feared what we might see. In the second morning of our journey, we arrived at the clinic, and like that patient so many years before, we could finally see. We found the clinic in pristine condition, clean and organized. We found a pharmacy and surgery center still operating, even as their supply chains and volunteers had been slowed or halted. We found Haitian doctors and surgeons doing the very best that they could with what little they had, on a shoe-string budget that HPUMC has continued to provide. The Forees saw folks that they hadn’t seen in years, people who could see only because of their work, and they saw hope where despair should have dominated. I saw what love and commitment and service and tireless effort and faith in Christ against all odds can do. I saw what we can really do.

In Sunday morning worship, the United Methodist Church in Petit Goave recognized the Forees’ work with a plaque and overwhelming gratitude. The Forees were greeted by men in women wearing glasses that they had given them many years before. The Haitians, especially the Methodist Church had taken such good care of the clinic that they had been given. And with this first trip, this short time to reconnect with old friends and to make new ones, the pastors, parishioners, and the town as a whole, were able to see the doctor who had restored their sight and given them hope, to know that his heart was still with them, and that his church was simply waiting to see.