man you cannot believe how dissappointed i am at not being able to blog on this clinic. it has been very tough with internet connections. but i am finally back. its sunday and our day off and we have had an incredible week. in four days of clinic we have had over 7800 people come through our doors. AWESOME!!! we finally have a great rythm going now and everything is running so smooth. . you'll see we changed our profile pic and hopefully i can collect some team member pics and put them up so you can see who we are helping. the lions here are outstanding.. and i mean absolutely incredible.
Now lets get to some stories. we had 2 ladies in on thursday. 1 was 74 years old her name was was maria esperanza and i will never forget her. she was just magical. she has not been able to see beyond her nose since she was a child. her prescription was -14.00. i had brought some glasses with me from our store back in canada that we had recycled. every clinic that we do, the extreme prescriptions are always the hardest to find, and team members always bring what they can packed in their suitcases. I happened to have exactly what maria needed in my bags. we sat her down and put the glasses on her and you wouldn't believe how her facial expression changed. her eyes lit up, her face turned into a huge grin, and her first words were "you're beautiful." she reached out and gave me a huge hug. that is what makes all the travel and the endless days worth while. maria was incredible. the aussie video team was there and wanted to interview her. they took her outside and she started dancing, the other people in the line started clapping and there was a little party happening.
in her interview she told them that she wanted to cook. a very simple everyday process that we take for granted. she invited them back to her home the next day and she was going to prepare lunch for them. upon their return the next day, she had made a feast for them entertained them and had a small gift for me. a half an oyster shell that her husband had cleaned up. he jokingly commented that they had 9 children, he was a fisherman and fished oysters in his younger years and as we all know oysters are an aphrodesiac, and thats where his 9 children came from. its funny when you hear the joke, but how did she manage a home with 9 children when she couldn't see???
the second story i will tell you happened with one of our team members debbie newman who is a paralegal that works for us in cincinnati. she was all prepared to hand an older woman back her paper work so that she could get her glasses, and them woman pulled out 7 cents out of her pocket and told deb it was her last 7 cents and she wanted to pay for her new glasses. deb informed her that the glasses were free. but the woman insisted that she should pay for her new glasses. You could see tears rolling down debs cheeks as she had to force this woman to keep her money. the people of ecuador are so warm and caring i don't think i could find people that i want to help more.
one thing that i ask is please tell your friends and associates donate glasses and recycle the glasses that come to your stores. they are desparately needed.
1 final note we had a team member leave us this morning so that she could return to her studies back in illinois. she could only come for the first week of our clinic and in order for her to make that 1 week she had to compress 2weeks woth of studies into 1 and will have to work extra hard on her return. karen you made such an impression on us in your time here that your smile and your work ethic will be missed, and thankyou for coming into our family... but we're still gonna go one day. take care buddy. and i am out of here. i still have inventories to prepare for next weeks clinic. see ya'll later