“Bishop Peni?”
“Yes George.”
“I have noticed
that people here don't typically wear eye glasses. Is that because
the Zandi people have strong eyesight?” ( if this is the case the
rest of the west needs to take stock of live styles here I thought.)
“Well no, actually
a large number of this community is in great need of eyeglasses to
better their vision so they can do basic things, such as, read their
bible, but they do not have money to buy them.”
After having that
conversation with Bishop Samuel Peni I felt a large amount of
sympathy for the villagers in this predicament. The part that struck
me the most was the fact that they don't have the capabilities to
read their own bible. I knew I had to try to do something. It didn't
seem that the solutions were here. It seemed that I had to find a
solution elsewhere.
I got in touch with
a great friend and former teacher of mine, Katie Ernst. She is a
marvelous middle school teacher at Stilwell Middle School, and also a
University of Northern Iowa alumni. I knew consulting with her would
not only relieve the sting in my heart for these villagers, but also
put a plan into action to help solve this problem. Mrs. Ernst is an
amazing individual and truly one of the best teachers I ever had. Her
love for “kids” first, coupled with an “over-the-top”
knowledge f all aspects of English was very significant in my
development. My parents demanded that I read a hour each night,
starting when I joined the family in the 5th grade. This
paid great dividends in the 7th grade when the academic
demand was to read 30 minutes everyday. Mrs. Ernst was surprised and
pleased because of my elongated reading period. She helped with a
broader range of reading suggestions that were beyond what I might
imagine. To this day, one of the things I do as the 24 hour period of
times expires is to read. However, now reading is not always the last
thing of the day as often times I find no light source available.
Mrs Ernst and her
middle class launched a “Vision Campaign” to collect reading
glasses to be sent to Nzara in South Sudan. This was a student-led
campaign, in which the students created and designed ways to market
the idea of donating glasses for this cause. The students did this by
creating posters, with catchy slogans to grab the attention of
others, also by spreading awareness amongst their family and friends
to get the maximum amount of glasses donated as possible. With a
astounding turn out of 989 eyeglasses donated Mrs Ernst stated, “It
was a wonderful sight to watch my kids want to help people in a place
they didn't even know existed.”
Over 900 eyeglasses
were packed into 1 suitcase weighting 65 lbs and was sent with
missionaries from St. Timothy's Episcopal Church and PreSchool as
they traveled to South Sudan.
Upon their arrival
to Nzara we were over joyed to hear of their journey receive, and
then quickly heard of the distasteful news that the eyeglass suitcase
had been held up in Juba.
As time went on
there was a certain amount of anxiety as the glasses did not arrival
with the travelers, days became weeks as we all awaited their
arrival. Many questions filled our minds, “where are they? Did they
get stolen? Will we actually receive them. Had I made promise that
would not be kept?”
Finally, on
Thursday March 1st 2012, our long lost suitcase had
finally found its new home. In the midst of the eyeglasses finally
arriving in Nzara there was an annual Synod being held in Nzara with
all the clergy from various churches of the Diocese of Nzara. This
was an opportunity for us to present these clergy with eyeglasses to
take back to their churches to help better the lives of their people.
One of the things that I learned is that church is frequently the
agency whereby personal lives are changed and therefore acts as the
social welfare institution in West Equatorial State in South Sudan.
The eyeglasses
donated from the “Vision Campaign” were divided into bags of 25
and were set out so that the clergy would be able to receive a bag of
eyeglasses to be distributed in their various diocese.
