Jon

I responded to the unexpected knock at my front door. I was surprised to see a young woman and a boy whom I had never met. The woman was looking for medical help for her son and she had heard there were people in Gonzanamá offering such assistance. “Are you the people that I am looking for?,“ she asked. A bit stunned, Chandra and I chatted with the woman and found out exactly what she thought we could do for her.

Jon, the boy sitting on my couch, had recently experience a significant loss of vision in his left eye, and he had never been able to see out of his right eye. His mother wanted to know what was wrong. Why he was losing his vision? Could it be stopped? We couldn’t answer her questions, but we knew someone who could! As I watched the happy 6 ½-year-old Jon bend down so he could see the stairs as he walked out my front door, my heart was filled with compassion and I prayed that we would be able to help.

Later, waiting in the doctor’s office for our appointment, I watched Jon play. He so obviously loved life and had grown accustomed to not seeing out of one eye. It was heartbreaking to think of what his early years must have been like and worse to know that he could end up completely blind. Yet, there he was smiling, laughing and involving everyone, including the receptionist and other patients, in his fun.

While talking with the doctor after the exam, we found out that Jon had scar tissue in both of his eyes. Damage that occurred while he was still in his mother’s womb—possibly from a parasite, or from medicine his mother was given to induce labour. The news wasn’t good—there was nothing that could be done to remove the scar tissue, or to reverse the loss of vision that had already occurred. Jon would never see any better than he could at that moment. However, the deterioration that was on-going could be slowed, and possibly stopped, by the use of glasses.

We couldn’t fix Jon’s eyesight, but because of the medical project we were able to provide him with glasses and to give his mother the peace she needed by giving her the answers she sought. She now knew why Jon couldn’t see and she knew what she needed to do for him, both of which gave her some hope that his childhood wouldn’t be cut short by blindness. Only God really knows how long Jon will have the ability to see, but we felt good that day knowing that we had helped extend that time and make his vision clearer. Please pray that God will use this to help the family see Him more clearly.

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