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VOSH
Mission
We spent two days dispensing glasses in an eye clinic set up in the Lions Club pavilion in Azua. We also spent two days in Barro Arriba, a small town of subsistence farmers in the hills above Azua. There we set up clinic in a school. The last day of clinic was done in a co-op milk processing plant. Here also our clientele was made up of the local farmers and their families. Most of the volunteers had not done this sort of mission before. However, we had enough veterans to train the rookies. All were quite motivated and very intelligent and hard-working. By Tuesday things were running fairly smoothly. By Thursday we had a very efficient clinic operation.
Our hosts were members of the Lions Club of Azua. They were generally the upper-middle class people of the community. They were quite gracious, providing rooms, food and even entertainment. We had fiestas, banquets, and dancing. We were taken on a tour of Azua, learning some history of the Dominican Republic and meeting the mayor. We went down to the beach and to a swimming pool. Our Optometrist was Joyes Abraham from Dallas, TX. This is the first mission trip in which she has participated. She took to it like a duck to water. She brought her own tools and some supplies. Young and energetic, flexible and very intelligent, she managed to see the majority of the patients herself. I can’t remember the last time I saw anybody work that hard. Yet she still came up smiling.
We had a little trouble with our autorefractor. All agreed that it is preferable to take two if possible. We are indebted to John Gehrig and Max Bruss who helped obtain readers, single vision glasses, cases and sunglasses. We also thank them for their advise and guidance, as we are fairly new at this. We thank Herman Andes for supplying glasses, tools, equipment and training to our group. Herman owns and runs an optometric shop in Knoxville, TN.
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We
had a great time in Azua , seeing 626 people dispensing single vision
glasses, readers and sunglasses. Sixteen members of Westminster
Presbyterian Church met up with one optometrist and an optometrist
assistant in Miami. From there we flew to Santo Domingo. Actually
we sat on the tarmac in Miami for two hours. That gave us time to
get to know each other and plan the clinic. We arrived in Santo
Domingo after midnight and took a bus to Azua, arriving about 3:30
AM. Our host families were waiting for us and we split up into pairs
and threes to go the homes of the host families. 
Teenage
members of our host families provided translation and did quite
a lot of the actual running the clinic. Many of these young people
were doing this for the second year. With a couple of optometrists
and a little help and supplies they could probably run a VOSH clinic.
Joyes
was assisted by Amber Mead, an Optometric Assistant. Amber has been
on several optometric mission trips to Jamaica and is very interested
in this sort of ministry. She brought a lot of experience and new
ideas on how to run an optometric clinic in the field. She served
in several roles. She roamed around the clinic trouble-shooting.
She answered clinical questions for the dispensers. She acted as
first assistant to the Optometrist. 
Members
of Westminster going on the trip: Christina Carrasco, Jennifer and
Kathryn Van Eenam, Gary and Rachael Spangler, Laura and Jack Barron,
Donna and Steve Hoadley, Nicola Harrison, Faith Dippold, William
and Megan Milam, Ann Contole and Amy and Christine Dupper . One
of the best things to see on the trip was families working together
to serve others.