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Vietnam, 2006
Below is the response from the Vietnam team. The problem mentioned with the autorefractor could not be duplicated in the states. I even returned it to the manufacturer for calibration.
-----Original Message-----
From: Elizabeth Perez [mailto:etibbie@charter.net]
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2006 12:51 AM
To: Holland Kendall <Kendall Optometry Ministry, Inc.>
Subject: Re:Our trip.
As you know, we could not talk openly about Christ in that country and they have people patroling us whenever we were in contact with the people. In fact, I was fittng one lady with readers and having her read John 3:16 in Vietnamese on the chart and she got quite excieted. She first asked me for the chart, then when I said I needed it to fit glasses, she wouldn't give it back. I first thought, due to the smile on her face, that she was thrilled with the message, and I asked if one of our pastors could get her a copy of the verse. Dr. Doan heard about it and came right away and took her away to talk to her. Apparantly she was perturbed and wanted it to take to her officials! Dr. Doan calmed her enough that everything was ok, but it taught me a lesson. Let the Vietnamese pastors do the evangelizing. Several of our "student Vietnamese volunteers" though had opportunities to explain the Jesus bracelet we all wore, and our bus driver accepted Christ due to, what he says he saw in our behavior, after watching our work for a week.
Your system was quite the delight of many people, including government health officials, etc. We gave out all our sunglasses and readers (2,000 total) but only about 200 prescription glasses (took 3,000). Part of the reason was that our optometry student gave a lot of people two glasses instead of bifocals, using the readers to accomplish this. I feel the program was a good success and well received. We had quite a few problems, however, that may cause Dr. Doan not to return next year. Besides not enough funds, the local government officials in three towns really hasseled us this year, even climbing telephone poles to turn off our power the last day! We left our remaining prescription glasses in someone's home in Hue, in case we do return next year.
Thank you so much for your help and patience, Holland.
Affectionately, Elizabeth
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