Ragsdale and Martin Optical donates to Sight.org
We are very excited to share this news with you!
“Can Anyone Help My Little Angelé?”
My name is Kornye.
I am a farmer.
I am a dad.
I have a nine-year-old daughter named Angelé.
One day, I noticed that one of Angelé’s eyes was turning inwards. Her friends started teasing her because she was cross-eyed. She started having difficulty reading or focusing. Then I started seeing little white clouds in both of her eyes. They seemed to get bigger every time I looked at her. Eventually, Angelé was not able to go to school because she couldn’t even see her own hand in front of her face. She couldn’t even walk by herself anymore.
My heart broke for my daughter but I had no one to help her. I asked the doctor in my village for help but he couldn’t do anything for her. My friends told me that there was an eye doctor in the capital, but I didn’t have enough money to get there. I have never left my village.
Last month, a strange looking vehicle drove into our village. Some people got out of that vehicle and started examining the eyes of everyone in our village. They called themselves Sight.org.
Suddenly, my heart jumped. Could these people help my Angele? I ran and grabbed my daughter. As we waited in line, I had hope for the first time in years. A man from Sight.org looked at her eyes and declared that they could help her.
The day of her surgery, Angelé was frightened. She didn’t want to go in that strange looking vehicle. She cried, but she was brave, for me. I was nervous too, but I kept a brave face for my daughter. I watched her step into the vehicle and I wondered what they would do to her.
I prayed.
When she came out, she had bandages on both eyes and had to be led to a chair. It was hard to see my daughter this way. The next day, they took off the bandages. The people asked her to open her eyes, but she refused. She was too scared. She didn’t open her eyes for many hours.
My heart sunk. Was she in pain? Did the surgery work?
She finally opened her eyes, but she couldn’t see anything.
The Sight.org people came back a week later to check her eyes again. She opened her eyes for them this time, but they did not see any change. She still couldn’t see the doctor’s hands in front of her face. I looked at the doctor’s face. When I saw his face, I lost hope. He didn’t think she would be able to see again. I wondered if my daughter would ever see again.
Then, a miracle happened. One day, she could see her hands. Then she could see her feet. Each day, she could see a little more.
A month later, when Sight.org came back to check her eyes again, she was walking all by herself with a big smile on her face. She could count all of their fingers. Everyone started jumping and cheering for her. They all started praising Jesus. I will never forget that day.
Angelé is now back in school. She can play with her friends again. She can run into my arms again. I am so thankful for the gift that Sight.org has brought to my Angelé.
Our lives have been changed because someone cared enough to bring that strange looking vehicle to our village.
In Focus
Over the holidays, Lewis Swann, founder of Sight.org, was interviewed on the radio show, In Focus with John Sims. Lewis was able to tell some of the latest Sight.org stories and give a little insight into the work being done in Togo. We would love for you to give it a listen!
You are amazing
Dear friends & supporters,
You are truly amazing and we thank you.
Since you and I began this journey of restoring sight to the blind and furthering the gospel in Togo, we have touched more lives than I had ever imagined. Even if you have only given $150 in the life of Sight.org, there is a person in the world who was blind that can now see because of you. It may be someone who is now able to work, or a child who can now go to school. If it were not for your selfless act of reaching out to make a difference, someone in Africa would very likely have remained blind to this day and for years to come. You would have never given to Sight.org if you didn’t have a heart for others, and this characteristic in you is something the world longs to see.
You have been generous, and the world is a better place thanks to you!
Through your support, the team has been growing in tremendous ways. We’re finding that even though we are performing eye surgeries and sharing the gospel, the greatest thing God is calling us to do is to love. Every time I go to Africa, I’m hearing God telling me that my job is to love and his job is to heal. And as a result of simply loving others, I’m seeing healing in the lives of others that far surpass what I have ever seen.
On my last trip to Africa, we went to visit a new house church that we planted a few months prior. Everyone is a new convert, and we spent the majority of each day doing church, praising, worshiping, and reading from the Bible, and throughout, we would take prayer requests. On the second day, we asked the group if they had testimonies to share. This question was brought up every day, and every day we received reports of miracles! To my knowledge, God answered every single prayer that the villagers requested! From physical healings to relational healing, God was moving in such tangible ways that the missionaries (me included) were taken by surprise! As a result, a buzz went across the village of news that this little group of Christians was hearing from their God. It was amazing in ways that I cannot describe.
I have never seen a group of new believers so excited to be Christians.
Here is one of my favorite examples of an answered prayer: A lady requested prayer for her son’s return home. He had been gone for four years. She had no idea where he had gone, she had no way of contacting him, and she didn’t even know if he was alive. The following Tuesday, guess who came into town? That’s right, her long lost son! He took three days traveling across three countries to return to his mother. After four long years, her son was finally home!
As we look back over 2016, we are so thankful for supporters like you.
Last year, we performed 450 eye surgeries. The transformation of a blind person being able to see is enormous. But what I’m finding is that the transformation through surgery doesn’t hold a candle compared to the transformations we are seeing in people who have had an encounter with God. I would like to further express the power of love through the testimonies of the following stories of Jeanaway and Malibow. For each of them, we asked God to show us how to love these two people. We knew little of what to do, but we knew that if we could love these two people, God would do the rest.
Jeanaway was seventeen years old and had been blinded by cataracts since he was seven. We immediately checked his eyes, and afterward, we asked if we could pray for him. He said that no one had ever prayed for him before, and after we prayed, he gave his life to Christ. A week later, we performed eye surgery on Jeanaway. But since then, he only wants to talk about Jesus. Months later, everyone who knew Jeanaway before has expressed that he is unrecognizable compared to who he was before.
Today, Jeanaway is a man of deep conviction whose calling is to pray for others.
People are traveling far to receive prayer from Jeanaway, and many are leaving the local witchcraft traditions as a result of his prayers over them. This is the Jeanaway we have always known, but Jeanaway tells us a darker past. Jeanaway loves to tell us about the man he was before, as he rejoices at the transformation God had made in his life. Jeanaway tells us that he tried to end his own life by drinking poison…twice. Good people stayed away from him, and bad people were attracted to him. Every time he could get ahold of money, he would spend it all on alcohol.
By his own words, he was living for hell, but now, Jeanaway says he is in paradise.
Jeanaway asked that I shared this message to others: “If I can say anything to people who have lost hope, tell them the history of my life and say, if you go and wait for Jesus, your life will change like how God changed my life. Don’t lose hope because Jesus loves you.”
Malibow is a young lady I met a few months ago who joined a house church that we started in her village. Malibow has epilepsy, and at one point an episode caused her to severely burn part of her face. Sadly, people in Malibow’s situation are often treated as outcasts in rural African society.
When I saw her for the first time, she was drenched in shame. At the time, she kept her head down and couldn’t even look us in the eye. But over the course of these few months, God has done a major work in Malibow. Before, I refrained from taking photos of Malibow due to her emotional condition, but now, it’s a different case.
These days, she is glowing! She is a star member of our church, and every time she prays, tears start raining down her face. I feel like these pictures speak for themselves!
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and know that you are a big reason why all of this was possible. These testimonies are being shared to hurting people throughout Togo thanks in large part to your support! You are doing a wonderful thing, and we are very grateful for you!
November Update from our Missionaries
Hello friends and family. It’s November and we have entered the second season of the year, Harmatten season. The rains have ended and vegetation is drying up and everything is turning brown. There is fine dust or dirt in the air and the temperatures are HOT and cool in the evenings. We totally miss FALL and SPRING and even WINTER—Togo does NOT have these seasons.
So needless to say, Togo does not celebrate Thanksgiving like Americans, and only some Togolese people celebrate Christmas. I have not seen any Christmas decorations here in Atakpame but I’m told you can find it in Lomé. I tried making a Christmas tree out of toilet paper rolls and that was a waste of time. It looked more like a rocket with lots of fins. I am going to have to be MORE creative to come up with something to make it feel like Christmas around here.
Sight.org has served in the Plateau region for a year now ending in December and will be moving to another region for a year. The government wants us to minister in Elavagnon, northeast of Atakpame. We are saddened by this as the Plateau region is very beautiful and full of mountains and we have made many friends in the villages we have visited. We could possibly be back in four years to see them again. We will be going to a flat, plains area. I will be able to tell you much more about it in January when we go to check it out.
We will especially miss one village, Adjahon. It’s a very small village but we have built beautiful relationships with these people. They have been growing in God’s Word as they have an audio Bible to listen to each week. There have been around twenty adults who attend consistently. We got to study, pray, and worship with them this last week. God has been moving in their midst according to their testimonies! They are excited to see what GOD is going to do in the days to come. Malibow (the woman with epilepsy who fell in the fire) lives in this village.
We also met Afowa in August, a 30 year old woman who became a believer when our ministry team was in her village. We also prayed for her distended stomach as we thought she had a tumor. We revisited the village later and found that Afowa had worsened and we were asked to pray again for her. I can’t explain what happened but we certainly “felt” the kingdom of God come into her little room as we prayed for her. We felt lead to take her to the hospital in Tsiko. She had never been to the doctor.
After several tests, they found that her liver was not functioning and prescribed some medications for her to take. One day in October, she had asked about our ministry team that had traveled with her. Her husband happily professed that she was very thankful that we had taken the time to care for her.
The very next evening, we received word that she had gone home to be with the Lord. We are thankful that she does not have to suffer anymore but ask that you pray for her husband and three children, the youngest is a four-month-old boy. Please pray for her family and the village as they continue to mourn.
We have become close to these families. We will have to go visit them on our “off” weeks to keep in contact. Missions is all about relationships.
We had fifty-one children in this village for our children’s ministry. They loved coloring their pages.
We are hoping to return to the US in February 2017 for a short furlough to visit our children, grandkids, and friends. We can’t wait to meet our two new grandbaby boys who were born in May and July of this year. Lord willing with your help we can purchase our tickets to come home and return to TOGO for another year.
May God Bless your families and increase your faith in the work he is doing in your life! If God moves upon your heart to give toward our flights, please check our FB page to sign up for a “spot.” No gift is too small! Also, if you give between now and November 29, you will entered into a drawing for a giveaway of a handmade patchwork bag from Togo. We appreciate your giving hearts to make this possible for us!! GOD Bless You!!