HCM helps restore physical and spiritual sight
By Carrie Stewart
Responding to the overwhelming need of vision correction worldwide, HealthCare Ministries has implemented a campaign called MISSION: 20/20 in an effort to reach even more individuals with the gospel by first ministering to their physical sight.
As the international medical outreach of AG World Missions, HCM conducts an average of 20 medical evangelism trips per year, with optical being one component. Volunteer optical professionals do vision screenings and dispense glasses on these trips to people who wouldn’t otherwise have access to proper vision care.
“It meets a very serious need to provide sight to those who are not able to see properly,” Mike O’Brien, HCM’s optical coordinator, says.
O’Brien, who is an HCM missionary, said that the results are immediate and positive when a person receives a pair of glasses. “It restores quality to their lives and opens the door for us to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the real reason and purpose for our clinic trips,” O’Brien says.
HCM’s director, Dr. Deborah M. Highfill, believes vision restoration can be a powerful tool to restore spiritual sight.
“Through this optical outreach a person’s physical vision will be restored,” she says. “And once their physical eyesight is restored, often their spiritual eyes are opened to their need for Christ and ultimately accept His gift of salvation.”
Highfill explains that the lack of good eyesight often relegates people to living in poorer than normal circumstances in their society, often leaving them to fend for themselves by begging or hunting for food at the dump. HCM’s medical evangelism clinic addresses this problem. Often when a country won’t allow medicines or medical equipment to be brought in, they do not oppose them bringing glasses and the few pieces of equipment needed to test eyesight.
In order to continue reaching individuals by restoring physical and spiritual sight, HCM is asking churches to consider taking MISSION: 20/20 on as a project. One way churches can help is by collecting gently-used eyeglasses and donating them to HCM to help meet the goal of 2 million and 20 glasses by the year 2020.
Highfill encourages churches to be creative how they can get involved with MISSION: 20/20 because it will take everyone’s help in order to meet the vision God has given HCM.
HCM missionaries and staff have witnessed the difference a pair of glasses can make in a person’s life.
“It can change the circumstances of [a person’s] physical life for better and change their spiritual life for eternity,” Highfill says.
For more information on MISSION: 20/20, visit www.healthcareministries.org or call 417-866-6311.