Dear Friends of Eyecare To The Needy;

Thank you for your continued prayers for us. We have just come through another busy week of work and service here in Bulawayo. Dr. Cris Larzo, a retina surgeon from Johnson City, Tennessee arrived a week ago. We put him to work immediately when he arrived with Steve and Julian Scales, an engineer friend of Steve’s. The three of them spent several hours installing a cooling fan on the operating microscope in the retina surgery room of the hospital. We are thankful to God that the problem of the microscope light cutting off in the middle of complex retina surgery was resolved.

Dr. Larzo spent the week with Dr. Gilbert Moyo in clinic and the operating room. They were able to perform fourteen complex operative procedures, and Dr. Moyo was the lead surgeon in several cases, completing up to ninety percent of the operation in a couple. His skills are greatly improved in this area of eye care.

While the two doctors were performing retina surgery, they were accompanied by Miss Danel Watermeyer, a nurse from Perth, Australia who came to join us and assist in their cases. Steve, on the other hand, had a full week of teaching medical students, consulting a number of patients, and working with Dr. Ora Malemane to perform the first corneal cross linking surgery in Bulawayo on a number of patients.

Jane was kept busy preparing meals for our USA and Australia visitors. We had the young men’s Bible study one evening with a homemade meal. We had enjoyable evenings with many of our local friends over wonderfully cooked meals and warm fellowship in the Zimbabwe winter nights. Dr. Larzo was even able to have an evening partaking in an authentic African meal at the home of some of our African friends, We were saddened to see him leave today as we dropped him off at the Bulawayo airport, and hope and pray that he will return in the future.

We are halfway into our sojourn here, and next week we welcome Dr. Gil Pebayle from France to join us. Thank you for your continued prayers as we continue to bring hope to the people here who we serve.

Steve and Jane Beaty