A Second Home In Africa

I've been a part of five eye mission trips. And they all had one thing in common: a dedicated support group backing them up.

So I would be remiss if I didn’t applaud our strong support team in South Africa.
Our host for the eye mission, Blessman Ministries, is a Christian missionary group out of Iowa. The Ministry develops, funds and supplies workers for ongoing charity projects in Limpopo Province in South Africa, all administered from their ranch outside Mokopane.

And they have amazing folks to help them! The Blessman team is a mix of big-hearted Americans who come for weeks or months at a time to help with the charity’s long-term work projects, and a lovely fulltime African staff who keep the wheels turning behind the scenes.

At its core are husband and wife team Jim and Beth Blessman. Also on board is their full-time administrative staffer Lisa, from Iowa, and several African employees who board with them at the ranch.

There's Ronnie, a relative of the local tribal chief; Maxwell and Hilda, immigrants from neighboring Zimbabwe; a young housekeeper, Esther, also from Zimbabwe; Bonnie, a South African who works at the ranch as groundskeeper and safari guide; and his wife, the Ministries’ bookkeeper.


From the start, our eye team was folded right into the mix. We shared family-style meals in the main house, were given daily transport to our clinic sites and offered trips into town for shopping. We attended church services and were shown the Ministries’ local work projects. The Blessmans even took us on safari (more on the amazing African wildlife, in a later post!).

And how they bustled! South Africa is a nation rich in agricultural and natural resources, but the poverty levels are well above those of a fully developed nation. So there is a lot of work to be done. From dawn to dusk, each day was jam-packed with the Ministry teams' often unsung efforts. Their focus and drive was inspiring. So much so that in the end I felt, well, like something of a slacker for just doing my usual eye exams.

Here our eye team watches a children's feeding station being built, a Ministry project created on a piece of land donated by the local chief. This feeding station gives hundreds of kids in the surrounding towns one large well-balanced meal a day:


Beth Blessman and Hilda get the local mayor involved with the feeding station project:


Leslie and I shared a rondhovel during our week's stay at the ranch. The high grass is cut back from buildings and pathways, to minimize surprise encounters with deadly snakes:


Loading up the truck on our eye clinic day. The buckets on top carried eyeglasses and diagnostic equipment back and forth to the sites, an hour away:


The Ministry puts hundreds of miles on their vehicles each week, transporting teams from the Blessman ranch to outlying clinic sites throughout the province:


Running errands in the nearby town of Mokopane:



Hands down the coolest sign in town:


Here we visited a communal housing project for orphans, another Ministry work project. Each cabin can house four kids. AIDS is a huge problem in South Africa. And unfortunately, lots of kids here grow up without parents:


Local girls ham it up for Leslie's camera:


They really got a kick out of playing with American dollars:


It wasn't all work. Here some of our eye team takes in the sights and sounds of wild Africa:


Dressed up and ready to go to a charity event in Mokopane. A women's group put on the formal dinner to raise money for an orphanage they started in the community. One of the founders, a doctor in the local hospital, was appalled at the number of babies abandoned after birth--either because the babies have AIDS, or their mothers died from AIDS while still in the hospital.

A more worthy charity I can't imagine: