1.A-15

Today was the first day of clinic and we hit the ground running! We left the hotel at 7 am, and after running by Starbucks, we hit the clinic site with a passion to help as many as we could today. We were hosted by the North Coast Community Church, who graciously gave us access to their campus for the clinic this week. Much to our visitors from around the country's chagrin, it was a wet, cold day in Southern California. When we started it was about 45 degrees with pouring rain, however, our spirits could not be extinguished. The team worked together with a purpose and precision that would suggest that we had been together for many years, as opposed to just meeting the night before. Our goal was to help 200 children of servicemen and women, and also to help our servicemen and women who were stationed in this area. We blew our goal away by helping 258 people today. We had several great stories, from our recipients as well as our team members.

Starting off with the team members, the story on everyone's breath was about Juliana from Oakley and her teaching of the card game "Euker". If you have any questions, just ask her! We had some interesting characters on the team...Dan, from Chicago, who was working hard in the lab all day...Evan..from Oakley, who had no lab experienced but learned it with no problem, and even taught other Oakley team members on how to edge lenses....Scott, our mission manager from Mississippi, who always had the perfect encouragement at the right time...Meybel and Olivia from Oakley who helped work the dispensing, getting blisters on their hands from all the adjustments..so many more you will hear about in the next blog, and even a Cridder from Louisiana

Today really was quite touching, as one of our stories, we had a child with a high prescription. He was 5 years old, and at 5 he was prone to losing or breaking his glasses. Jonathan and Tim from Oakley were working at frame selection and saw the prescription. They partnered with Juliana, and decided that he needed 2 pair, just in case something happened to the first pair. When he was being dispenesed his glasses, his mother broke down in tears that we would give him a back up pair. We were blessed to help these families who needed and appreciated our presence so much.

We had two children that were handicapped, and we rushed them through to make it easier on them. Their mother was so touched she brought us lemons as a thank you gift. We had so many men and women who were so thankful for our helping them. One was a young man who just had returned from active duty in Iraq, and was leaving in two months for Afghanistan. Our last recipent of the day was a young boy, who had been waiting for a while, with his family. Our mission team invited him to come into the lab to see his glasses being made. After such a long wait, this was the most exciting part of his day! He beamed from ear to ear, and in addition we gave him an Oakley hat to make up for all the wait.

The team is amazing, and although Juliana is in charge of writing the blog, we are all taking turns helping her. This entry is from Greg, a team member from Louisiana...and the nicest cridder you'd ever meet!