More than 150 Liberians had their vision restored through the 2024 Samaritan’s Purse cataract mission in Monrovia.
Diana, 55, noticed her failing sight most especially when she was crocheting hats and shirts. She enjoyed using this skill to make clothing, which she’d sold for years to support her children.
A medical team member examines a young patient’s eyes prior to surgery.
But the shadows across her eyes had made the detailed work grow more and more difficult. So, when she answered the phone a few weeks ago and heard her son recount the exciting news about Samaritan’s Purse cataract surgeons coming to Monrovia, she rejoiced.
“Liberia is blessed because of Samaritan’s Purse and we should appreciate God for His kindness!” she said later, recounting the day she received that call.
Untold numbers of Liberians suffer from cataracts—some are caused from post-Ebola syndrome, some from underlying health conditions, some from injury or prolonged sun exposure. In many cases, they’re congenital.
The short, simple procedures restore patients with long-lost eyesight, providing them a new lease on life.
For Diana, her impaired sight could be traced to any number of things. Perhaps it was physiological stress caused by the emotional trauma she’s endured during civil unrest and armed conflict in her country.
Many years ago, she’d run away twice from Monrovia carrying her newborn son and his siblings to find safety in neighboring Guinea. Twice they’d escaped with their lives from Liberia’s brutal and bloody civil wars in the early 1990s and early 2000s.
Twice she’d returned with her family, hopeful for peace in her homeland.
Celebrating New Sight
A few days after her son’s call, Diana threw her hands into the air, but it wasn’t out of exasperation. It was in praise to her God.
Patients praise the Lord after receiving life-changing cataract surgery.
With gauze still taped to her eyes from surgery a day or two before, she was dancing in place and singing with dozens of other cataract patients and medical staff at ELWA hospital’s outdoor chapel in Monrovia. Then she spoke aloud to the others about what God had done.
“We are in the presence of God. Always remember that!” she began. “God sustained and protected me through the war. I became so strong to take care of my children because I knew they were my future. This surgery is a gift from the Lord. I want to give Him all the glory.”
She said she was eager to work heartily for Him again and to recover the speed and quality of her crocheting craft, a livelihood skill she was grateful to have developed over the years.
Ongoing Cataract Work in Liberia
Each year, Samaritan’s Purse surgical teams experience the blessing of such testimonies in Liberia’s capital as patients recover their eyesight. The simple removal of cataracts and replacement of eye lenses during the cataract mission only take minutes for our skilled surgeons to perform.
The surgical team includes medical staff and surgeons from many countries.
Short though they are, the procedures provide a new lease on life for patients going blind from scarring in their eyes.
This year, our teams restored sight to 152 Liberians, four of them children, and the life-changing surgeries provided something even more critical than eyesight. Each patient who came through the clinic June 9 to 14 also experienced the love of Jesus Christ through our surgeons, nurses, and ministry team.
During the six-day mission, they showed The JESUS Film to patients and their families and took opportunities to share the Good News of God’s love. The team also prayed with patients and encouraged family members. Many people came to faith in Jesus Christ.
These new believers were encouraged to begin attending local Bible-believing churches. In the coming days, the ministry team will follow up with families and continue teaching and encouraging them from the Word of God.
Praising God’s Goodness Together
Many who joined Diana that day in worship to celebrate eyesight were also there to celebrate their rescue from spiritual blindness as well.
As the nurses began removing gauze from their eyes, patients gasped in the morning light filtering through nearby groves of trees. Some began to weep. Then they started to sing and, one by one, share their testimony about God’s goodness.
The cataract patients experience great joy at the restoration of their eyesight.
Ellen, 59, suffered in her marriage and during the wars, but says God carried her through them both. Ellen wanted her sight to be restored so she could do all her daily work and so she would be able to travel and visit her son and other family.
Through Samaritan’s Purse, she was again reminded of His goodness to her. She said that God strengthened her through many hard days and was continuing to remind her of His faithfulness.
Ray, 82, recounted how he felt the Lord’s presence all his life. The retired pastor and farmer has suffered from loneliness in recent years and had even traveled alone to ELWA for his surgery.
But he joyfully disagreed.
“I have felt the Lord’s presence during this time,” he said. “God promised to never leave us, so I didn’t come alone. I came with God.”
Through the Samaritan’s Purse Cataract program in Liberia more than 3,600 cataract patients have received the life-changing surgeries since 2017. Worldwide our cataract programs have provided surgeries to more than 6,180 patients in Liberia, Mexico, and South Sudan.
One patient, a retired pastor named Moses wrote our team a letter of thanks after returning to his daily life with the ability to see again.
Thank You, God. And thank you, Samaritan’s Purse. Words cannot express what you have done for me. But I am finding ways to show my gratitude. I just want you to know your thoughtful and helpful ways are really appreciated. Thank you very much for the support, care, courage, and guidance. But what comes from my heart is simply a prayer. May the good Lord keep you always, and may He cause his face to shine upon you, so that you may live to see the goodness of the Lord as your reward. Thank you very much. How can I thank God enough for you?
1 Thessalonians 3:9
May God bless you very much.
From Rev. Moses
Please continue to pray that these patients, our partner hospitals, and our surgical teams would continue to experience the presence and love of the Lord Jesus Christ. Pray also that many more people would believe in Him and have new eyes to see the glory of His salvation.
“For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God” (1 Thessalonians 3:9, ESV).
