Costa Rica Mission Trip Experience – Kaila Pharis

This had been my first volunteer trip and I could not have asked for more. The Lions Club had such a huge part in our trip and it was a great one! They had organized our transportation, accommodations, food, clinic area and even threw us a “Fiesta” for our final day with them in San Isidro. The Cabin we had stayed at was beautiful, would have stayed there for a few weeks if I could! We are so grateful to have had such amazing people to work with and without them there would have been no mission at all.

In about 3 days of work we had been able to help about 4 villages with a grand total of 243 patients. They had come from long distances on horseback or on foot, some as far as 5 hours each way with many children accompanying them.The appreciation these patients had for our MVO team coming all the way up to their remote villages was amazing to see. We had seen many different conditions and had been able to help to the best of our ability with most of them. We had given many pairs of prescription glasses, readers and over half of the patients had been able to get sunglasses. Most of the workers in these villages had been working for years in the sun from dawn until dusk every day without any kind of UV protection; most of these villagers have never had the education on how important it is to have UV protection especially when most of their lives consist of being in that kind of sun exposure. When we offered them sunglasses they did not pay attention to whether they were men’s or women’s sunglasses, they were just thankful to get something that would help them with their everyday work and give them the protection they need.

I cannot express what this mission had meant to me and to the MVO team, people all over the world are in need of this kind of care and I am so thankful that I was able to be a part of it. Mountain View Optometry had given me an experience I will never forget and I thank them so much for that. Every person in our team worked together tremendously and I had a great time with all of you! I hope to join in many more over the years and would like to thank all of you for your continued support in providing care to people all over the world.

Kaila Pharis