The number of people who need eyeglasses due to vision impairment can vary significantly based on factors such as geographic location, access to healthcare, and socioeconomic conditions. According to estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), approximately 2.2 billion people worldwide have vision impairment or blindness, and a significant portion of this is due to uncorrected refractive errors, which can often be addressed with eyeglasses.
If you are familiar with the biblical story of Moses, you know how uncomfortable things can get when you resist a directive from God. Fear, doubt, and insecurities often result in a desire to be excused from responsibility. However, God’s guidance and patient reassurance can give way to acceptance, and turn reluctance to obedience. Bryan Kaiser grappled with his own concerns about what God was asking him to do. He would have preferred for God to find someone else. God’s gentle nudging and masterful orchestration pierced Bryan’s heart and today, some of the poorest in the world can see through the blessing that is God’s Eyes.
God’s Eyes is a nonprofit organization that hosts free eye clinics in third-world countries. “They are the poorest of the poor. They need everything and that’s where I want to be. I want to share the love of Jesus in a very tangible way by correcting their vision, and in a spiritual way by sharing the gospel.” This is the passion and mission of God’s Eyes Principal CEO, Bryan Kaiser.
Bryan will tell you that, “You’re rarely prepared for the moment that changes your life.” He heard these words as clearly as you are reading them now: “You’re going to make glasses for the world’s poorest people.” It took two years of sleepless nights and several unsuccessful attempts to negotiate with God before Bryan said, “Yes” and surrendered to the call on his life. He owned three successful optical labs and had the means to fill this pressing need, but that doesn’t mean it was easy.
“The Lord lovingly encouraged me to get a bigger worldview. I used to think 10% of the world was poor. Now I think 10% lives like you and me, and 90% of the world is poor.” Bryan, along with wonderful volunteers and medical professionals, travel to incredibly remote places where the level of poverty and living conditions are unimaginable by most of us.
People travel for hours and then wait in line for hours and even days just to have their eyes seen. Sometimes thousands show up for the eye clinics, and some eye conditions require surgery to repair the vision. “Can you imagine being told your child needs an operation and you can’t afford it?” This is the condition in the places where God’s Eyes serve. God makes a way where there seems to be no way. Some surgeries are made possible and patients, along with family members are incredibly grateful.
While Bryan is conducting eye exams, he meets people who have cancer and other serious health conditions, and they do not have the means to afford treatment. “This is why we need everyone to do their part. Who’s going to pay for their medicine?” God’s Eyes extends the hand of God beyond what Bryan could ever do on his own. The organization purchased a house for a family with 4 children living in a garbage dump. “I can do something about that. There was something we could do. Yes, we need that money, but they need it more.”
The biggest promoter of God’s Eyes was Bryan’s best friend Woody. “We became friends 10 years ago and I got the joy of baptizing him in 2017 when he received Christ.” Woody always wore a purple t-shirt that read, “Ask Me About God’s Eyes”. Bryan and Woody were in a terrible car accident this past April and Woody died from his injuries. “We sell the t-shirts on our website. We call it the Woody shirt.”
Bryan established a fund from donations made in Woody’s honor. The Woody Battaglia Eye Fund is used to pay for eye surgeries for the poor. Woody was instrumental in encouraging Bryan to write and publish the book, They Shall See God, an absolute must read.
Bryan Kaiser pours his heart, “God is so good, and so loving, and so kind, and so merciful, and so forgiving that we should spend our whole life doing whatever it is he’s got planned for us.” He continues, “If you think you’re too small to make a difference, you’ve never spent a night in a tent with a mosquito.” Finally, “We can make a huge difference in this world if we just do whatever it is God’s calling us to do. The problem is, we just don’t do it.”
To volunteer or donate visit GodsEyes.com.
“You’re rarely prepared for the moment that changes your life.”
“If you think you’re too small to make a difference, you’ve never spent a night in a tent with a mosquito.”
