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When visiting the corporate offices of ASI Building Systems a few months ago, Gwyn Owen, the project manager in charge of construction at Eko Akete, made a suggestion. He suggested that all our employees, their relatives, friends, and associates, donate any old eyeglasses they were not using for the purpose of bringing sight to some of the people in the villages of Nigeria. Subsequently, the management and employees of ASI began a collection. The first shipment of that collection arrived last week and on 28 October 2000, Mr. Owen, e-mailed us back the following letter and photos:
Today I visited Oluwa Village.
I met the Chief and the Pastor and all the village people.
The pastor arranged a chair for the chief and one for me to sit facing each other. We sat outside his bamboo hut. His chair was placed under a tree.
It was an amazing coincidence of timing - are these matters decided in advance (??) - The village has been saving hard to get enough money to send the chief to the hospital in Lagos to have an eye test and to get spectacles. It is hard for them to get this kind of money together. Then out of the blue came your gifts from Las Vegas. Such happiness is rare to see.
The village chief told me he did not need glasses as he had an inner sight. He was surrounded by the little children. However the pastor persuaded him to try on a pair, "just to see". When he put them on he gasped in amazement as he realized that he was able to see something which had become invisible to him over the years. He tried on many pairs until he selected one that suited him the best. Then he just sat there with a big smile on his face admiring the view. He noted to his people that he could see the colors in the trees and kept pointing to things and birds and gasping in amazement. He was able to see again. He watched a lizard move in the dust. <Continued on next page>
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