I hope you had an opportunity to read my article in last month’s Senior Savvy. To recap, we have been invited by the Turks and Caicos’ government to provide services to the residents of their beautiful islands. They are sponsoring the trip through our support of Entheos Audiology Co-operative Non-profit “Hearing the Call”. Jane and I will be heading there the first week of May. She is so excited to go and is thrilled that her renewed passport has arrived in plenty of time.
We support Hearing the Call when patients choose us to be their hearing healthcare partner. Many of our patients make donations directly to Hearing the Call. Hearing the Call provides hearing services to those in need within the Unites States and around the world.
Closer to home, we support the Community Care Clinic of Rowan. Dr. Amy Wilson has referred several of their clients for hearing evaluations. These individuals do not have health insurance, so there is no charge for the test. We have referred a few for medical treatment and a few others to the two state funded programs for hearing aids. We are honored to be part of the Care Clinic’s mission.
Many of you know Krista Woolly, the executive director of the clinic. I have been honored to get to know her and call her a friend. I remember reading a wonderful article about her and her family’s trip to Rwanda several years ago to visit their son who spent a year there. Well I want to share an email I received from her today:
“Good morning, Lorin! I hope you are well. I wonder if you could help me with something – this may be far-fetched……
My son, Carter, spent a year in a remote village in Rwanda in 2018-2019. He has since visited again in 2022. As you can imagine, the people are very poor, but very kind and faithful folks. We were able to visit him in 2019 and fell in love with their spirit and friendship with our son. Carter’s host family was the local pastor (and the only one that spoke some English). He is texting Carter about a situation with one of the daughters of a neighbor. I have screenshotted the messages and I hope they make some sense. Is this something you could help us with? Happy to chat on the phone if that makes more sense.
Thank you in advance for anything you might be able to do to assist – Krista”
In trying to interpret the text messages, I understood that the daughter of neighbor has a severe to profound hearing loss and her Phonak power hearing aids are broken and need to be replaced. Her name is Yvonne and is the daughter of Mama Safari. I would guess she is a high school or college student who will be taking exams soon and needs help getting new hearing aids so she can do well. I am not sure where she got them originally, but the pastor says they are not available in East Africa.
I don’t think Krista was aware of our support of Hearing the Call. Unfortunately, we do not have a partner in Rwanda but we are working hard to find a solution for Yvonne. If you would like to donate to Hearing the Call or directly to Yvonne, please reach out to Jamie or Diane at 704-633-0023. Be our partner, be a partner to a greater mission. Jane, Cheryl and I look forward to seeing you soon.