Eyes for Haiti

Christian love in action.

In 1971, Columbia, South Carolina, ophthalmologist Dr. Hal H. Crosswell Jr. paid a visit to the village of Jérémie, Haiti. There at the request of Dr. Michael C. Watson, founder of the United Methodist Volunteers in Mission program, Crosswell didn’t know what to expect.

Yet he quickly fell in love with the resilient, hope-filled people—and his eyes opened wide to the desperate needs all around him.

When he realized the Methodist Rural Rehabilitation project at Gebeau, located just across the Grande-Anse River on the outskirts of Jérémie, only housed a ten-by-twelve-foot wooden medical clinic with little equipment and even less medication, Crosswell knew he needed to help. Not only were the people suffering from rampant disease and malnutrition, but they struggled with vision loss from cataracts and other illness—issues easily treatable with just a little extra help.

Upon his return, Crosswell teamed up with Watson and other UMVIM partners to construct a new medical-tuberculosis clinic that would also include an eye and dental wing—and where Crosswell and his colleagues would spend the next fifty years traveling to support.

In this book, Crosswell reflects on the many doctors, nurses, and others who joined him in this journey to help the people of Haiti know the love of Christ … one patient at a time.