MOST Ministries passed a major milestone in February – 250,000 lives directly impacted! This means that 250,000 people have directly received care from our mission team members at one of our eyeglass clinics, medical clinics, clean water outreach, construction projects, or another type of project designed specifically for the local community. This also means a quarter million people who heard the Gospel in their own language through the local pastor and had the opportunity to connect with the local church!

What about the MOST multiplier – the lives indirectly impacted? Think about the person who receives a pair of eyeglasses, glasses that would have cost a month’s salary or more and is now able to see well enough to make a better living. In addition to this person, how many others will benefit from their improved eyesight and income? A spouse? Children? Parents? Extended family? And all of this has the potential to positively impact the local church and community!

This all started in 1989 with a single mission trip to Haiti when Don and Gayle Sommerfeld organized a mission team of fourteen people to rebuild a church that had been damaged by Hurricane Gilbert. Don and Gayle, on seeing the extreme needs of the Haitian people, were inspired to do more. Over the next three years they took eight more teams to Haiti. At that point Gayle decided to leave her job and work full-time on international short-term mission teams, creating MOST Ministries in the process.

The mission team projects in Haiti were varied from the beginning, starting with construction followed by medical & dental and then eventually the first MOST eyeglass clinic in February 1991. With their immediate popularity, eyeglass clinics soon became a focal point for MOST accounting for about half of our mission team projects in our 34-year history. Over that time MOST has sent 557 teams with 6,515 team members and our eyeglass teams have distributed 160,171 pairs of eyeglasses.

Due to our initial work in Haiti, missionaries in other countries began to hear about MOST. Requests started coming in from more locations and MOST mission efforts expanded to Latvia, Panama, Guatemala, Macao, Ghana… eventually to 52 countries around the world.

In Matthew chapter 28 we read,

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

MOST Ministries has been helping everyday people live out our Lord’s Great Commission, sharing the Gospel in word and deed with people in need and directly impacting the lives of over 250,000 people in the process. We are truly blessed!

We are blessed through the hard work and efforts of our staff members, board members, missionary hosts, team leaders, team members, an army of volunteers, and friends who support MOST financially. Thank you all for your role in this ministry!

And all of this is only made possible by the grace of God. He sees us through difficult times. He blesses MOST to be a blessing to so many. He blesses us to be a part of His work by being part of the MOST family. He gives us the opportunity to be His witnesses to the ends of the Earth! Thanks be to God!