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Seeing the Blind with Compassion

Joan Schmitz with Angela Shuff

And as Jesus passed by, He saw a man which was blind from his birth. His disciples asked Jesus, “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “neither hath this man sinned nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:1–3).

Aladouwe reads from his Braille school book.

In Togo, West Africa, many children are born blind or become blind from cataracts, glaucoma, and childhood diseases that go untreated. The lives of the blind in Africa are not easy. Family members look at this handicap as a curse, similar to how the disciples viewed the man’s blindness in John chapter nine. Parents take their children to fetish priests who put harmful medicines in their eyes and pour animal’s blood over idols in order to appease evil spirits. Blind children are often hidden in their huts or sent out to beg for money.

The problem is heart-wrenching, but at The Village of Light, an ABWE center and school for the blind, children who live in darkness are finding hope. In 1974, Dal and Kay Washer were burdened by the plight of the blind and were overwhelmed with compassion for them. Kay wrote, “If I could only teach them Braille, they would be able to read the Bible and learn about Jesus Christ.”

Dal and Kay started a class for a few blind boys they found on the streets in Lomé, the capital of Togo, and over the past thirty years, this ministry has grown to a center and school for the blind on a campus called The Village of Light. Today, students use a Braille alphabet to read Bible verses and complete correspondence courses. The Togolese minister of education has given permission for blind students to take exams in Braille, and now the school’s graduates are permitted to enter university.

God’s works are truly being manifested through this compassionate ministry that reaches many children in physical and spiritual need—children such as six-year-old Aladouwe. In the fall of 1997, Pastor Bwassimi was passing through his home village in Kpogoda when he saw a naked boy sitting in the dirt next to a village hut. Just as Jesus had compassion on the blind man, Pastor Bwassimi was filled with compassion for this child. He first thought the child suffered from mental retardation, but after talking to him and his family, he realized the child was blind. Bwassimi went to The Village of Light and asked for someone to visit Aladouwe.

Missionary Joan Schmitz and Mensa Dedzi, the Togolese maintenance man at The Village of Light, set out to Kpogoda. When they arrived at the child’s home, they were shocked at his physical state. Aladouwe’s eyes were literally bulging out of his eye sockets and were wet with pus. Since his head could not be supported by his neck muscles, his chin was resting on his chest. He had become blind when he was very sick with the measles and his family was not able to afford a doctor’s visit.

Joan asked the family if Aladouwe could come to The Village of Light to learn to read the Bible in Braille. Although they were hesitant to allow this, they consented after a visit with the school’s principal. When Joan left the village with the young boy in her car, he spoke only a certain dialect of Kabiye and did not understand Ewé or French. Since at that time his name was not known, they named him Koffi Washer, in honor of Kay Washer, who started the blind center. They later found out his name is Aladouwe, but if you talk to him today, he still calls himself Aladouwe Koffi Washer.

Joan held Aladouwe in her lap as they traveled to the hospital to have his eyes examined. When he started to cry, Joan played a cassette tape for him, and he began to tap her arm, following the beat of the music. At the hospital, the surgeons operated on Aladouwe’s eyes, but in the end they had to be removed.

Aladouwe has now attended the blind school for close to ten years, and he loves to sing and learn in his class. In 2006, he accepted Christ as his Savior, and now he says he wants to be a teacher. He is diligent in his studies and has a tender heart for spiritual things.

Over the past thirty years children like Aladouwe, from all over Togo, are finding hope and opportunity because Dal and Kay Washer first saw a need and were filled with a compassion that moved them to make a difference. Today, missionaries and national believers continue the work, giving their lives to help the blind in Togo.

Pray that blind children in Togo will continue to be reached with the message of hope and that their testimonies will be a light to their families and entire villages. And as you pass by those who are handicapped, look through the compassionate eyes of Jesus Christ. He wants to do His work through you, too. 

Read the stirring account of Dallas and Kay Washer’s ministry in One Candle to Burn, the
newest book from ABWE Publications. Between them, members of the Washer family have served for more than one hundred years in Africa—preaching the gospel to remote tribal peoples; rescuing unwanted children; founding The Village of Light, a school for blind children; and helping start the ABWE hospital in Togo. Order online or call 1-877-959-2293.