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DENTON – Years ago, Ken Wood’s goal was to own a collection of classic cars – one for every day of the week. He was even eyeing a 1935 Mercedes six months ago.
“I turned the page real quick,” he said. “That’s bulls__. That’s nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
That’s because Wood is having too much fun drilling wells to provide fresh water to remote villages and financing vision care for the poorest of the poor in Africa.
Wood, 81, who owns Lifetime Wells in Denton, spent most of July drilling wells in Tanzania. When he returned home, he was diagnosed with a spot of cancer on his lung and is completing chemotherapy in November. When he gets his clean bill of health, he’s anxious to head back to Tanzania in January to drill 30 or 40 new wells.
In the meantime, he’s celebrating more milestones. His Lifetime Wells Vision nonprofit organization recently funded thousands of eye surgeries and treatments in eastern Ghana. Wood’s right-hand organizer in Africa, Christine Pomary, made her first trip to the U.S. in October to meet and thank supporters.
“Christine has been the backbone over there,” Wood said.
Dave Whaley of Denton has traveled with Wood several times to help drill wells, and may accompany him in January. Whaley said Pomary is a force to be reckoned with as she cuts through red tape in the male-dominated society. “You should see her at work over there,” he said. “She will go toe-to-toe. Mama Bear will watch the cubs.”
Helping the blind to see
LWV began its second outreach program of 2024 on July 28 in the Hohoe district and ended Oct. 10 in the Akatsi South district – 11 districts in all. The medical team posted the astounding numbers daily on the Lifetime Wells Vision Facebook page.
The medical team assessed 19,309 persons, dispensed 16,761 eye drops to treat clients with various forms of eye ailments, gave out 3,225 eye glasses for refractive remedies (USee glasses made by Easton-based Global Vision 2020) and performed 1,731 successful eye surgeries.
Pomary, district leader Kofi Lawson and ophthamologists Dr. Seth Wanye and Dr. Ken Adza formed the nucleus of the massive effort, supported by Friends Eye Center’s traveling clinic.
While smaller vision care missions have taken place since 2018, the first major outreach took place in late winter and spring 2024 in the Guan and Saboba districts. Dr. Wanye Tle headed up the surgical and treatment team. “Blindness is widespread throughout the country, but we know that over 85% of blindness is avoidable, and … 52% is as a result of cataracts,” Tle said.
Altogether, LWV has supported 15,268 surgeries, 37,688 eyeglasses and 106,124 treatments since 2016 – mostly to the poorest of the poor. When the eye patches are removed, “it’s like they are born again,” Tle said.
“We started out and made one blind person see. Who gets that chance?” Wood said. “And I thought maybe we'll be able to get 100 and now we're up to thousands. “You can't turn somebody down for $400 or $200 that can't see. That's just ludicrous.”
Cataract surgery costs $200 per eye. Wood depends on the generosity of individual donors and organizations to continue the work. He admits he gets out over his skis with his commitment to provide vision care, but somehow, the money always shows up.
A God thing
While Wood has benefactors and donors who help in small as well as significant ways, an unexpected windfall in October arrived in the form of his 37-year-old Aflac policy that had accrued $10,000 and became available as a result of his cancer diagnosis. He can use the money as he wishes.
“God is good. I need it right now bad,” Wood said. “I don’t need it for cancer.”
Wood, a lifelong member of St. Benedict-St. Elizabeth parish in Ridgely and Denton, uses rather salty terms to describe the faith dimension of the work.
“It's not me. It's God doing His work,” Wood said. “He scares the hell out of me sometimes. He’s not supposed to give it to you and make it easy. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be any fun.”
“It’s a God thing,” he says often. Donations are God things. Volunteers are God things. Healing the blind, drilling a successful well – those are God things.
One of those who received cataract surgery after a decade of blindness through LWV in 2018 is Bishop Godspower John Jessa, who called Wood an “angel among men.”
“It blows your mind. It's all praise the Lord, and where the hell am I going to get the money?” Wood said. “It's all these people who have got their sight back, and if you ever see it, you just cry your eyes out watching these people come out being able to see.”
“Don't put any credit to me; it's all a higher power doing this work here,” Wood said. His advice to others? “When God calls, pick up the bloody phone.”
