May 13, 2006

Greetings classmates from George & Diana Franklin, SEE Ministries. By now, you have received our April Newsletter with the class memorial page and the announcements of our planning for our 50th Reunion, June 1-2, 2007. I guess the biggest question in the minds of most is why did we use SEE as our vehicle to get the word out?

These reunion events are always clumsy by nature, especially the mailings. Because SEE has all the mailing permits and we regularly do mailings, we decided to help the program along and include the entire class in the April mailing. It was easy, as Diana and I have been keeping the class data since the reunion of 1987. For the past week, we have been getting back some of the Newsletters from addresses that are incorrect.

SEE Ministries was established in 1987 in Malawi, Central Africa. We fit the poor with eyeglasses. Since our first clinics on the porch of the guest house at Namikango Mission, we have helped close to 20,000 people be able to see again. Some of the life changes were dramatic. In 1987 it was just me and Diana but now we have an organization of dozens of trained clinic workers in three countries, doing everything from crowd control to glasses distributions and final adjustments. We are looking forward to the completion of two clinics in 2007, one in Sudan and one in Uganda. We feel that these full-time clinics will dramatically increase our services to the poor.

We hope you will consider SEE Ministries for Memorial and Honor donations for our classmates, teachers, and others as we organize and prepare for 2007, and beyond.

George Franklin
Class of 1957