In the shadow of Mt. Everest, Dr. Marty Spencer prepared his surgical tools. Before him sat a blind Nepalese woman, who had traveled with her family for 10 days by foot. She had given birth a year ago but had never laid eyes on her baby boy.

Among thatched huts on the edge of a tiny village, Dr. Spencer sat the woman down and started the cataract surgery, considered to be a relatively simple and cheap procedure in the West, but a dream for thousands who live in rural areas in developing countries.

After only a few days of recovering, the woman was able to see the light of day — and her child — for the very first time.

"I have a picture of the woman looking at her baby," said Dr. Spencer, who lives in Nanaimo. "Her smile — I can still picture it to this day."

Dr. Spencer has volunteered with Seva Canada, a non-profit that provides eye care in developing countries, for more than 20 years, performing cataract surgeries all over the world. He has traveled far and wide, performing operations and teaching surgical methods to local doctors, including to those in Tibet where ophthalmologists are known as "eye openers."

Despite a nomadic population, language difficulties and political strife, today more than half of the cataract surgeries in Tibet are provided by Seva. In part, much of Seva’s success has to do with a Vancouver carpenter who built an elementary school in the Middle East.

Michael Frastacky, 56, had spent his last four summers building a co-ed school in Nahrin, Afghanistan, when he was brutally murdered by the Taliban. Dedicated to social change, Michael left a large endowment with Seva Canada, which he had been affiliated with for nearly 15 years. The money has gone a long way to helping the less fortunate see a better tomorrow.

Last weekend, Michael’s sister, Lupa Frastacky flew to Vancouver from Toronto to visit with Dr. Spencer and the dedicated staff of Seva to hear how her brother has helped those he would never even meet.

"Originally I was very surprised that he had left the money to Seva, but then I learned about his involvement," she said from the Sheraton Hotel. "The legacy he left is making a great deal of difference at the community level by helping people make money, take care of their families and continue on with their lives."

There are currently 45 million blind people in the world and another 124 million with debilitating low vision. Like under the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, boys have the better end of the stick — two-thirds of the world’s blind are women, yet 75 per cent of this blindness is either preventable or treatable, often with a 15-minute cataract surgery that costs about $50.

Dr. Spencer says although many people are still blind to the problem, more government bodies are eager to learn, thanks in large part to the World Bank, which calculated how blindness decreases productivity and thus, GDPs. Sadly, money tends to speak louder than suffering.

Already planning his next trip to Asia, Dr. Spencer is on a quest to bring divine eyes to those who need it most.

"Once you start doing something like this, you get hooked," he said. "Most of all, it’s satisfying to see a cause continually develop when there’s such a great need for it."