You’re listening to a Community Story from Be My Eyes. My name is Lance Larka. I am an American, however I live in Singapore, I’ve been here for two years. I moved here for personal reasons, which didn’t work out, but I loved Singapore. It’s an amazing country, very safe, very clean. I’m a business owner, I do consulting for laboratories around the world, so I travel for all my work, for the most part. Singapore is an ideal location for me, because of the transport hub here. The differences between living in America and Singapore are pretty big. I found Be My Eyes through my friend Brad. He’s a friend of mine through University, we were in the marching band together at UC Davis. I saw that he was engaged in this app a little over a year ago, and I joined. Now, he and I have a small little competition about who gets calls and helps people. It’s friendly, we love doing it, but it’s a friendly competition. I’m 8 up, and he has not had a single call. My first call in America was a gentleman in Florida who wanted help with finding his oatmeal pack for his instant breakfast, what flavor. I helped him find that, and then he started talking to me. He asked me: “Why are you doing this? Why are you volunteering?”. I said: “Well, if I didn’t have my contacts in, I’d be legally blind in America. And I also love to help people. My parents are school teachers, both of them, and they spent their entire career teaching people, teaching kids. I haven’t been able to do that, so I want to help.” He came back to me and said: “I’ve been blind my entire life, and I’ve always been curious, what is a contact lense?” So, I had to step back for a second and think about it and say: “It’s a small piece of plastic that’s shaped around your eye, it’s about the size of a US dime. You put it on your finger, and you poke yourself in the eye to put it on.” He laughed for minutes, he really laughed for minutes. It was so amazing to have this connection with this guy. One of my later calls was from here in Singapore. People here that are visually impaired or mobility impaired typically have to stay at home, and the families hire helpers from other countries to take care of them. But this woman who I got in contact with through Be My Eyes was at a bus stop, and she was looking for directions to get to the central library. This woman wanted to go out on her own, and I was so happy to help her. I, with a couple of other people who were in the bus terminal, got her on the right bus, and she got there. I’m so incredibly happy that I could help this woman do this small task. I love doing this. Thank you for listening to this Community Story from Be My Eyes. You can share your story too, send it to mystory@bemyeyes.com. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, download our app or visit www.bemyeyes.com/community-stories for more.