Dr. Devin Harrison is a respected globe-trotting eye specialist who has brought his cornea expertise to Whidbey Island.

Dr. Harrison has helped blind people see from Seattle to Africa.

His arrival at Whidbey Eye Center in Coupeville makes cornea transplants available on the island for the first time.

Dr. Mark Cichowski, owner of Whidbey Eye Center, said Harrison will not only add to the scope of eye services, but also enhance the community.

“He’s the kind of person who will treat people well,” Cichowski said.

Harrison spent the last two years in Nigeria with his family. He answered the call from Christian Blind Mission International (CBMI) to help stamp out preventable blindness in developing countries. Appropriately, the target year is set for 2020.

About 45 million people worldwide are blind, and another 135 million suffer disabling low vision. The world’s largest Christian eyecare organization says about 80 percent of blindness is preventable.

Harrison was no stranger to overseas medical missions. From 1994 to 1997 he worked at the King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. When he returned, he spent the next five years teaching at the University of Washington Medical School.

The urge to help overseas persisted. Although he was born in Everett, he lived all over the world as the child of religious missionaries.

He and wife Laurie are both devoutly Christian.

“My wife shares my goals,” he said.

When they were first married, their first port of call was a medical mission in the Philippines.

He often jokes “My wife can’t say I didn’t take her anywhere.”

Through an opthalmology association, Harrison heard of CBMI. The Christian-based organization works with all kinds of groups in 113 countries, serving about 12 million patients.

“It goes wherever help is needed,” he said.

The organization estimates it has 12 million patients worldwide.

The Harrisons agreed to go to a well- established Christian eye hospital in Kano, Nigeria, that serves all comers. It was a rural area populated mostly with Muslims.

“I hope it builds bridges,” he said of the medical help given to the poor people who crowded into the Christian eye hospital.

He worked hard, completing 20 or 30 surgeries each day, and treating 150 patients daily.

Nigeria is densely populated. One quarter of Africa’s population resides in the West Africa country.

He said the work was personally rewarding because the treatments and surgeries could often literally make the blind see. Harrison saw advanced diseases that typically would be treated in the early stages in the United States.

He saw children and adults with cataracts so advanced they were blind. The incidence of glaucoma was high, the same as it is here with African Americans, he said.

Tumors, eye infections and parasite infections were also prevalent. The hospital charged low fees and gave free service to the indigent. For example, an eye operation and four days hospitalization cost $100, a sum that most families could raise, he said. The indigent got free health care, the money provided by donors to medical missions.

The Harrisons homeschooled their son Luke, now 8 years old, for one year before moving to neighboring Jos. The city is home to a well-established missionary community, so the schools hold an international flavor.

In Jos, Dr. Harrison worked with a local physician to open an eye clinic. The new clinic did everything, including cornea transplants, thanks to a Seattle Lions Club that sent over some donated corneas, he said.

Technology in Nigeria lags 20 to 30 years behind America, he said. But even here, technological development is moving so fast it has changed dramatically since he was in school.

Living in Jos is hot, hot, hot. Temperatures leap from the 90s into the 100s. Because of the danger of contracting malaria from mosquito bites, sleeping under netting is essential. But netting restricts air flow, making sleep even more difficult. The only time the temperatures cooled was during the dust storms called harmatan that swirled from the Sahara Desert, he recalled.

Few roads are paved in rural areas, with motorcycles serving as taxis. Outdoor markets are colorful and sell local produce. A few shops offer imports such as butter and cheese.

The Harrisons were interested in adopting a child, but African authorities do not allow children, no matter how dire their circumstances, to be taken out of the country. So the couple searched farther afield, taking 2-year-old Kiran into their hearts. The little girl from India is now 4 years old and has lived on three continents.

“She is such a blessing in our lives,” he said.

Laurie Harrison is a physical therapist, who, like her husband, wanted to share her expertise with the less fortunate. While in Jos she worked at a clinic specializing in curing women injured during childbirth. Prolonged labor and other childbirth complications can cause loss of bowel or urinary control. These women become outcasts, shunned due to the odors they emit. Vesicovaginal fistula is reparable with modern medicine and can transform the women’s lives, he said.

The Harrisons are eager to offer their services again overseas, despite the discomforts and limited medical facilities.

“We would like to go back for a shorter period,” Harrison said.

Medical outreach also is likely to continue because Harrison and Cichowski see eye-to-eye.

“We are of like mind,” Cichowski said.

Cichowski and his wife Jan want to serve overseas now that their four children are grown and off pursuing careers. They have applied to work aboard the floating hospital Mercy ships.

While they’re gone, Harrison will handle the practice and serve on the medical staff at Whidbey General Hospital.

Cichowski said “It will give him an opportunity at the helm of a practice.”