Alumni Christian Service Award

Wayne D. Lewis, Jr., President of Houghton University, presented Dr. James “Bud” Tysinger, Jr. with the Alumni Christian Service Award to celebrate his lifelong commitment to medical missions during the 2025 Summer Alumni Reunion on August 2. The award recognizes Dr. Tysinger’s five decades of service providing vision care to impoverished communities in Sierra Leone, Zambia and rural Mexico.

Dr. Tysinger’s work in medical missions began in 1970 with a trip to Sierra Leone, where he spent three years as a doctor at the hospital founded by the Wesleyan Church in Kamakwie. He developed a passion for ophthalmology and spent the next twenty years travelling to Sierra Leone and Africa, while also maintaining a vision care practice in California.

In 1995, Dr. Tysinger partnered with a colleague to found the nonprofit organization International Vision Volunteers in an effort to bring vision care to those who otherwise could not access it. Through International Vision Volunteers, Dr. Tysinger opened Zimba Mission Hospital in 2001. The hospital is staffed by five teams of care providers, each serving two weeks annually. Today, hundreds of eye surgeries are performed annually, and thousands of patients from Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana receive care, at Zimba Mission Hospital. The hospital also provides training for ophthalmology residents, clinical officers and nurses in eye care, some of whom go on to continue serving with International Vision Volunteers.

In addition to his work in medical missions, Dr. Tysinger founded California Eye Clinic in Antioch, California. He retired in 2002 after over twenty years of service.

Houghton University’s Alumni Christian Service Award is presented to those who have held to the ideals of the Christian faith and who have made a significant impact for the Lord through self-sacrifice to the Church, their communities, and/or their professions.