ARDS and financial support

Well here it goes again,
I am going to try another medical illustration while I talk about finances. I will italicize the illustration so you can skip that and go to the end to see where we are with our financial support and I will answer some questions

Now the medical illustration. I think that talking about any type of support and especially financial support is like trying to treat ARDS after acute injury ( ARDS is acute respiratory distress syndrome). The best way to think of ARDS is reaction from the lungs to an injury (pneumonia, a big hit like a car crash, or other stuff) and this reaction shuts the lung down. Doctors have to sedate the patient and put them on a breathing machine. This can cause more injury.

To understand why you have to look at the lungs as a pair of upside down trees with the trunk and branches being the airway tubes, and the leaves being these little sacs called aveoli where oxygen goes in and carbon dioxide goes out. When the lung is injured not all airways and aveoli (think tree branches and leaves) are injured equally. The injured sacs fill with fluid and or collapse

Therefore when docs pump oxygen into the lungs the oxygen goes to the good ones but the collapsed stay collapsed. When there are a lot of them like that the patients blood levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide are out of whack so doctors pump more oxygen in and that hurts the sacs (aveoli) that are working and the patient gets worse. it is a bad spot to be in.

To prevent this docs try to do things to recruit, yest recruit those air sacs. this helps but is hard to do.

So for me when I talk about support I envision people reading this as little sacs in lungs (of the body of Christ if you want), and the more I talk about giving and praying the more the working sacs (the ones who pray and give) are pressured until they pop. The other ones who are not working very well stay not working well. As in the patient with ARDS it is hard to recruit new working aveoli and supporters, but it is vital to the patient to do it and for us to do it as well.


SO the medical illustration is over. Suffice it to say we want the people who are praying for us and/or giving to our ministry to keep up the good work. We thank you. If you have not thought about praying for us lately or giving to us, then prayerfully consider it.

Some questions now.
Where is the money going? Right now the money goes to the C&MA, 6% is taken out for admin costs, and the rest is going to a savings account and earning interest. This is being saved for the getting over there costs. We are still living on our savings from last year from a different account.

Why give through the C&MA when they take 6%? There are three main reasons. One is that it then qualifies for a tax deduction for you. Two, some of that 6% goes to paying our medical insurance. Three, it provides financial accountability and we want to avoid evil and the appearance of it as well.

How does the giving work again? See the bottom of our blog page, but essentially you make a check out to the christian and missionary alliance and in the memo line on your check you write IFAP-Wegners and they will do the rest. If you want to make sure, send me an email and i can check up on it.

Don't you earn a salary? NO, the hospital finances are based on the premise that the docs will not get a salary.

How much money do you need again? Right now we are operating on a 4,ooo/month budget and that may go up or down. This budget has been seen and approved by C&MA HQ and has been seen by the Pioneer Christian Hospital medcial director.

How much money do you have? We have 750 per month committed but Feb statement from IFAP for giving in jan recorded only 320. We recieved ~5k last year and that is in the savings account as well.


Thanks for your prayers again. Please continue your prayers for us. We do covet them


Stephen