Merry "Roc"in Christmas

Tis the season to be...???? Jolly? Content? Hot? Evacuated? Yes all the above are possibilities for the Wegner family in the ROC this Christmas season. I wrote last update that the situation had calmed down a bit, but since then there have been some "rebel" attacks on some of the boats coming up the river and this past Thursday there were some R.O.C. troops involved in some shooting as well. There are lots of refugees along the river and it is good to be able to help them, but there are always more. For a sampling last week, we evaluated a woman after a rape and her husband for a spear wound to the thigh, there was another child who came in with 9 days of malaria and a hematocrit (blood count) in the teens. (normal is in the high 30's and 40s) then there was the child with malnutrition and the woman who need an operation for an abscess and.....I could go on. Suffice it to say that we have a lot of work here and there are is now fighting to the north and to the south of us as well but all (so far on the Democratic Republic of Congo side of the river. Our team has mad some evacuation plans to be prepared, and we have some bags packed (just in case) although i must say we feel pretty safe so far.
So continue to pray for our situation here, it is very fluid and can change very fast.
We also have a small epidemic of premature births here. They keep getting smaller and younger but by God's grace they are doing ok.

I also wanted to post some happy holiday Christmas pictures for you from our Christmas service this Sunday.


Here are the "Mary and Joseph of the Christmas play.









Here is one of the refugees singing praises. He has made a remarkable spiritual and physical recovery. One of his songs today he sang was "Jesus M'aime" Go Club Jeunesse of Sherbrooke.






Here is the required children's choir. We actually had a lot of singing today, and the only songs that were not full of joy and excitement were those with European origins (like silent night).





It is sometimes a little to much singing as you can see with Caleb here.











But we are all happy to be celebrating the birth our Savior who was born into a volatile situation of his own. From our family to yours Merry Christmas!