Summer/ Fall Update

Ian and Caleb at CMA headquarters in MT

Our family in Cut Bank, MT

Dr. Harvey and Dr. Foudy

Dr. Foudy with Siko and Delphine Bambemba

Wegners4theROC update:

The container is out of port. It's the blue one. Next stop Brazzaville.

Our family has been on the go!  We finished our touring in the Eastern part of the US with a week at Camp Nathanael in Eastern KY.  Then it was time to hit the road for another long trip.  We headed west, stopped by Colorado, then continued to Montana.

We arrived in Montana at the end of June, and we have been enjoying our time here.  Stephen has been working at the Blackfoot Community Hospital in Browning and Benefis Health Center in Great Falls.

We've been able to visit many churches in Montana during July, August, and the first part of September.

Our traveling and church visits will continue in September and October, with the following schedule:

September 21 & 22- First Alliance Church in Billings, MT.  This will be followed by the TLC conference.  Anna will speak Tuesday afternoon to the Great Commission women from First Alliance Church.

September 28 & 29- Lewistown CMA Church in Lewistown, MT

October 5 & 6-  Plains Alliance Church in Plains, MT

October 13-18- Stephen and Anna will be at The American College of Emergency Physicians Scientific Assembly in Seattle.

October 19-20- Neighborhood Alliance Church in Riverton, WY

October 27- Cut Bank Community Bible Church in Cut Bank, MT

We would love to see you at any of these places if you are close!

Family News:

We have had a chance for many reunions with friends that we haven't see in years.  It's been bittersweet- fun to see everyone again and catch up, but hard to say good-bye after a short time.

Anna and the kids started school on August 26.  We've been taking school with us as we travel.   It makes things interesting!  For more details see our family blog.

Hospital News:

The transitions continue at the hospital.  Dr. Joseph Harvey and his family returned to Impfondo in June.  In July, Dr. Laura Foudy completed her service in Impfondo and returned to the US.

The container with the electrical supplies is finally out of port!  The next step is transportation to Brazzaville, and from there to Impfondo.  Please continue to pray for these much needed supplies to reach Impfondo.

There will be a team traveling from the US at the beginning of October.  Thank you to those of you who responded to the "help wanted" add.  Please keep the team in your prayers as they finalize preparations.

Future plans:

In November, we will return to the southeastern part of the United States to spend time with family and attend several conferences.

We plan to return to the Congo in February or March of 2014.  We have been making preparations towards that goal.

Thank you for all your support and prayers on our behalf.

Medical Update. Surgeons, Trauma and Premies...Oh My

WE NEED A SURGEON. Not just any surgeon, but a surgeon who would be humble enough to work with us, speaks French (and or Lingala) has experience in and Africa operating room and who is willing to see where God is leading in his/her life.  We need one badly.  We’ve done almost the same number of surgical interventions this year as last year at this time when we had an active surgeon with a fully staffed operating room and God has watched over us.  However, this has also strained other aspects of our ministry

Joe , Laura and I are working with divided attentions.  Without an active surgeon on staff, we are each doing a little more surgery.  This is challenging and fun sometimes and agonizing and heart rending at other times when we are at our limits.   It also takes each of us from other things that we should be doing as well. Laura has  MPH studies, improving obstetrics care, and family practice duties.  Joe has his family practice duties and his administrative responsibilities.  For me it’s the improvement of pediatric services and increasing admin duties as Joe prepares to leave on home assignment in June of this year.  Don’t get us wrong we all like to do surgery, but to do it well something else has to give.  Therefore a surgeon would be great.  Someone who could teach and come along side to help

TRAUMA

You probably understand this better as “accidents” as in motor vehicle accidents but ask any emergency physician or surgeon in the US and you will see that they aren’t really accidents.  Because they can be avoided.  Anyway, we have a lot here in Impfondo now.  Add a population surge, more access to motorcycles, no enforcement of a driver’s license or helmet laws, a dose of alcohol and you have trauma.  Lots of trauma.  We see broken legs, arms, heads, and teeth.   The only negative social consequence is the “at fault” person pays the medical bills of the other.  This seems like a good idea but leads to exaggeration of the injury on one side and default of payments on the other and there is no objective determination of fault.

PREMIE

In May we had a rush of premature infants.  For me they are  a great example of the “least of these” and we try to pour ourselves into saving them.  Some we do some we don’t. In May we had 12 premature infants.  All the ones under 800 grams (that’s about 1 ½ pounds) died.  One of those was a real frustrating one because she was almost a month old and was doing well before a viral infection swept through the pavilion and we lost power for an hour so she lost oxygen support for an hour. 

The good news is that we had 9 kids who survived and the smallest was born at 2# 12 ounces.  There was such a neat “esprit du corps” in the room as each of the moms cheered their babies on to the 4# 4 ounces discharge weight.  I am happy to say there is only one who still is there but he is steadily gaining weight.

OH MY

We’ve had some “oh my” moment as well since I last wrote. 

In March we had a fire in our operating room area that was controlled with no one being hurt but with a lot of clean up to do afterwards. 

We also had to evacuate a little girl who was struck by a motorcycle as she was crossing the street. In that accident she sustained and epidural hematoma which we controlled but then transferred her to Brazzaville for the neurosurgeon to treat.  I flew down with her to make sure she continued to receive the blood she was getting and to make sure she got to the hospital. She actually had another “oh my” moment when I went to find her the next day at the hospital and she wasn’t there.  I found out later from the family that the care at the referral center was concerning so she was treated as an outpatient by a military doctor in Brazzaville.

Thanks for supporting and praying.

random saturday part two

Here are the postpartum and "women surgery" rooms in the hospital

A lady who is 16weeks pregnant with twins but her placenta is in the wrong place and we are trying to keep the children and mom alive.

One of the twins from the lady in the first picture

The older sister of the twins. Recovering from polio

32 week premature twins slowly gaining weight to go home

This beautiful smile belies the fact that this 10 yo has lost 7 pounds in 2mos from typhoid fever

Recovering from life saving cesarean that Dr. Fuka performed last week.

Trying to avoid surgery with antibiotics

recovering from appendectomy

29 yo woman who has an abdominal fistula after a botched surgery in a "health clinic"

70 yo woman, Dr Fuka did a mastectomy for breast cancer

29 yo who had to have a hysterectomy because of tumors. No children.

Keep up the good work of prayer

A Random Saturday

Since most of my last posts have been word heavy I thought I would give you a tour of patients that I saw today.

These first group were from our emergency room

This first lady came in for abdominal pain and we are considering surgery

This child is 10 yo orphan with malnutrition who weighs less than 24 pounds!

This man suffers from the stigmata of leprosy and has pneumonia.

This child just came out of a 2 day long coma and trouble breathing after drinking kerosene

These two are of the same girl, who has pneumonia and sickle cell anemia.

This child is recovering from dehydration because of a stomach bug. Getting ready to go home.

This elderly man is in a coma from dehydration and tuberculosis. We are the last resort for him.

More picts to follow. But know your prayers undergird our work here and I encourage you to not lose heart in doing good.

A photo of one

Previously, I did an overview of all the patients in the hospital. Today I will switch gears and talk about just one.
This is a 6 year old girl we will call Sarah. When she came to the hospital, she weighed only 11.7 kg (25 3/4 lbs.)
She is one of the many who have lost their home in the fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She and her family had to flee into the forest. She went with her dad and her little sister went with her mom. They were in the forest for 10 days before they made it to a refugee site. Since she was already borderline malnourished, after those 10 days she became even more so.
This picture was taken after about 3 days in the hospital. The areas of skin peeling you are seeing is related to vitamin deficiencies, and the fact that she had a lot swelling is due to her lack of protein.
Her arms are very skinny. (That is a reliable place to look or malnutrition because the upper arm will not swell like the rest of the body.) The area around her biceps was 12 cm, with 14cm being the borderline for normal.
Her apathetic look is from hunger. When you are hungry to the point she is, you don't really care about much.
One of my prayers is that I will be able in a couple of weeks to show you the "after" picture of a child on her way to health.
There are a lot of obstacles though. One, because of the refugee situation we are having trouble getting the specialized formula we need. It is not a question of money but a question of logistics and organization. A lot of that is outside our control because it involves UNICEF and other alphabet organizations. Another is her parents understanding the need to give her food rich in protein and vitamins. The third and biggest is making sure the parents are able to get her enough "regular food" that when they leave she will not drop back into malnutrition again.
The good news is that the family is reunited. Also, for the past two Sundays they have been able to come to church at our hospital, participate in the worship, and hear the gospel being preached.
Please join with us in praying for her.

Famous Last Words

I bought a book in burlington VT called "Famous last words" and they range from the inane to the funny, sad, ironic, and profound.

One serves as a word of caution from General Sedgwick who was looking over the parapet at enemy lines and said "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist....." he of course was killed while saying those words.

Another even more poignant came from Simeon Calhoun in 1876. He said " Were the church of Christ was she should be, twenty years would not pass away without the story of Christ being uttered in the ear of every living person." Wow.

We are packing up again! We have turned my parents house into a UPS depot again! Tomorrow I go to pick up another UHAUL trailer to take some of our stuff to another destination again! Why? Because I want in 20 years for Simeon Calhoun's dying wish to be fulfilled. 200+ years later but fulfilled. Our family wants the people of ROC to live healthier lives, we want to see kids get physically better, but the root is what Simeon Calhoun was saying. We want people to hear the story of Christ. Not hear religous words laden with incorrect meaning, but to feel and know the love of the Creator for His children.

Continue to pray that we would have the courage and the love to live out God's love for the people we are around. Pray for safety as we travel to NC on Wed to drop off stuff we are shipping to the ROC.

Pray for the ROC, She is scheduled to have elections on 7/12.
Pray for us as I speak at Hunter Memorial Baptist Church on 7/12
Pray for us as we travel to Anna's grandmothers's on 7/12 and as I begin work on 7/13 at a hospital nearby.
Pray for continued financial provision and that we would be good stewards of His money.
Praise God that the week at Camp Nathanael went well.

Quoi!? Only 4 wks left!

That's right you read it here. The Wegners only have four weeks left in Canada and only 3 weeks left of class time. We are already starting to plan our packing for the move.

We feel like we've learned a lot and yet we also feel like we've just scratched the tip of the iceberg. I've been meeting with a retired gentleman to practice my french medical questions a little more and I can see the holes that need to be plugged. I'm plugging.

I thought I would give a time line of what we will be doing in June and July for you so you can better pray for us and also know what we are doing.

June 8-12 my parents are coming up and we hope to send some stuff back with them so we do not have to haul as much back at the end of June

June 14th we are speaking at a C&MA church in Burlington VT.

June 19,22,23 we are taking our final tests. The last one is an attempt to give a standardized measure to our french proficiency.

June 24th depart for the US

June 29-July 3 at camp nathanael

July 6th (aprox) leave for NC to drop off containers to be shipped to the Republic of Congo

I will stop there because it becomes less sure after that. The July 6th date is pretty big because we have an opportunity to send some stuff to NC and we are in the process of playing a rousing game of "keep, send, store or toss" with all of our stuff from our car to tea kettle. We are waiting on final approval for how much room we can have on the container as well.

Thank God with us that our 10mo of language study is almost done and that our family is overall doing well.

Pray for safety, wisdom, patience with each other, good timing, and more support.

Thanks again for praying.

Just Asking

I really don't want to write this post. I don't like talking about money and I definitely don't like asking for it, but in this post I am asking.

Our family over the past two months has received just under 2k for our support, but we only have 1230 in promised support. To top all of that we are coming to realize more and more that our number of monthly support will be closer to 5k/mo than 4k/mo. Therefore we need your help, and I think God likes this because I think He likes when the body really works together.

Anna and I want to humbly ask each of you to prayerfully consider giving to us to help us serve in the Republic of Congo. You know why we are going: because God is leading us there to do our part to fulfill the Great Commission. You know where we are going: Impfondo, Republic of Congo. You know what we will be doing there: We will be using our lives to open doors for the gospel. We know the implications of our asking. We know the economy is not doing so hot right now, we know that some or all of you may be financially stretched. We also know that God is a big God. Believe me, if we did not have to ask we would not.

To give follow these directions:

If you are giving by check then make the check out to C&MA and put Wegner/IFAP in the memo section and mail it to C&MA PO Box 35000 Colorado Springs, CO 80935-3500.

You can also set up an automatic withdrawal by sending a signed and dated letter expressing this wish with a voided check to the same address. The accounts will be debited on the 25th of each month

Other options are at the bottom of our blog site.

Pray that God will raise up financial senders for us, ask God if you are one of those and consider giving to us. If you decide to do so send us an email at swegn001@gmail.com to let us know. This helps us keep in touch with you and helps us know where we are financially.

Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts. Keep praying.

Partnership

I got this picture from a workbook called "Pathlight" which is designed as s seminar/ss curriculum text for missions. When I saw it our partnership--God, you and us--refocused for me. Don't worry about all the terms in the fire but I want to focus on what is the fuel. Prayer. To have a fire you need 3 things. You need fuel, you need oxygen, and you need a spark. I would say God provides the spark and the oxygen with his Holy Spirit and the fuel that burns to produce the flame of missions is prayer. With prayer every part of the flame is on fire and show's its light. With that in mind I want to copy an exert from that same book about petitionary prayer. These comments were written by David Wells.

"What then is the nature of petitionary prayer? It is, in essence, rebellion --rebellion against the world in its falleness, the absolute and undying refusal to accept as normal what is pervasively abnormal. It is the refusal of every agenda, every scheme, every interpretation that is at odds with the norm as orginally established by God."

Ann and I know that many of you have joined with us in rebelling against the abnomality in the world and we would like to reciprocate. We would like to pray for you. We would like to pray for you that God's will be done in your life and in your situation. Leave a comment on our blog or send me an email at swegn001@gmail.com.

Thanks again for praying and do continue to do so for us.

Isabelle's Story

Editors note:
Last night I "posed a few questions" to Isabelle as she played and I will try and reproduce the answers as accurately as possible. Isabelle= IW me=W4tR

W4tR: Do you miss Browning? Why?
IW= Yes, because I miss our house and playing with my friends.

W4ftR: What do you like most about living in Quebec?
IW: I like playing in the snow.


W4ftR: What about Craft Night?
IW: I like that too. (editors note: Isabelle is a crafter par excellence and likes it almost more than her mother :0) )

W4ftR: Do you like school? Why?
IW: Yes, I like bringing home homework to do (editors note: yes she really said that!)



W4ftR: Do you like French or English better?
IW: both.

W4ftR: What do you like best about Ian?
IW: ?

W4ftR: Do you like it when he reads to you?
IW: oh! yes.

W4ftR: What do you like least about Ian?
IW: when he bugs me.

W4ftR: What do you like best and least about Caleb?
IW: I like it when he plays with me. I don't like it when he bugs me.

W4ftR: What do you miss most about living in the states?
IW: I miss Kathleen and playing dolls with her.



Editors note: Isabelle has overall done very well with transitioning to French and does better at pronouncing things than I or Anna. As noted she misses Kathleen more than our other kids, but she manages it well. Please pray for her spiritual understanding and for emotional stability as we progress towards Africa