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.

Northeast Road Trip---by the numbers

1 road trip

3000 miles
                             
                                                                                                           22 days

7 host families

The Hankinsons: one of many hosts for us

4 family reunions



















Two day trips to DC with one subway ride
One Zoo trip

One national park

Fort McHenry Baltimore MD

One day visiting old friends at Stephen's residency

FIVE museums 

 

Air force museum in Dayton OH

two state parks

THREE Open House get togethers

In Clinton Connecticut

Five ministry presentations in 3 churches

Two surprise visits from old Congo friends

Anna with Susie Lardner who drove a day to see us.

5 Congo reunions


ONE aquarium visit

in the mouth of the megamouth shark in Baltimore

and ONE LARGE LEGO TOWER!

Thanks to all who met, welcomed, prayed or were otherwise involved in the trip.  Stay tuned for more info about where we are going next and how you can partner with us.

Falling off the face of the Earth

Recently, we received an email that said, "We thought you had fallen off the face of the earth..."  We immediately thought of something like this:

This also made us think of other things we've not been doing such as:

Writing our memoirs

Wearing flipflops

Killing cockroaches

Cooking over a kerosene burner

Hearing wailing to signal death, day and night

Dealing with transportation problems

Sweating so much

We have been:

Settling in to this house in Chattanooga, which will be our home base until the end of June.

Restarting school

Visiting churches 

Lewisport United Methodist Church, Lewisport, KY,

Faith Baptist Church, Birmingham, AL,

and Solid Rock Bible Church, Coon Creek KY.

Attending a reentry debriefing for Stephen and Anna

Visiting family and friends

Catching up on paperwork, dental and optometrists appointments and more.

Praying for our friends and colleagues still in Impfondo.   The electrical system there remains critical.  See Dr. Laura Foudy's latest update.

During the next two months we will be doing more of the same.

We will be at the following churches in April and May: 

April 7- Hunter Memorial Baptist Church, Lost Creek, KY

April 27-29 Lansdowne Alliance Church, Baltimore, MD

May3-5- Christ Chapel,Madison, CT

May 18-19- First Alliance Church, Louisville KY

We would love to see you if you are in the area.

Wegners4theROC Spring Tour dates are here!

Here's our latest travel schedule.  We will change it a bit as we are still waiting to hear back from some pastors about dates.

March 6- travel to Lewisport (March 6-13 Lewisport)

March 13- leave Lewisport for Chattanooga (March 14-15 Chattanooga)

March 15- travel to Birmingham (March 15-17 Birmingham)

March 17- leave Birmingham for Chattanooga (March 18-26 Chattanooga)

March 27- travel to Eastern KY (March 27-April 8 Eastern KY)

-Stephen and Anna in Lexington April 1-3

April 8- travel to Chattanooga (April 8-? Chattanooga- waiting to hear about April 14&21)

-Joan visiting Chattanooga April 10-11

April 22- drive to Annapolis (April 22-May 10 traveling in North)

May 10- travel to Chattanooga (May 10- 16/17 Chattanooga)

May 17- travel to Louisville (May 17-19 Louisville)

After that things are still vague

thanks for your prayers

Stephen and Anna

Travel in the Congo- Part 2

While flying may be an adventure at times, we are happy that it is an option for us.  Our other options for traveling any distance are limited.

For about one half of the year it is possible to get to Brazzaville by boat.  The fastest these boats go between Brazzaville and Impfondo is five days.  For the "fast boat" you have to be prepared.  The boat doesn't stop or slow down, but you can paddle out via canoe, and climb aboard.

The other boats take about two weeks, unless they break down, which seems to be about 75% of the time.

How do most people in Impfondo get around town, or go to visit a place further away.

1. Walk

Walking is the most common means of transportation.

This little girl is going out to work in her family's garden.

2. Bicycle

Dr. Laura arriving at our house on one of her rare days off work.

3. Automobile

You can take a bus ride for 200CFA (about $.40US).  Or if you're lucky, you can get a ride in a truck.

Isabelle is showing how to drive the gator.  This is used for transporting things on the hospital grounds.

4. Mototaxi

Recently this has one of the most popular ways to get around town.  Unfortunately, it is also the most dangerous way to get around town.  There are accident victims in the hospital on an almost daily basis.

5. Pouse-pouse/wheelbarrow

If you need something or someone moved, you can use a cart called a pouse-pouse (literally push-push) or a wheelbarrow.

Pouse-pouse at the market.  That's my bide and yellow trailer in the background.

For those who can't walk on there own, their family finds creative ways to get them around.  This man is bringing his wife to the hospital for an appointment.

6. Boat/Canoe

You can always travel by canoe.  This can get you to some of the villages along the river that are hard to reach by land.

Canoes by the ocean in Pointe Noire

Praying itenerary

note all times are EST.
also all times are estimates!! They are not strict guidelines.
Please fill free to distribute this to all the pray-ers in your various church homes

Before 11am nov 6-pray for packing choices and that all our needed items would fit in our allowed space

11am Nov 6th to 330pm---pray for car travel and caravan space and safety

330pm- 550pm--pray for check in process (pleasant baggage handlers, maybe even allowance on luggage), saying final goodbyes, and boarding plane.

600pm to 200am--safe plane ride, kids settling down quickly to go to sleep, and ease of adjustment, food choices for Ian

0200am- 300pm is a layover in Paris. Pray that we can keep the kids awake mostly and pray for wisdom as we decide whether or not to take a quick jaunt into Paris.

0400pm to 0100 am flight to the Republic of Congo Brazzaville from Paris. Please pray for the check-in process, safe flight, settled kids, and meal choices on board


0100-0300 am getting through customs, speaking french to customs officials and meeting the contact person this will be early (0700-0800am local time) for them on a Sunday so that things would all go smoothly. I am going to post this so hopefully most of you will get it to take it to Wed prayer meeting if you go.

thanks

Stephen

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.

Timing

Yes this is our family. A very good action shot except for the "tat" on my oldest's forehead. What can I say? He takes after my brother Jon. For some time now I have been putzing around the book of Hebrews and oddly enough the past couple of weeks I have been reading chapter 11. The substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen takes on a new power in these verses. Its how we know God created the universe (3), an essential element in pleasing God (6) and an essential quality in a believer's life. I am especially encouraged by Sarah and Gideon being on the list since their accounts in the OT reveal a much more tenuous grasp on this faith than Heb 11 would paint. This makes me think that even the "bigwigs" of faith had to nurture it has a fledging seed given by God and watered with His Grace. In our life we need some serious watering because of some events that came up recently. One big thing that came up this past week is that a roadblock popped up in our plans to adopt Kathleen (she is the one who does not look like Anna and I in the pict). Our steps to adopt were #1 to terminate the mom's rights (she has not seen Kathleen in about 4 years) and then (#2) apply for adoption. It turns out that the lawyer thinks it would be a more ironclad adoption if we do step 1 in Missouri. This is a problem since we are going from here to KY/TN in Dec and then to Canada in Jan. This also is a problem since to get Kathleen across the Canadian border in Jan we will need her passport (which she does not have and we cannot get until we get her mom's rights terminated). On top of that one big thing we have some what smaller things of not having a place to live in Canada yet. We have not sealed that up since we need the Certificate of Authorization to get a lease on an apt. in Canada. Also we did not exactly receive an outpouring of opportunities to drum up support and that although not unexpected was discouraging. SO back to Gideon. I kinda feel like Gideon after he finally gets over his initial reluctance to fight the Midianites & God tells him he has to many resources. Then He tells him the same thing again! I read a lot of doubt in Judges that I do not read in Hebrews. I pray that's the same for us.

SO to sum up......here are some more prayer requests.....
Adoption proceedings as outlined above
Travel plans
More opportunities to share

Praises
Thanksgiving w our friends coming up
Speaking opps at Havre (11/25), our home church (12/2) and possibly Kalispell on (12/9).
God's goodness
God's Timing

Thanks Central Bible Church

Our missions deputation got off to a good start tonight. I had asked our good friends Jeff and Emmy to speak to their church's mission committee about speaking at their church later this year and they instead invited us to come and speak this Sunday.

I worked fairly feverishly Thursday and Friday night to get something ready. I was assisted Thursday by our youngest child who shall remain nameless until 1am.

They were very gracious host and the word of Jeff and Emmy must count for something there because they pretty much let me just get up and speak.

I will try and post my ppt presentation soon, but it's mostly pictures.

Praise God and thanks to the Central Bible Church of Kalispell MT.