One Year Ago...

One year ago today, we left Impfondo.  It's hard to believe how quickly this year has flown.

We have purchased our plane tickets to return to Congo.  We leave the US on March 11!

One year ago- leaving Impfondo

One year ago- leaving Impfondo

What will we be doing as we prepare to leave?

School will go on as usual for as long as we are able.  All of our spare time will be used to pack and weigh trunks and suitcases.

Our last church visit will be with the Georgetown Alliance Church on Sunday, January 26.

Stephen will be busy studying.  He has two tests to take to keep up his medical board certifications.  One will be February 20, and the other will be February 22.

We are going to have a few last minute visits with family, and then we'll be on our way!

This is a job for?......

Many of you have heard us talk about or have read about our problems with consistent electricity at the Pioneer Christian Hospital and others of you have expressed an interest in helping out at the hospital but don't know what to do .  Well this is the post for you......See our help wanted ad below!

Wanted a few good people

 What: Installing new wiring, rewiring the infrastructure of the hospital grounds, laying underground cables and installing new circuit breaker panels connecting new generators to an electrical system at the Pioneer Christian Hospital.  This involves working in a tropical environment, manual labor and some cross-cultural interaction

 

Who: people who are skilled in wiring or who are good at working with their hands, improvising solutions and who love Jesus.

When: September/October of this year for 4wks to 3 mos.  You decide the length of time you can be in the Congo.

Where:  Impfondo, the Repbulic of Congo. It is an isolated city in the northern section of the Republic of Congo.  Weather forecast: mid 80s to low 90s with 90% humidity and chance of isolated thunderstorms.  The Pioneer Christian Hospital is a 7 year old evangelical hospital providing essential care to a catchment area of over 200,000 people.

How:  A team of volunteers is being organized by Chip Frey.  Interested parties should contact him directly by email at chipfrey@comcast.net  Volunteers will be expected to raise all the money needed to go on the trip.  The money raised will pay for flights to the country and in the country as well as food and lodging while in Impfondo.

Why:  It’s a great opportunity to use your skills to honor God in a cross-cultural setting and to play a role in providing medical care without having to learn anything medical!

For more info about the hospital check out www.congoharveys.org  and the pioneer Christian hospital facebook page or the wegners 4 the roc facebook page.

MIC (missing in communication)

Fortunately we are not missing in action just missing in communication.
Since our last post in (dare i say it ) the beginning of July we have been busy and have missed opportunities to communicate to you. For that we ask your forgiveness.

First a summary of what's been happening with us.
From a communications standpoint we've been handicapped by two events in August. One is the death of the hospital's modem for satellite internet. This left us for the month of August without a way of mass communication. We let some of you know but for the rest of you we apologize. The other event was we had a malfunction with our main laptop computer. Apparently the video processor is melted and now we cannot access anything on the computer. We are grateful to some tech savvy fellow missionaries who confirmed the diagnosis for us. In response to the former we have purchased a cellular modem that is slow and charges by the minute so we will not be uploading a lot of picts for you to see and we ask that you do not try to send us attachments or forwards as well. We will also try to get the laptop back the states for repair as well.

From a family standpoint: The children stopped school in July and August and will start up again in October. However Anna has been tricky and is doing some "learning activities" during that time to keep up with the structure of school. They also have had some fun doing some biking trips and other outings as well. Currently we are on a bit of a vacation in the port city of Congo called Pointe Noire. We are enjoying the hospitality of some friends with the CMA here. We have eaten chocolate, drunk diet coke, played, bought toys (with money from chores and the AW in the RMD), gone to the beach, relaxed, and generally enjoyed ourselves. We will be returning to Impfondo in 3 days. Then in October, school will start back again.

From the hospital standpoint: In August Dr. Harvey left for the states to see his oldest off to college and so Dr Fuka, a short term physicians assistant and I held down the fort at the hospital. We stayed pretty busy during the whole month with not a lot of time off for relaxing and recharging. During that time we lost 3 people to HIV and 4 children died as well. So our planned vacation to Pointe Noire came at a very good time.

With that summary you can discern some prayer requests for yourselves but we would like to highlight some for you as well.
1. Travels
2. School starting in October again
3. the goals that i shared in an earlier post
4. Our internet situation
5.Our computer situation
6. Continued improvement in team unity and communication


thanks again for praying with and for us. Thanks for all who remained faithful in prayer despite the fact that we weren't communicating well with you.

Mobile Clinic with Médecins San Frontier- Part 2

Here are some more pictures from the MSF trip.

The first three are of people waiting to be seen and of kids.

Kids always want their picture taken and then to be shown it. Digital photography is a good way to break down barriers
Below is the traditional way to get by the river instead of using the ferry. These next two picts were taken from the ferry. The piroques (canoes) are carved out of trees and are used to carry people, motorcycles, supplies and sometimes people drive a truck on to two of them placed parallel in the river to navigate smaller crossings.

And finally on the way back we had more mud. there was rainstorm on the way back and the driver had a lot of fun navigating that.

Mobile Clinic with Médecins San Frontier- Part 1

Stephen had an opportunity to take a trip with a group of medical personnel who work for Doctors without Borders or Médecins San Frontiers (MSF). MSF started working in our area in December and since then we have shared a lot of patients. One of the things they do is surveying refugee camps for health status and doing mobile clinics. Stephen was invited to go on one of their trips.

The first couple of pictures are of the trip there. The village is about 70 km north of Impfondo, but it took about 3 hours to get there. The roads were difficult to navigate, and there was a wait for the ferry.

The ferry is free for use in Congo.....if you buy the diesel fuel to put in it. If you don't bring the fuel then you don't go anywhere on the ferry.
The picture below shows how full the truck was. There were plastic chairs and tables on top, and the back was filled with medicines, supplies and the four nurses that went with the team. There were also three people in the front.
This picture is the photo of the church that was transformed into the clinic. There were tarps placed in the front of the church to provide consultation rooms. The other half was devoted to a pharmacy and "observation area."
These are some of the people who were waiting to see the MSF team. Everyone had vital signs done, a rapid malaria test done and received medicines. They were limited on Tylenol though, so only the kids got it.


More to come...

Communication

Thanks for all of you who continue to come along side of us with prayer, moral, logistical, and financial partnering to help us further the this radical goofiness that is the good news of Jesus. We have had a busy month in July. I am going to talk about two areas of semiurgent needs from us. See the bold type and follow that up with a wrap up of prayer requests and where God's been working.

I need some help in two areas .
One is with the communication support aspect of our partnership though. I am looking for volunteers to help get these words to people who do not use computers but who attend a church that you attend. This maybe printing them off for a bulletin board post once a month or just giving them to people you know in your church who exceed in the area of prayer.

An illustration of this need is a lady in E KY named Peggy Manchini who has been serving God for a lot of years and who now spends a lot of her time praying. My parents will fill her in on our needs as they hear of them and she prays for us. She is a huge part of our team but if not for my parents she would not know how to pray effectively for us.

The second is for speaking engagements.
If you are in the eastern United States and would like us to speak at your church in August we need to know within 5-6 days so we can plan the next months of whereabouts for us. Also
So I hope you see the need.

If you are in Montana or points between MT and KY and would like us to visit your church we are traveling out to MT either the middle or end of August and will stay there through a good protion of September. Please let us know if we can come along with your church and partner with you to spread the word about us, IFAP, God's goodness etc.

IF you want to help out with these just send me an email at swegn001@gmail.com and let me know. This would also encourage Anna and I greatly as well.

Now for updates.

TRAVEL: We have been to Hazard KY, Lewisport KY, Chattanooga TN, Lewisport KY and now we are back in Hazard KY. We plan to be in WV this weekend then back to Chattanooga TN and Lewisport KY. After that we are planning to get to MT in September but see above for details. Thank God for travelin mercys so far and pray for contninued.

SPEAKING: We had a good week at Camp NAthanael, and we also enjoyed our visit at Hunter Memorial and Augst 9th we will be speaking at a C&MA church in Louisville KY. Please pray for that and for more engagements as well.

FAMILY: Praise God our family is doing well. Ian was ill for a couple days this week but we've enjoyed relaxing times and good visits with family

FINANCES: I was able to work some the month of July and will work some more the month of August. I am also trying to secure work in Browning while we are there. I am doing this to offset our living expenses here so as to not to dip into what people have given as gifts for our ministry. We also have recieved some more promised financial support and are about 1,ooo/mo away from being able to go for 3 years, and we are about 2,500/mo away from a more longterm support level. Please continue to pray that God will raise up people to partner with us in this area and prayerfully consider doing so.

Thanks again for praying with us.

Stephen