Hospital Update

The following is an update from Ginny Vandevoorde (reprinted with permission).

Smiles after tears.
HELP News of the war Nov. 24, 2009

In the hospital chapel Sunday morning many or our war victims were present and gave testimony of God's grace and protection during their recent traumatic experiences. To hear Gerard testify of how God is good and to thank Him for this painful ordeal was very gripping. He was shot and then spent 6 hours floating along the river edge waiting for help to take him to the other side and be treated for his wounds. After inadequate care of his injuries, he arrived at our hospital four days later in a critical state and the amputation of his right arm was necessary in order to save his life. He not only accepts this situation but thanks God for it, knowing that He is in control of his life and He makes all things work together for good. Gerard says that he will praise God for eternity. How often are do we thank God for tribulations in our lives?

The conflict on the other side of the river has changed from the original tribal fighting over fishing waters into a political battle. Out of fear, entire villages have been evacuated and refugees are streaming across the river by hundreds. (This could be an underestimation.) For the We do not feel at all in danger being on the safe side of the river, but at the same time we are alert to anything that could take a turn for the worse. We just pray that the shootings will completely stop. Our hospital received the most severely wounded victims while there are many other less serious cases in small clinics closer to the place of the first conflict. Last week 2 more injured persons arrived. Thank you for your prayers for our patients, peace on the other side of the river and our safety. We certainly do feel surrounded by God's protective hand.

Our patients are making much progress. Ruth, the 11 year old war amputee, is up and using her walker. What a joy to see how much she has changed and made the necessary effort to move and walk on her one leg- a complete turn about! Praise the Lord! Her neighbor, Elise (not a war victim) is also making improvements in her walking. You wouldn't believe the wonderful sight we had of Elyse riding the hospital donkey, and a few days later Ruth mounted the animal behind Claire Harvey. What a joy to see her smile. God has answered many prayers!

Who is ready to do anything from helping to fix the X-ray machine, welding, babysitting, or helping Jean-Pierre with electricity, and even masonry? No other than Amy Riedy, short term missionary from California!

Please continue to pray for our doctors, the patients, peace in RDC (Zaire: the other side of the river), and that many will come to know the Lord during their stay at H.E.L.P.

May God bless you as you hold us up in prayer.

On behalf of the missionary team:

Dr. Joe Harvey and Rebecca, Olivia, Claire, Isabel, Noah;

Dr. Fuka and Patience, Laurent, Perpetue, Kelly;

Siko and Delphine Bambemba;

Art and Danielle Ralston & Michael;

Sarah Speer; Melanie Madinga; and Rachel Maurais;

Dr. Stephen and Anna Wegner, Ian, Isabelle, Caleb;

Our short term doctors: Drs. Eckehart & Klaudia Wolff, Dr. Juan Carlos Panchi;

Amy Riedy, short term missionary

Yours truly, Ginny and my husband, Jean-Pierre Vandevoorde

R smiling.jpg

Amy the welder.jpg

Gerard.jpg

Hospital Update

The following is a hospital update from Dr. Harvey. To read the complete newsletter visit Congo Harveys.

Things have been busy at the hospital. There is a new armed conflict going on northeast of Impfondo in the Equateur Region of neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. About 26,000 refugees have crossed to our side of the Oubangui River in the past month or so. At Pioneer Christian Hospital we have received 3 waves of wounded refugees, injured in the chaotic violence. We are taking care of 7 patients (ages 11 to 57) with gunshot wounds, and 4 with serious machete wounds. All have had one or two surgeries, and most need more to reattach tendons and further mend broken bones. Our hospital is now a stop on the humanitarian assistance/UN/government/media circuit as a number of delegations have come through to assess the situation. The Congo-Brazzaville & Congo-Kinshasa governments have responded quickly and effectively to the needs that we have presented, and we and our patients are very grateful.

Our need for nurses is even more critical than ever! It's really good to have 3 doctors on full-time staff now, but we don't have nearly enough nurses to carry out the doctors' orders. We hope to start a nursing school in January, which should help in the future, but we need nurses now! Often we have only 1 nurse on duty for 25-35 inpatients! This is unacceptable. Please pray for God to provide 4 RN's, 2 physician's assistants or nurse practitioners, and 4 LPN's as soon as possible.

Picts of the new digs....outside

I think we have all adjusted pretty well to life here in Impfondo. Caleb does seem to be having the most trouble with the food, the schedule and general adaption but even he is doing pretty well. The Pioneer Christian Hospital was kind enough to give me a week to be with the kids and Anna as we settle in as well.
Our house is indeed the blue house, and it seems like everyone here we talk to here and even get emails from the states mention "oh yeah, I stayed in the blue house". We hope to have a long stay here.
Our week was filled with firsts for us....First meal in the blue house, first fou-fou dish (just for Stephen), first church service, the first bike rides in Impfondo, first time to the market for Anna, first time for having our clothes washed by hand (not in the river though, our washer just used the spigot from outside our door), first tour of the hospital, first visit into a congolese home ( to do a dressing change on a man with Hansons Dz--aka leprosy), and we are all doing well. Thanks again for your prayers and your interest.

This next week holds more adjustment for us as well as I will begin more action at the hospital and Anna hopes to gradually reintroduce schooling to the children since its been a while.

Here is a list of things to pray for on each of the days of this next week.
Sunday- pray for the first church service for the kids, and for monday's adjustments
Monday-pray for me as I interact more with patients and for Anna and she continues to navigate new cooking styles, shopping and child care
Tuesday- pray for Ian as he gets continues to be the big brother and we seek to get more protein in his diet
Wed-pray for Isabelle as she continues to adjust to the heat and deals with her brothers
Thursday-pray for Caleb and is continued adjustments, better sleeping, and better eating habits
Friday-pray for the situation in the DRC and the refugees here in our Congo.
Saturday-pray for good relaxing for all of us and preps for the next week.

Now the picts....
the house and a tree house. more picts to follow and remember to check out our family blog as well to see other picts.

take care.

Stephen

We interupt this scheduled broadcast.....

We will get to more pictures on our house and our impressions here and correct some info generalities about our situation here. However, I thought I would share a news article with you about some skirmishing in the Democratic Republic of Congo that is not to far from us.
You can read a story on it at all africa.com For about 2-3 weeks at the hospital here we have been receiving machete and gunshot victims of the violence and although it is technically close it isn't really...but it is. Here is a pict from google earth. the green arrow is the fighting area and if you look down at the bottom of the screen on the left side of the river you can see Impfondo.

Take a moment to pray for these victims and the perps for that matter as well.. The youngest here is a girl who needed her leg amputated after infection secondary to a wound.

More to come as we have news.

The Team in Imfondo

Our second day in Impfondo (Sunday), we were able to attend a worship time with the team here. We have really enjoyed getting to know each of these people. They are a great bunch, and I hope to share more details about them later.

Brazzaville Beginnings

We first were in Brazzaville (BZV) for one week before we went to Impfondo. Brazzaville is a big dusty city and the hub of the R.O.C. We were there for a bit of the rainy season and it rained mostly a night and almost every night.
There was a true "alliance" of people from different walks of life who helped us a tremendous amount from the native Congolese who helped us eat, change money, get around town, to great commission fund supported C&MA missionaries and SIL missionaries who patiently explained things to our small overheated brains and offered encouragement by their presence, food, and patience.


Here are our kids playing with some SIL missionary kids.




Here is Mr Brazza himself. Founder of European Brazzaville and by all accounts fairly decent guy as explorer conquerors go.











We even went to the zoo while we were there....a depressing but effective way of passing an afternoon. They have some monkeys, one tortoise, one crocodile, and some birds.

What we really did was spend a lot of time adjusting to the new time zone the new language the new climate and a new way of living. Electricity sporadic, running water as well. Mangoes very delicious and juicy, sweat lots of sweat, taxis with seat belts cut out of them, houses with barbwire, cell phones for $20 bucks and a SIM card to boot for $1-3 dollars. So thank you for your prayers during that time of our stay here in the ROC, and hopefully we will have more updates soon.

back on line

Thanks to all you prayer warriors.
You have made our first week in Congo a resounding success!
Keep up the good work
We are in Impfondo, our luggage is as well.
We are connected to the internet and will be getting settled in gradually.
There will be picts to follow, I hope, and more details. as well.

Thanks again

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

The end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?

A couple of days ago I was reading 1John 4:18. There is no fear in love, for perfect love drives out fear. The one who fears has not been made perfect in love. The one who fears has not been made perfect in love. One phrase in the french bible we have says....love perfectly banishes fear.

I am thinking that I've not been made perfect in love because boy am i nervous right now. We are very soon taking our kids to the ROC, and beginning a very new chapter in our lives. We are excited relieved and sad to be leaving. There is also a lot of uncertainty left for when we get there. We go knowing God has provided for us in the past, has provided for others in the past, and is providing for us now.

Please know that we are very grateful for your prayers and your support, and that we are going because you are supporting us in prayer, finances, communication, logistics, and moral support.

I now want to be so bold to ask you to pray for us as we travel from 11am EST (leaving Hazard KY) Nov 6th through 2am EST (8am in Brazzaville) Nov 8th.
Tomorrow there will be an hourly schedule and I would like each of you to consider picking an hour to in that 39hr period we will be traveling to pray for us.
Thanks

Stephen

FAQ's Continued General and Financial

Can you believe we only have just over 72 hours before our plane leaves for the ROC!!! We have a lot to do in that time, and are keeping pretty busy.

Some things we've done since our last post....
We traveled to PA to speak at the church my Aunt Lois and Uncle Bill attend, and we were able also then to see some old friends from a camp Anna and I worked at and even some friends from MT! We then swung by Baltimore MD and met with some members of the CMA church there that we used to attend when we lived there.

We then traveled back to KY and I spoke at another of our supporting churches here in Hazard.

We've also bought more stuff we need for Africa and have been busy packing and organizing as well.

Unfortunately this also brings some tough decisions about leaving stuff or taking it.

Now for the FAQ's

What is the time zone in the ROC?
It is 1+ past the GMT which means we are in the Eastern Hemisphere in the ROC and it also means that we are 6 hrs ahead of EST (-5 GMT) and 8 hrs ahead of MST (-8 GMT) but I think that decreases by an hour for each of them during daylight savings time.

FINANCIAL FAQ's

Are you at your target level for support?
Almost. We need about $200 more per month to be at our target level.

What is your target level?
$3,000/mo.

Is that enough for you to live on in the ROC?
Honestly, no. Other support is coming from one time gifts from jobs that I worked this summer in various emergency departments, and from our savings.

How can we give?
Go to www.wegners4theroc.blogspot.com and scroll down to the bottom of the page. There are instructions there.

What if we want to give something just to the kids for college or whatever?
If you want to give us or the kids a personal gift you can send make the check directly out to us and send it to:
Meznarich Accounting
PO BOX 1113
Cut Bank MT 59427

We have also set up a 529 B college savings funds for each of our children. If you wish to give to that then you still send the check to the Meznarich Accounting address but make it out to Charles Schwab and then put the child's name in the memo section. Our accountant can get it into the right account.

Can we help pay for specific items you need in the ROC?
Yes you can. IF you or your church wants to help us purchase specific things for the ROC just let us know.
Some items we will be purchasing are:
Propane powered refrigerator $3,000 USD
Propane powered stove $200-500 USD
Ceramic water filter ~$ ???
Cell phone and or SIM cards for cell phones with plan $50--200
bicycles $50-150 per bike times 4-5.

Just let me know via email at swegn001@gmail.com and we will let you know how you can underwrite such things.


Now I grow weary of writing of financial matters and I think that covers things. Let me know if there are any other questions.

Thanks for praying.