Busy, busy, busy!

That is the only way to describe how things have been for us since our return from Seattle. Some of it is just the usual full schedule that we have, combined with catch up after our trip, and topped off with more PAPERWORK! (AGGHHH- not more paperwork.)
Stephen had a four day weekend last weekend, Thursday-Sunday. Ian also had Friday and Saturday off school b/c of teacher's conferences. We took the opportunity on Thursday to go to Great Falls and complete some of our paperwork. We planned to send off the kids passport applications and get some replacement social security cards that we needed. Our day was spent going to various offices, etc. I won't bore you with all of the details, but it was a long day. One office had moved, one was closed for about 2 hrs for lunch. We spent some time going back and forth between places. Fortunately, Great Falls is not a big city, so it made things much simpler. We were able to get the kids passport applications sent, but we will have to go back for the social security cards. It seems the info on the web site is not really correct. I also never noticed that Ian's birth certificate has my maiden name wrong. We don't need those cards right away, so we will get it all straightened out eventually.
On Friday, we went to visit the Orts in Kalispell. We always enjoy seeing them, and we had a chance to relax a little. Stephen played golf with Jeff on Friday, and on Saturday, I spent about 8 hrs stamping with my friend Justine in Whitefish. It was great to see her, and catch up. Plus time away from the kids is nice every once in awhile.

We also had the chance to present our mission plans for the future at the Central Bible Church in Kalispell. (This is where the Orts attend.) Stephen spoke for a few minutes at the two morning services, and for about 30 at the Sunday evening service. This was the first time that we had done this other than at the church we attend. We were very grateful that they gave us the opportunity. The pictures are from Sunday evening right before the service started.
Jeff and Emmy had offered to keep the kids on Sunday evening, since there was no children's program. I thought they would be fine, if we just took something for them to do. (I know-- What was I thinking!) Ian did really well. He spent the time drawing. The other two did not. Caleb does not like to sit still for long, and Isabelle took her lead from him. I think everyone was understanding about it though.
Our paperwork for Quebec is finished and in the mail. Now we just have to wait for the passports, and that paperwork to be processsed. Then we can begin to make plans to rent a house there, and moving plans. We still plan to leave here in Dec, and spend some time with our families. Then we will go to Quebec and start learning French. A few people have asked if we are nervous. I think that we have been to busy to be nervous. We are also so excited to be moving forward.
We have started a blog with all of our mission info called Wegners 4 the ROC. It is still under construction, but there are a few things on there, including some slide shows with pictures from the Congo. I will have a link on the side to that blog.
I know this has been a long post. Next time I will have less typing and more pictures!

Republic of Congo Info

Anna made me get my own posting name so she doesn't get blamed for my writing. Therefore this is my first one.

I thought everyone might like to know some fun facts about the Republic of Congo (hereafter the ROC).

You have the location from a prior post.
The size in area is about the size of Montana.
There are 3.8 million people in the country and they are divided into around 5 ethnic groups:
Kongo 48%, Sangha 20%, M'Bochi 12%, Teke 17%, Europeans and other 3%.
The infant mortality rate is 83 deaths per 1000 births. This ranks 24th worst in the world and is a lot higher than the United States 6.7/10000.
In a country of 3.8 million there were 9,700 deaths from HIV the last time there were totals.

The current head of state is President Denis Sassou-Nguesso. He used to be a Marxist but was ousted in the 80s. He then returned in the 90s and is now more "rightward" in his overt politics.
It was under his regime in the 80's that the current hospital site was started as a Communist Youth Camp. He currently overtly suports the work there in Impfondo.

The issues in the ROC are similar to other nations...unequal wealth distribution, dwindling resources, and ethnic conflict. The latter affects the ROC because they are a host nation for lots of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

To get more information about the the govt facts and compare the ROC to other countries go to:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html

I hope this helps.

Fun in Missoula

RV fun in Missoula.

The RV....

The bunk where Isabelle and Ian slept

The eating place.

This weekend we went to Missoula in a borrowed RV (there should be a song about that). Mary Jo ( a friend in Browning) let us borrow her RV and off we went. While in Missoula, we reconnected with old friends, met new ones and had some fun.

The old friends were David and Becky Thompson. We spent six weeks with them in Gabon Africa when Stephen was in medical school. They continue to serve there. They are both currently involved in doing a lot of teaching. David even has helped organize a residency training program for young African Christian surgeons!

The New friends were Brad and Laura Torsen. They currently work at an Alliance church in Missoula and were on the appointment committee from last week with us. They have been missionaries in the past in Guinea and Ivory Coast.

We arrived Friday night and after some head scratching were able to get everything on the RV hooked up without major incident.

Saturday morning we attended seminars that David and Becky were doing at the Missoula Alliance Church. Anna and I would take turns listening to them speak and watching the kids. It worked out well since the church had a good sized nursery.

We also met a retired anesthesiologist named John Bradford who has quite a heart for missions. He was very interested to hear our plans and even asked me to speak after the last session of the morning. now more people know about what we are doing.

The rest of the day was taken up by swimming for Ian, Isabelle and I while Anna and Caleb rested, then relaxing as a family.

Sunday we attended church, had lunch with some of the above mentioned families and then drove on home.

Overall an exhausting but fun trip.

This weekend we are speaking at our home church and letting them know more details about our progress towards Africa. Continue to keep us in your prayers

"THE MEETING"

Anna and I wanted to thank everyone who prayed for us yesterday as we met with reps from the C&MA. There were four people who interviewed us and the interview was scheduled to go for 1.5 to 2 hours. I thought "what can we talk about for two hours?!" Well it went to almost 4pm. That is 3 hours if you were scoring at home, and at time was even emotional for everyone there (again, who would of thunk it?) The dynamics in the room were pretty cool, and overall very supportive. I was encouraged both by one member of the committee who was almost cheering us on, but was also relieved by another member who was relatively dogged about getting us to talk through some theological issues. The encouragement from the former was obvious but the the latter was encouraging to me because it reassured me that the C&MA as an organization is dedicated to having strong Christians in its ranks as missionaries.

The bottom line is that they were recommending confirmation to the C&MA for us. There were some details of Alliance distinctives that we were a little hazy on. I will have to talk to Pastor John (our Baltimore pastor at the C&MA church) about slacking on a couple of issues in his preaching topics.....of course it could be I might have dozed off a couple of times:)

From here we wait to here from Phil Skellie who is the director of IFAP to go from here. Further issues to be addressed are:
1) how much money will we need for support?
2)Where can we do language study? (we have a good idea on this one)
3)How is the relationship between C&MA and GO mission will be worked out?


Anna and I are very anxious to be going and doing so continue praying for us.

In other news, we will probably travel to Missoula next weekend since a missionary couple that we were with in Gabon will be speaking. They have served for a couple of decades in Gabon, he is a surgeon and she is a nurse (David and Becky Thompson).

THE HARVEYS

Here is a picture of the Harveys. Joe is an FP doc who with his wife and kids have been in the Republic of Congo. They have a blog at www.congoharveys.blogspot.com. They also have a website at www.congoharveys.org Their story is actually pretty cool. We met them when we were on a short term mission trip in Bongolo, Gabon and have kept in touch with them ever since. Please keep them in your prayers as well.

trial run #3

here goes again. This was the third try for me to get this ppt embedded on our site. I will play around some more with it. THe info itself is esoteric but i am sure my mom (Doris) will find it interesting:) I am trying get this organized so I can post Congo info easier