From: “Bren­da Lange”
Date: July 19, 2011 8:25:33 AM CDT
Sub­ject: Blog July 19, 2011

INTRODUCING THE CHILI/DUNG BOMB!
 
The World Wildlife Fed­er­a­tion set up a pro­gram last year just south of our “Ele­phant Vil­lage” to pro­vide farm­ers a line of defence against ele­phants raid­ing their fields.
Their solu­tion is a dry con­coc­tion of ele­phant manure and the pow­der from the local Peri-Peri chiles.  These chiles when dried and pound­ed into a pow­der pro­vide a dust that burns the eyes and lungs when inhaled.  Some­one put some in a bag of corn we received this year (think­ing it would pre­vent bugs), so my whole work crew expe­ri­enced how pow­er­ful it can be!  Cough­ing, sneez­ing, and burn­ing eyes, were expe­ri­enced by all in the area.  Every­one quick­ly left the area for about 20 min­utes until the wind blew it away.  There is no doubt that an ele­phant would run from this too! 
So Bush Bunny’s gar­den­er has just plant­ed over 50 peri peri trees.
Our plan is to raise tons of chill­ies to dis­trib­ute to the Ele­phant Vil­lage farm­ers so they will be well pre­pared for the ele­phant raids that will sure­ly come in March, 2012.  God made the Ele­phants and the Chilies and the 2 don’t mix.  So Ele­phants be forewarned!
Stay in the game reserve and eat your trees, or suf­fer the con­se­quences of the Chili Bomb!
 
WATER WELLS IN MELUCO
 
Two drilled and 2 to go!
The first 2 water wells flowed freely with clean “sweet” water at a depth of 52 meters or (167 ft.) deep.
Third stop was the Ele­phant vil­lage.  The drill hit a type of under­ground soil for­ma­tion it couldn’t han­dle, so a spe­cial machine is being brought in this week to com­plete the well.  The 4th well has not been attempt­ed, as the geol­o­gists still have not found water near our mis­sion sta­tion.  They are sup­posed to return next week to check out anoth­er area just north of our mis­sion, which would serve many of our orphans and pos­si­bly the mis­sion sta­tion also.
Keep those prayers com­ing!  There has to be water out there, we just need God to guide them to it.
 
MICHIGAN TEAM FLYING IN JULY 23rd
Six short term mis­sion­ar­ies from the Muskegon area will fly to Pem­ba this Saturday.
Com­ing to teach, preach, and show the Jesus Film, they will help plant a church in a vil­lage that has nev­er known the love of Jesus Chris.
Five of the 6 will expe­ri­ence Africa for the first time.
Led by Sal­ly Dyke­ma and Dale Mein­derts­ma, it should be a whirl­wind week.
Stay tuned for the “rest of the sto­ry”. J
 
Blessings,
Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma team

From: “Bren­da Lange” 
Date: July 9, 2011 10:07:10 PM
Sub­ject: Blog, Sat­ur­day, July 9, 2011

As all you Amer­i­cans were wak­ing up on Sat­ur­day, our water well team was com­plet­ing the deep­est well we’ve had to drill so far.
In a Melu­co Coun­ty Vil­lage Called N’Coripo, they hit TONS of WATER at 52 meters (169 ft.).
Every­one was danc­ing and hav­ing a par­ty, as these peo­ple have long suf­fered with­out a source of clean drink­ing water.
YOUR LOVE GIFTS are mak­ing this pos­si­ble and the Lord Jesus and Orphans Unlim­it­ed thank you for your awe­some gen­eros­i­ty that is sav­ing 1000’s of lives.
Bless­ings, Bush Bun­ny Brenda
 
We also thank you for your prayers for the Melu­co mis­sion station’s need for water.   We are con­fi­dent that God will show these men where the water to drill in that area. The team promis­es to not give up.
 

From: “Bren­da Lange” 
Date: July 9, 2011 3:08:23 AM CDT
Sub­ject: Blog July 9, 2011

WATER WELL DRILLING STARTS TODAY
The geol­o­gy team from our water well com­pa­ny has locat­ed good water sources in 3 of the vil­lages where water wells are des­per­ate­ly needed.
But all of us are frus­trat­ed as no ade­quate under­ground water can be found in the area near­est our Melu­co mis­sion sta­tion.  The geol­o­gy team will return in 14 days to try again in an area fur­ther out that could still be with­in range of our “water fetch­er” on his bicycle.
For 4 years, our Melu­co mis­sion has been on water rationing.  Each day our “water pump­ing man” has to pump water at 3a.m., which is the only time the ONE well in the area lacks a big crowd.  This well serves over 5,000 peo­ple.  A hand pump well if pumped 12 hours a day can serve about 1000 people.
This is water rationing in its truest sense.
 
IN THE BUSH, THE LITTLEST OF THINGS CAN TAKE YOU DOWN
Don Hits­man and our team of corn sprayers were sched­uled to go to Melu­co on Thurs­day this week to spray 10 tons or corn pur­chased in the only part of Melu­co coun­ty that sur­vived the Jan­u­ary drought.  On Wed. after­noon, Don men­tioned he had a bit of diar­rhea, so he was giv­en a strong dysen­tery treat­ment (we lov­ing­ly call the “BOMB”) which took care of the issue as he was fine on Thurs­day morn­ing.  When Don left, he had with him our nor­mal bush sur­vival kit con­tain­ing all he’d need to han­dle malar­ia, dysen­tery, and small wounds, as he would be in the bush for 3 days.
Twelve hours lat­er, Don calls me (Melu­co now has a cell tow­er) say­ing his sit­u­a­tion was worse and he was  vom­it­ing and had diar­rhea again. (Liv­ing in a bush latrine is not nice since it’s just a hole in the ground with­out a seat.)  I instruct­ed him to eat some bread and take anoth­er “Bomb” treat­ment.  Our truck dri­ver then drove him in our 6 ton truck to the Melu­co hos­pi­tal 2 miles away for a malar­ia test.  Bounc­ing down a rough road when you are sick is NOT a nice expe­ri­ence, but when it’s the only vehi­cle in town, you deal with it.   Don’s malar­ia test was neg­a­tive, but the hos­pi­tal staff start­ed him on malar­ia treat­ment all the same.  Bet­ter safe than sor­ry, since these fin­ger stick malar­ia tests are not always cor­rect.   So all bases were covered.
On our side, I alert­ed Eric, who threw a few things in his car, plus 4 rolls of toi­let paper, and with­in 40 min­utes was on the road to res­cue Don in case he grew worse.   Arriv­ing 5 hours lat­er (9:30p.m.), Eric arrived at our base to find Don rest­ing in his tent, weak and tired from “liv­ing in the out­house” J, but oth­er­wise doing OK.  After 2 days on malar­ia treat­ment, it is evi­dent he had only amoe­bic dysen­tery and not malar­ia.  With elec­trolyte replace­ment and a day’s rest, he and his trusty ham­mer were back at work around our Bala­ma station.
 
Don is a strong, healthy guy, but an infes­ta­tion of amoe­bas, prob­a­bly from some­thing as sim­ple as eat­ing with his hands after touch­ing a fruit peel, showed the whole team how fast amoe­bic dysen­tery can take down an adult.   FYI:  Fruit peels place 2nd ONLY to dirty drink­ing water in caus­ing amoe­bic dysentery.
 
AMOEBIC DYSENTERY is the #1 killer in north­ern Mozam­bique, as it can kill a baby in 12 hours, a small child in a day, and adults in 3 days due to elec­trolyte imbal­ance and dehydration.
Water wells are a clean source of water, and the rea­son Orphans Unlim­it­ed will con­tin­ue to put in more water wells as the Lord pro­vides the funds.
Clean water means few­er orphans.
 
PRAISE THE LORD for the ded­i­ca­tion and faith­ful­ness of BLESSINGS INTERNATIONAL IN TULSA, OK who pro­vide mis­sion­ar­ies around the world with the life-sav­ing med­ica­tion that stops this dead­ly killer.
FYI: The “Bomb” is called Tinida­zole in 500mg tablets.
High­ly rec­om­mend­ed you take some with you if trav­el­ing where clean water isn’t read­i­ly available.
It’s a true life saver.
 
BLESSINGS TO ALL FROM THE BALAMA STAFF!
Bush Bun­ny Brenda
 
 

FOOD DROP TO ELEPHANT VILLAGE
Yes­ter­day, Sat­ur­day, July 2nd, our 6 ton truck left at 4a.m. with 4.5 tons of corn and 1,400 lbs of dried beans for the ele­phant vil­lage kids.
This will keep smiles on their faces and food on their plates for the next 2 months.
This was no easy task to orga­nize as our truck team of 3 men and our Melu­co orphan admin­is­tra­tor had to work hard to make pos­si­ble this direct food drop.
It’s the first time we’ve tried it, but it saves time and deliv­ery costs.
Sylvia, our Melu­co Adm., had to ride his 50 cc motor­bike to the cross roads (25 miles through ele­phant coun­try) to meet our truck.
All 4 men had to camp out last night at a near­by school after the dis­tri­b­u­tion, as they didn’t arrive at the ele­phant vil­lage (7 hour dri­ve from Bala­ma) until ear­ly after­noon to deliv­er the food.
Syl­vai told me that the ele­phants are quite active late after­noon, so he rode his motor­bike home on Sun­day morning.
The kids are look­ing health­i­er and I hope to vis­it them lat­er this month.

WATER WELLS TO PREVENT CHOLERA
I met with the new­ly appoint­ed STATE DIRECTOR of Social Ser­vices last Fri­day. Maria Argenti­na has a true heart for the chil­dren, and told us to “keep doing what we are doing, and do not slow down”. She is very impressed with our pro­gram and was espe­cial­ly hap­py to hear of the 4 wells we are drilling in Melu­co county.
Her only request was to ask for at least 2 water wells to pre­vent a 5th year of cholera in a place called Chi­ure (SHE-oor-EE), about 3 hours south east of Balama.
For the last 4 years, Chi­ure has had a year­ly out­break of cholera due to a lack of clean water. A lot of chil­dren have been orphaned. Anoth­er group stepped in to help those orphans, but NO ONE has done any­thing to pre­vent fur­ther out­breaks. Water wells are the only solution. 

Drilling com­mer­cial­ly now costs about $7000/well plus the pump ($1,700) and all cement work ($300).
New gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tions now make it impos­si­ble for any­one to drill with­out a com­mer­cial license.
Even with­out this red tape, the BEDROCK would have stopped our drilling machine, as both Melu­co coun­ty and the Chi­ure area have gran­ite bedrock on top of the under­ground water.
The drilling com­pa­ny we use has a machine that cuts through this type bedrock like a hot knife in but­ter, and they GUARANTEE WATER when they drill.
We have $8,000 in our water well fund, so help­ing these chil­dren to receive one water well is almost possible.
As the Lord pro­vides, we will orga­nize a 2nd well, as the area has sev­er­al thou­sand chil­dren liv­ing there.
One well can serve about 1000 people/day if it is pumped at least 16 hours/day.
That’s $9/person for many years to come!

Bless­ings from the Bala­ma and Melu­co staff.
Bush Bun­ny Brenda