From: “Bren­da Lange”
Date: Sep­tem­ber 25, 2011 5:53:49 AM CDT
Sub­ject: Blog Sept. 25th, 2011

AND THE CHILDREN SHALL LEAD THEM
Today at the Pequar­ia Church (spon­sored by Coop­ersville Reformed Church, MI), 122 chil­dren J came to the Sun­day School class to hear God’s Cre­ation sto­ry for the first time. (only had 45 last week)
 A 13 year old boy, who has attend­ed every church ser­vice since we showed the Jesus Film 8 weeks ago, knelt in the dirt at our feet to pray the prayer of Sal­va­tion.  He is the first per­son in this entire vil­lage to be this bold! 
A 5 year old boy got up (with­out prompt­ing) and led the singing at the Sun­day School, fol­lowed by an 8 year old girl who led the singing in the adult service.
Chil­dren are super sen­si­tive to God’s spir­it, and even though these kids only just met Jesus, it is clear that they love Him.
At the clos­ing today, we all lift­ed our hands and sang our Hal­lalu­jah song in wor­ship to the Lord.
The CHILDREN were so pre­cious, as they raised their hands, closed their eyes, and blend­ed their voic­es in beau­ti­ful wor­ship as their gift to Jesus!
God is gath­er­ing in those who tru­ly love Him.
 
NIPA MAKER ASKS THE LORD HOW TO GIVE HIM A NEW JOB
  Sev­er­al weeks ago, I told you of the man who came to church to bring his offer­ing, stat­ing he couldn’t stay cause he had to sell Nipa (corn whiskey) in order to buy grass to roof his mud hut.  Our teach­ing sunk in, as he tes­ti­fied today that he prayed to God and God told him to weave grass mats and food baskets.
Today, I saw his work, and became his first cus­tomer, as they are well made.
Our kids always need grass mats for dif­fer­ent activ­i­ties, so now I have a con­stant source I can rely on and he has a bet­ter way to make a living.
 
BUSY IN BALAMA WITH FOOD DISTRIBUTIONS
 
Dis­trib­ut­ing your love gifts of food and cloth­ing to 1000+ orphans in 3 remote loca­tions in Bala­ma coun­ty takes days of orga­ni­za­tion and lots of work!
Each dis­tri­b­u­tion needs 6 to 9 TONS of food per location.
Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, Sylvia, our orphan man­ag­er in Melu­co coun­ty (6 hour dri­ve away) is dis­trib­ut­ing food to 515 orphans in his area.
It takes 18 loads of food moved by our 6 ton truck between July and Novem­ber, just to sup­ply Melu­co with food for those orphans.
Tomor­row, Sam and Nate, our USA vis­i­tors will help our 6 man load­ing team to move anoth­er 9 tons to Kwe Kwe vil­lage for dis­tri­b­u­tion on Tuesday.
Since our trac­tor is out of action (see sto­ry below), the truck must take 2 loads of food the day before in order for us to dis­trib­ute on Tuesday.
 
Nilza, our new Social Ser­vice staff mem­ber, got her eyes full this week as she began work­ing with our program.
She told me she was stunned by the amount of kids we are help­ing, and the amount of work it takes to make it happen.
Your “love gifts” are hard at work! J
 
DANCING BRIDGE KEEPS WORKERS PRAYING
Our 6 ton truck per­ilous­ly crossed a bridge last Tues­day that actu­al­ly “dances” when a truck goes over it.
One of the main sup­port pil­lars under the bridge, as well as part of the bridge sur­face, are bad­ly cracked, caus­ing the whole bridge to “sway” back and forth when a truck cross­es over it.
At our next month’s give out in Impire, we will have the kids walk to that bridge (not far from our nor­mal dis­tri­b­u­tion site), to receive their food.
I was not aware this bridge was so weak until our team report­ed back after our dis­tri­b­u­tion this week.
Need­less to say, we won’t be cross­ing it again until some­one fix­es it. (which prob­a­bly won’t hap­pen until it collapses)
 
ERIC DRY CROSSED MOZ. BORDER TODAY WITHOUT PROBLEMS.
We hope to see him dri­ve in on Thurs­day this week.
Prayers for a smooth trip are much appreciated.
Yep, it takes 5 full days to make the dri­ve from S. Africa to Bala­ma.  He’ll stop over one night in Nam­pu­la, 7 hours south of us, to buy new tires for our 6 ton truck and water well sup­plies so we can fix a few wells need­ing repairs.
 
Our TRACTOR with 2 ton trail­er went out of ser­vice this week with a leak­ing seal on the left rear wheel.  Eric bought the parts and hopes to have it work­ing again ASAP upon his arrival.  Try­ing to haul rock and sand for our con­struc­tion jobs is no joy with just a pick-up.
 
NACACCA CHURCH HELD UP BY BLIND VILLAGE CHIEF
  After meet­ing with Nacac­ca lead­ers this week, our Pas­tors found out that the cul­prit who closed our church is the ancient vil­lage chief who is now blind (both phys­i­cal­ly and spiritually).
He is no longer an offi­cial vil­lage rep­re­sen­ta­tive and has no legal pow­er to do this, but that didn’t stop him.
  The vil­lage lead­ers tried to tell him that it is against the law to do what he did, but he won’t lis­ten and the vil­lagers are afraid of him.  This week, the Gov­ern­ment is send­ing a rep­re­sen­ta­tive with an offi­cial order so that the church can meet again start­ing Oct.2nd.
Nine of the church mem­bers walked 5 miles today in order to wor­ship with us in Balama.
It’s very hum­bling to see how far these peo­ple will walk for the plea­sure of wor­ship­ping the Lord Jesus.
 
Bless­ings, and thanks so much for keep­ing us in your prayers.
Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma gang!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

From:Brenda Lange
Date: Sep­tem­ber 17, 2011
Sub­ject: Blog, Sept. 17, 2011

MORE New Reg­u­la­tions for Orphan Homes sets off wave of mass construction.
 
  Praise the Lord that these new rules do not affect our 20 mud brick homes host­ing wid­owed grand­moth­ers who are rais­ing their orphaned grandchildren.
But the new rules spec­i­fy that orphans liv­ing in “Fos­ter Homes” (because they have no fam­i­ly at all), must be housed in CONCRETE BRICK homes.
It affects 5 of our homes host­ing 15 orphans and 2 fos­ter moth­ers (as well as our teenage boy’s dorm).
The con­struc­tion must be fin­ished by Dec. 2012.
Sounds like a long way off, but Dec. to April is the rainy sea­son mak­ing con­struc­tion very difficult.
 
Cur­rent­ly, I’m super­vis­ing the con­struc­tion of the new dorm for orphan boys ages 11 to 18.
Our con­struc­tion teams con­sist of 3 brick lay­ing teams, one roof­ing crew, an 11 man rock break­ing crew, and 1 car­pen­try team mak­ing doors and windows.
Out here if you need some­thing, you make it yourself.
 
This is what it takes to build some­thing in our area:
Our car­pen­ters con­tract­ed wood cut­ters to cut 4X4 beams and boards in the bush.  We trans­port them to our ware­house, where the car­pen­ters turn them into roofs, doors, win­dows, and tables for the kids.
The brick lay­ers have to have cer­tain size rocks for the foun­da­tions of the homes, so 11 men sit all day in a shad­ed area break­ing rocks with hammers.
The only thing we buy ready-made is nails, tin roof­ing sheets, and bags of cement.  All that has to be hauled in from 30 miles away.
In fact, our 6 ton truck took a load of food to Meluco’s orphans yes­ter­day, and on their return will buy 5 tons of cement that must be unloaded this after­noon into our warehouse.
 
Noth­ing comes easy out here.
Once the dorm is fin­ished we will have to start build­ing the 5 new fos­ter homes.
I’ll tell you more about that once the dorm con­struc­tion is completed.
 
SECOND REGULATION:  Each large orphan pro­gram must hire a grad­u­ate of the Social Ser­vice School in Maputo to help super­vise the orphans.
  Nilza, our 21 year old new grad­u­ate will be arriv­ing TONIGHT from Maputo.
Cape­na, my office man­ag­er, left at 4:30a.m. today to fetch her at the Pem­ba airport.
We are cur­rent­ly orga­niz­ing a house for her too.  In the mean­time, she will stay with Domini­ca, our Woman’s Pastor.
Going from Maputo city to a mud hut will be a cul­ture shock for her.
We all hope she can make the adjustments.
 
CHURCH UPDATE:
1.      ROOF COMPLETED for Kop­wee­to Church (donat­ed by Rebec­ca Har­ris’ and sup­port­ers from Rock Island, TX area). THANK YOU to all who sup­port­ed Rebec­ca and helped her make this roof pos­si­ble.  The church mem­bers are VERY excit­ed to have a good roof to pro­tect the new church they built.
2.     DONOR of Kwe Kwe church walls, Bette Everett, of Cypress, TX. THANK YOU for mak­ing it pos­si­ble for these new Chris­tians to have “strong walls” for their church.   Pas­tor Alber­to went to Kwe Kwe today on his motor­bike to teach God’s Word and orga­nize a brick lay­er to fin­ish the church walls this week.   I just received the 4X4 roof­ing beams yes­ter­day, so our car­pen­ter team will be going out by the end of Sept. to put on the roof.
3.     Pequar­ia, the lit­tle church I per­son­al­ly dis­ci­ple, is hard at work mak­ing bricks so they can build a small church.  The old build­ing we meet in will not last through this rainy sea­son as the roof is already “sway­back”, and is being held up by one tree trunk.  The walls are full of ter­mites, as they ate the bam­boo and fence posts used to hold up the mud plas­ter.  I’ve con­vinced them that it is bet­ter to meet in the shade out­side their present church for now.
4.      Nac­ca­ca Church has hit per­se­cu­tion from the vil­lage chief who stopped a meet­ing last week claim­ing we are ille­gal­ly there.  Reli­gious Affairs has been noti­fied and this should be cleared up this week. The gov­ern­ment rec­og­nizes us as a reg­is­tered church and will send the police if nec­es­sary to inform the vil­lage lead­ers of this fact, as they are in the wrong try­ing to stop us from meet­ing in their village.
 
MIRACULOUS RECOVERY FROM MALARIA!
Sam Lyles start­ed with a high fever on Wed. evening fol­lowed by all the oth­er symp­toms of malaria.
Prayer fol­lowed imme­di­ate­ly by treat­ment was the course of action.
Malar­ia is usu­al­ly quite drain­ing the first time some­one has it, which was the case the first 24 hours with Sam.
Sam’s words were, “I feel like I was hit by a truck.” (which is exact­ly what it feels like).  You become weak as a new born kit­ten, no appetite, and have a severe headache if you sit up at all.
Yet 24 hours after the onset, Sam is out of bed, walks the 100 yards to my house, and EATS with us.
THAT, my friends is the pow­er of Jesus’ heal­ing pow­er, cause it is NOT ORDINARY.
We PTL for Sam’s quick recovery.
 
The Lord’s Bless­ings on all you put your hands too in the week ahead.
Love in Christ,
Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma Team
 
 
 

From: “Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange
Date: Sep­tem­ber 10, 2011 10:30:31 PM CDT

Sub­ject: Blog Sept. 11, 2011

5 WATER WELLS COMPLETED (Thanks to your generosity!)
 
Bala­ma County–2 wells
Melu­co County–3 wells (includes the Ele­phant village)
 
All 5 wells are now pump­ing 1000’s of liters of water/day to over 500 fam­i­lies in EACH of these 5 villages.
A BIG THANK YOU to all of you who pooled your resources to make this happen!
 
There is still one well to be dug in the area of our Melu­co mis­sion sta­tion and orphan houses.
With much per­sis­tence, a Chris­t­ian geol­o­gist, know­ing how des­per­ate the water sit­u­a­tion is for our orphans, final­ly locat­ed 2 areas that show good promise.
  A break down in the water well drilling truck has caused a delay in com­plet­ing this well.
The com­pa­ny expects to have it dug before the end of Sept.
 
VISITORS ARRIVE TO LEND A HELPING HAND
On Sept. 3rd, I picked up Samuel Lyles of San Anto­nio, TX and Nathan Bell of Colum­bus, Ohio.
Sam is a Junior an Account­ing major at Texas A&M, and Nathan is a Youth Pas­tor with expe­ri­ence in African missions.
Both have done a won­der­ful job of “jump­ing in” and help­ing this week with the many prac­ti­cal tasks as well as enforc­ing our new Youth Pro­gram for teenagers.
These 2 young men instant­ly won the hearts of the peo­ple, as Nathan stepped in the first day of devo­tions for our work­ers and taught them a fun­ny “kid’s camp” song.
He had every­one howl­ing with laugh­ter as they tried to imi­tate his hand motions.
They will bless us with their assis­tance till late November.
 
GROUND BREAKING FOR NEW DORM
 
Last year you read of our dilem­ma with the new paved high­way con­demn­ing many of our orphan homes, forc­ing us to con­struct new homes for the children.
Our present dorm is home to 11 teenage orphan boys in grades 6–10.
The new high­way did not con­demn their home, but it will pass just 30 feet from their front door.
Social Ser­vices agree that the boys need­ed to move to a safer loca­tion, so one acre of land was orga­nized just out­side our mis­sion fence.
Con­struc­tion of the new com­plex hope­ful­ly will be com­plet­ed in Decem­ber, and is being financed by the sell­ing of the old dorm site.
 
GOAT BARNS ALMOST READY
  Find­ing a suit­able loca­tion, and build­ing a goat barn with cor­ral took a bit longer than expected.
Thanks to Youth Leader Car­l­i­tos Jorge of Rovu­ma, it is final­ly ready to go.
We are look­ing at breed­ing stock next week, and hope to get our first breed­ing herd start­ed by the end of the month.
FYI:  Car­l­i­tos grew up in our pro­gram, as he is the son of our first fos­ter moth­er Assia.  Assia has been with us from 2003 and is still car­ing for 7 orphans in her home.
She has fos­tered 10 oth­er chil­dren to adult­hood in her lov­ing care.
 
THE CONTINUING SAGA OF THE BALAMA BUSH CHURCHES J
Pequaria’s church offer­ing and offer­ing bas­ket were final­ly returned to us this week, after Pas­tor Gito had a long talk with the woman who took it.
 
The 3 brick lay­ers of the Kwe Kwe church will remain in jail until Decem­ber for poach­ing an elephant. 
We dis­trib­uted food to the Kwe Kwe orphans on Fri­day, and vis­it­ed the church’s con­struc­tion site. 
The church mem­bers were work­ing hard to build the brick walls and were doing a fair­ly good job too.
The 2 long walls were lean­ing out­ward a bit, so we asked them to tear down the “lean­ing part” and do it over.
Pas­tor Alber­to rode his motor­bike out there yes­ter­day for their dis­ci­ple­ship class and promised to make sure the walls were stand­ing straight.
 
ERIC DRY, our Asso­ciate Direc­tor in Bala­ma, is wrap­ping up the sup­ply trip pur­chas­es this week in South Africa and hopes to leave for Bala­ma by ear­ly next week.
 
That’s all for now folks!
Bless­ings and Love,
Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma gang.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 From: “Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange
Date: Sep­tem­ber 10, 2011 10:30:31 PM CDT
To:  Sub­ject: Blog Sept. 11, 2011

5 WATER WELLS COMPLETED (Thanks to your generosity!)
 
Bala­ma County–2 wells
Melu­co County–3 wells (includes the Ele­phant village)
 
All 5 wells are now pump­ing 1000’s of liters of water/day to over 500 fam­i­lies in EACH of these 5 villages.
A BIG THANK YOU to all of you who pooled your resources to make this happen!
 
There is still one well to be dug in the area of our Melu­co mis­sion sta­tion and orphan houses.
With much per­sis­tence, a Chris­t­ian geol­o­gist, know­ing how des­per­ate the water sit­u­a­tion is for our orphans, final­ly locat­ed 2 areas that show good promise.
  A break down in the water well drilling truck has caused a delay in com­plet­ing this well.
The com­pa­ny expects to have it dug before the end of Sept.
 
VISITORS ARRIVE TO LEND A HELPING HAND
On Sept. 3rd, I picked up Samuel Lyles of San Anto­nio, TX and Nathan Bell of Colum­bus, Ohio.
Sam is a Junior an Account­ing major at Texas A&M, and Nathan is a Youth Pas­tor with expe­ri­ence in African missions.
Both have done a won­der­ful job of “jump­ing in” and help­ing this week with the many prac­ti­cal tasks as well as enforc­ing our new Youth Pro­gram for teenagers.
These 2 young men instant­ly won the hearts of the peo­ple, as Nathan stepped in the first day of devo­tions for our work­ers and taught them a fun­ny “kid’s camp” song.
He had every­one howl­ing with laugh­ter as they tried to imi­tate his hand motions.
They will bless us with their assis­tance till late November.
 
GROUND BREAKING FOR NEW DORM
 
Last year you read of our dilem­ma with the new paved high­way con­demn­ing many of our orphan homes, forc­ing us to con­struct new homes for the children.
Our present dorm is home to 11 teenage orphan boys in grades 6–10.
The new high­way did not con­demn their home, but it will pass just 30 feet from their front door.
Social Ser­vices agree that the boys need­ed to move to a safer loca­tion, so one acre of land was orga­nized just out­side our mis­sion fence.
Con­struc­tion of the new com­plex hope­ful­ly will be com­plet­ed in Decem­ber, and is being financed by the sell­ing of the old dorm site.
 
GOAT BARNS ALMOST READY
  Find­ing a suit­able loca­tion, and build­ing a goat barn with cor­ral took a bit longer than expected.
Thanks to Youth Leader Car­l­i­tos Jorge of Rovu­ma, it is final­ly ready to go.
We are look­ing at breed­ing stock next week, and hope to get our first breed­ing herd start­ed by the end of the month.
FYI:  Car­l­i­tos grew up in our pro­gram, as he is the son of our first fos­ter moth­er Assia.  Assia has been with us from 2003 and is still car­ing for 7 orphans in her home.
She has fos­tered 10 oth­er chil­dren to adult­hood in her lov­ing care.
 
THE CONTINUING SAGA OF THE BALAMA BUSH CHURCHES J
Pequaria’s church offer­ing and offer­ing bas­ket were final­ly returned to us this week, after Pas­tor Gito had a long talk with the woman who took it.
 
The 3 brick lay­ers of the Kwe Kwe church will remain in jail until Decem­ber for poach­ing an elephant. 
We dis­trib­uted food to the Kwe Kwe orphans on Fri­day, and vis­it­ed the church’s con­struc­tion site. 
The church mem­bers were work­ing hard to build the brick walls and were doing a fair­ly good job too.
The 2 long walls were lean­ing out­ward a bit, so we asked them to tear down the “lean­ing part” and do it over.
Pas­tor Alber­to rode his motor­bike out there yes­ter­day for their dis­ci­ple­ship class and promised to make sure the walls were stand­ing straight.
 
ERIC DRY, our Asso­ciate Direc­tor in Bala­ma, is wrap­ping up the sup­ply trip pur­chas­es this week in South Africa and hopes to leave for Bala­ma by ear­ly next week.
 
That’s all for now folks!
Bless­ings and Love,
Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma gang.
 
 
 From: “Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange
Date: Sep­tem­ber 10, 2011 10:30:31 PM CDT
To:  Sub­ject: Blog Sept. 11, 2011

5 WATER WELLS COMPLETED (Thanks to your generosity!)
 
Bala­ma County–2 wells
Melu­co County–3 wells (includes the Ele­phant village)
 
All 5 wells are now pump­ing 1000’s of liters of water/day to over 500 fam­i­lies in EACH of these 5 villages.
A BIG THANK YOU to all of you who pooled your resources to make this happen!
 
There is still one well to be dug in the area of our Melu­co mis­sion sta­tion and orphan houses.
With much per­sis­tence, a Chris­t­ian geol­o­gist, know­ing how des­per­ate the water sit­u­a­tion is for our orphans, final­ly locat­ed 2 areas that show good promise.
  A break down in the water well drilling truck has caused a delay in com­plet­ing this well.
The com­pa­ny expects to have it dug before the end of Sept.
 
VISITORS ARRIVE TO LEND A HELPING HAND
On Sept. 3rd, I picked up Samuel Lyles of San Anto­nio, TX and Nathan Bell of Colum­bus, Ohio.
Sam is a Junior an Account­ing major at Texas A&M, and Nathan is a Youth Pas­tor with expe­ri­ence in African missions.
Both have done a won­der­ful job of “jump­ing in” and help­ing this week with the many prac­ti­cal tasks as well as enforc­ing our new Youth Pro­gram for teenagers.
These 2 young men instant­ly won the hearts of the peo­ple, as Nathan stepped in the first day of devo­tions for our work­ers and taught them a fun­ny “kid’s camp” song.
He had every­one howl­ing with laugh­ter as they tried to imi­tate his hand motions.
They will bless us with their assis­tance till late November.
 
GROUND BREAKING FOR NEW DORM
 
Last year you read of our dilem­ma with the new paved high­way con­demn­ing many of our orphan homes, forc­ing us to con­struct new homes for the children.
Our present dorm is home to 11 teenage orphan boys in grades 6–10.
The new high­way did not con­demn their home, but it will pass just 30 feet from their front door.
Social Ser­vices agree that the boys need­ed to move to a safer loca­tion, so one acre of land was orga­nized just out­side our mis­sion fence.
Con­struc­tion of the new com­plex hope­ful­ly will be com­plet­ed in Decem­ber, and is being financed by the sell­ing of the old dorm site.
 
GOAT BARNS ALMOST READY
  Find­ing a suit­able loca­tion, and build­ing a goat barn with cor­ral took a bit longer than expected.
Thanks to Youth Leader Car­l­i­tos Jorge of Rovu­ma, it is final­ly ready to go.
We are look­ing at breed­ing stock next week, and hope to get our first breed­ing herd start­ed by the end of the month.
FYI:  Car­l­i­tos grew up in our pro­gram, as he is the son of our first fos­ter moth­er Assia.  Assia has been with us from 2003 and is still car­ing for 7 orphans in her home.
She has fos­tered 10 oth­er chil­dren to adult­hood in her lov­ing care.
 
THE CONTINUING SAGA OF THE BALAMA BUSH CHURCHES J
Pequaria’s church offer­ing and offer­ing bas­ket were final­ly returned to us this week, after Pas­tor Gito had a long talk with the woman who took it.
 
The 3 brick lay­ers of the Kwe Kwe church will remain in jail until Decem­ber for poach­ing an elephant. 
We dis­trib­uted food to the Kwe Kwe orphans on Fri­day, and vis­it­ed the church’s con­struc­tion site. 
The church mem­bers were work­ing hard to build the brick walls and were doing a fair­ly good job too.
The 2 long walls were lean­ing out­ward a bit, so we asked them to tear down the “lean­ing part” and do it over.
Pas­tor Alber­to rode his motor­bike out there yes­ter­day for their dis­ci­ple­ship class and promised to make sure the walls were stand­ing straight.
 
ERIC DRY, our Asso­ciate Direc­tor in Bala­ma, is wrap­ping up the sup­ply trip pur­chas­es this week in South Africa and hopes to leave for Bala­ma by ear­ly next week.
 
That’s all for now folks!
Bless­ings and Love,
Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma gang.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 From: “Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange
Date: Sep­tem­ber 10, 2011 10:30:31 PM CDT
To:  Sub­ject: Blog Sept. 11, 2011

5 WATER WELLS COMPLETED (Thanks to your generosity!)
 
Bala­ma County–2 wells
Melu­co County–3 wells (includes the Ele­phant village)
 
All 5 wells are now pump­ing 1000’s of liters of water/day to over 500 fam­i­lies in EACH of these 5 villages.
A BIG THANK YOU to all of you who pooled your resources to make this happen!
 
There is still one well to be dug in the area of our Melu­co mis­sion sta­tion and orphan houses.
With much per­sis­tence, a Chris­t­ian geol­o­gist, know­ing how des­per­ate the water sit­u­a­tion is for our orphans, final­ly locat­ed 2 areas that show good promise.
  A break down in the water well drilling truck has caused a delay in com­plet­ing this well.
The com­pa­ny expects to have it dug before the end of Sept.
 
VISITORS ARRIVE TO LEND A HELPING HAND
On Sept. 3rd, I picked up Samuel Lyles of San Anto­nio, TX and Nathan Bell of Colum­bus, Ohio.
Sam is a Junior an Account­ing major at Texas A&M, and Nathan is a Youth Pas­tor with expe­ri­ence in African missions.
Both have done a won­der­ful job of “jump­ing in” and help­ing this week with the many prac­ti­cal tasks as well as enforc­ing our new Youth Pro­gram for teenagers.
These 2 young men instant­ly won the hearts of the peo­ple, as Nathan stepped in the first day of devo­tions for our work­ers and taught them a fun­ny “kid’s camp” song.
He had every­one howl­ing with laugh­ter as they tried to imi­tate his hand motions.
They will bless us with their assis­tance till late November.
 
GROUND BREAKING FOR NEW DORM
 
Last year you read of our dilem­ma with the new paved high­way con­demn­ing many of our orphan homes, forc­ing us to con­struct new homes for the children.
Our present dorm is home to 11 teenage orphan boys in grades 6–10.
The new high­way did not con­demn their home, but it will pass just 30 feet from their front door.
Social Ser­vices agree that the boys need­ed to move to a safer loca­tion, so one acre of land was orga­nized just out­side our mis­sion fence.
Con­struc­tion of the new com­plex hope­ful­ly will be com­plet­ed in Decem­ber, and is being financed by the sell­ing of the old dorm site.
 
GOAT BARNS ALMOST READY
  Find­ing a suit­able loca­tion, and build­ing a goat barn with cor­ral took a bit longer than expected.
Thanks to Youth Leader Car­l­i­tos Jorge of Rovu­ma, it is final­ly ready to go.
We are look­ing at breed­ing stock next week, and hope to get our first breed­ing herd start­ed by the end of the month.
FYI:  Car­l­i­tos grew up in our pro­gram, as he is the son of our first fos­ter moth­er Assia.  Assia has been with us from 2003 and is still car­ing for 7 orphans in her home.
She has fos­tered 10 oth­er chil­dren to adult­hood in her lov­ing care.
 
THE CONTINUING SAGA OF THE BALAMA BUSH CHURCHES J
Pequaria’s church offer­ing and offer­ing bas­ket were final­ly returned to us this week, after Pas­tor Gito had a long talk with the woman who took it.
 
The 3 brick lay­ers of the Kwe Kwe church will remain in jail until Decem­ber for poach­ing an elephant. 
We dis­trib­uted food to the Kwe Kwe orphans on Fri­day, and vis­it­ed the church’s con­struc­tion site. 
The church mem­bers were work­ing hard to build the brick walls and were doing a fair­ly good job too.
The 2 long walls were lean­ing out­ward a bit, so we asked them to tear down the “lean­ing part” and do it over.
Pas­tor Alber­to rode his motor­bike out there yes­ter­day for their dis­ci­ple­ship class and promised to make sure the walls were stand­ing straight.
 
ERIC DRY, our Asso­ciate Direc­tor in Bala­ma, is wrap­ping up the sup­ply trip pur­chas­es this week in South Africa and hopes to leave for Bala­ma by ear­ly next week.
 
That’s all for now folks!
Bless­ings and Love,
Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma gang.