From: “Bren­da Lange” 
Date: Octo­ber 30, 2011 6:27:05 AM CDT
Sub­ject: Blog, Oct. 30, 2011

THE DUMB SHALL SPEAK!?
Eric Dry, our Asso­ciate Direc­tor in Bala­ma, went with me today to Pequar­ia.  We noticed an old­er man and a teenage boy sit­ting in the back of the Sun­day school class whom we didn’t know. The teenage boy sat curled up in a fetal posi­tion, with his face hid­den the whole time.  The old man explained that he is the father to this teenag­er, and asked us to rid him of evil spirits.
We min­is­tered to the father first, but he refused to accept Jesus. How­ev­er, this father knew the spir­its would leave his son if we prayed in the name of Jesus.
Jac­in­to, his son, was mute!  The vil­lagers in our church tes­ti­fied that he doesn’t speak and that he is men­tal­ly retarded.
 
We laid hands on Jac­in­to, and when com­mand­ed “IN THE NAME OF JESUS”, THE DEMONDS FLED and his voice was released!
JACINTO IMMEDIATELY SPOKE THE NAME OF JESUS AS HIS FIRST WORD! 
In a few sec­onds this young man was FREE.
All of us began to sing and Jac­in­to began to clap and sing along too!
He was in no way men­tal­ly retard­ed, as he answered every ques­tion we asked once his tongue was set free.
His father was AMAZED as Jacinto’s eyes which had been dull and life­less, now “smiled” with new life.
His whole appear­ance imme­di­ate­ly changed from sad­ness to joy!
Jesus is chang­ing lives at a rapid rate in this lit­tle vil­lage, and I can’t wait to see what He does next! 
 
 
TORNADO LEVELS 5 VILLAGES JUST SOUTH OF BALAMA
 
This week’s food dis­tri­b­u­tions were delayed in Bala­ma when a mas­sive thun­der storm caused tor­na­dos to sweep through 2 states, destroy­ing con­crete brick schools and 1000’s of mud huts.
The hard­est hit in our area was the Dis­trict of Namuno, just 20 miles south of us.  Num­bers of dead and injured are unknown.
  Namuno is the coun­ty the Lord direct­ed us to help next.  We had hoped to expand our orphan pro­gram to this area this year, as it has only one church in the whole coun­ty, and no one car­ing for their orphans.  Note: We were refused entry this year by Social Ser­vices due to all the “re-reg­is­ter­ing” process for our new fos­ter care license.
 
  On Tues­day, the State Governor’s office request­ed a meet­ing with us, offi­cial­ly ask­ing for food assis­tance for 100’s of starv­ing fam­i­lies who lost every­thing but the clothes on their backs.  We delayed our sched­uled trip to the Ele­phant Vil­lage on Fri­day, and took them 5 tons of corn and 1 ton of beans (max­i­mum load for our truck).
It was the largest gift giv­en that day as busi­ness­es and oth­ers brought what they could to help those in need.
The Gov­er­nor him­self super­vised the unload­ing of the sup­plies into an old ware­house that with­stood the storm .  The sup­plies would be orga­nized and dis­trib­uted the next day to those in need.  In Namuno town, every per­ma­nent build­ing lost its tin roof (2 schools, Catholic and Protes­tant church) as well as oth­er buildings.
A BUSH FIRE in the area was fanned by the winds, and burned out a whole vil­lage before the winds lev­elled the walls. The for­est fire left only charred sticks stand­ing in the area where beau­ti­ful cashew nut trees had stood.  (This is the same storm that hit Kwe Kwe last Sat­ur­day.)  Thanks to prayer, Kwe Kwe vil­lage was spared seri­ous dam­age.  Namuno lacks the gospel and there­fore had no prayer protection.
 
When I came to Bala­ma, the Lord showed me Joshua 1:5–9, empha­siz­ing that NO MAN would be able to stand against me all the days of my life.
The door to Nam­pu­la was shut to us, and now God has opened it for both the gospel and food assistance.
Aguas Vivas (Liv­ing Waters of Mozam­bique) is our name in Mozam­bique.  That name is now known in Namuno as YOUR gen­er­ous gift of food made quite an impres­sion on the huge hun­gry crowd that watched the unload­ing of the supplies.
We’ll keep you post­ed on how things progress there.
 
 
BUILD THE WALL PROJECT
 
I told you last week that we have to rebuild all 5 of our fos­ter care homes by Decem­ber, or we will lose our fos­ter care license.
We were blessed this week to receive a gift that would buy the 356 bags of cement need­ed to make the 30,000 BRICKS that will build those 5 homes.
We prayed, and God met the need, giv­ing us the head start we need­ed on this intense con­struc­tion project for 2012.
 
Sam and Nate are only here through Novem­ber, and brick mak­ing takes 2 strong young men to oper­ate the machine. They jumped at the chance to serve the Lord by mak­ing 850 bricks a day with our Hydro­form Brick Mak­ing Machine and its 12 man crew.  Instead of count­ing sheep as they go to bed at night, they now count BRICKS!
This job requires much con­cen­tra­tion and sta­mi­na as they work from 5a.m. to 11a.m. each day. (Sun-up is 4:30a.m. in Octo­ber and the best time to work.)
It is  98–100 degrees F. (37–38 C) by noon each day, so we all try to lim­it our work to the morn­ing hours.
 
We are very grate­ful for these 2 young men, and the ser­vice gift they are con­tribut­ing to this project.
I PRAISE THE LORD for pro­vid­ing our needs, even before we knew we need­ed them.
 
The remain­ing build­ing costs for these 5 hous­es are: (16 ft. X 26 ft.) or (5 m. X 8 m)
EACH WALL:  needs 926 bricks/wall.  Our bricks are BIG. (25cm X 22cm X 11cm high)
Cost of ONE wall:  $737
Four walls for a whole brick house=$2,948
Con­crete Floor: $400
Rock for House foun­da­tion: $200
Cement for Foun­da­tion: $210
Tin Roof: $750
Wood­en Door with frame (each house needs 2) $75 each= $150
Wood­en Shut­ter win­dows with mos­qui­to screen $ 40 each X 4/house= $160
Rebar for rein­force­ment beams over the windows/doors $150
 
(cost of each item includes mate­ri­als and labor to build it).
 
ONE HOUSE WILL NOW COST ONLY:  $4,968
Each house sleeps 5 children.
 
Thanks for mak­ing it pos­si­ble for us to help so many children.
Togeth­er, we ARE mak­ing a difference.
 
Bless­ings from Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma staff
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

From: “Bren­da Lange” 
Date: Octo­ber 23, 2011 7:09:35 AM CDT
Sub­ject: Blog, Oct. 23, 2011

PRAYER POWER SAVES KWE KWE CHURCH FROM 3RD THUNDER STORM
Last night a tremen­dous rain storm with high winds hit the Kwe Kwe area, 15 miles south­west of Bala­ma, with­out us even know­ing it happened.
The church mem­bers cov­ered the new built church walls in intense prayer, and Jesus divine­ly pro­tect­ed the those walls which were still not ful­ly dry!
Many hous­es and trees suf­fered wind damage.
The intense winds knocked all the green Man­gos from the trees, leav­ing a bunch of very unhap­py kids!
The Man­go sea­son is a high light each year for all of us Man­go lovers.  J
 
We praise the Lord for sav­ing the church from a 2nd dis­as­ter, as that area has been hard hit with rains that shouldn’t even be hap­pen­ing until November.
The church mem­bers plan to plas­ter the walls this week, and then our painters will move in to water proof the walls with oil paint.
 
THE ULTIMATIM
  For 3 months, we have worked hard to come into com­pli­ance with new Social Ser­vice regulations.
Each time we think we’re in com­pli­ance, we are giv­en some­thing else to correct.
 
This week our inch thick pack­et of required doc­u­ments was hand car­ried to Maputo by the Nation­al Social Ser­vices Direc­tor her­self.  A real bless­ing that hope­ful­ly will keep it from get­ting “lost” in the shuf­fle. J
We received a “tem­po­rary per­mit” to con­tin­ue our work PROVIDED we come into com­pli­ance by Dec. 2012 with this nation’s new build­ing codes for orphans.  (Just when I thought our con­struc­tion was com­ing to an end.)  I should have known better.
 
The new reg­u­la­tions state:
ALL HOUSING for orphans in fos­ter care (not liv­ing with a fam­i­ly mem­ber) must be built with con­crete bricks.
 
Our cur­rent hous­ing of mud brick walls with a cement floor and tin roof is high class for Bala­ma, an all mud hut/grass roofed community.
If we want to con­tin­ue to host these orphans who have no fam­i­ly, then FIVE new brick hous­es are required.
 
My frus­tra­tion is lack of help to han­dle this MASSIVE con­struc­tion project that must start in April 2012, on top of our ever grow­ing evan­ge­lis­tic out­reach­es, orphan food dis­tri­b­u­tions and children’s outreaches .
I know God must be call­ing some­one to give me a hand, even though they have not com­mit­ted yet.
I ask all of you to include this need in your prayers.
DE BUNNY NEEDS A CONSTRUCTION HELPER BY NEXT APRIL, so she can do more preach­ing and teach­ing in the villages.
 
The hunger for God’s Word at Pequar­ia vil­lage (most­ly in the chil­dren), has shown me the need for more youth pas­tors.  We are doing our best to train up church mem­bers in the Word of God via the Inter­na­tion­al Vic­to­ry Bible Institute’s DVD cur­ricu­lum.  We have 2 “IVBI Bush Bible Schools” with 105 stu­dents at present.
But they need spe­cial­ty train­ing in children’s min­istry, which I can give them.
 
So if you are an expe­ri­enced mis­sion­ary or KNOW OF some­one fit­ting this descrip­tion who feels called of God to serve in the remote bush of Africa, and who has some con­struc­tion knowl­edge, please con­tact me ASAP!
 
In my next blog, I’ll be explain­ing our “Build the Walls” project that will make it pos­si­ble for our orphans to con­tin­ue liv­ing in safe­ty with us as their fos­ter parents.
 
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND LOVE GIFTS TO OUR CHILDREN.
Togeth­er, we ARE mak­ing a difference.
 
Bless­ings and Much Thanks!
Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and her Moz. staff
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

From: “Bren­da Lange” 
Date: Octo­ber 16, 2011 7:09:50 AM CDT
Sub­ject: Blog Oct. 16, 2011

AND THE DEAF SHALL HEAR!
 Pequar­ia church mem­bers nev­er ceas­es to amaze me.  Today’s les­son was on the Sword of the Spir­it, using a machete to explain how easy God can cut through any prob­lem we have if we will only:
1.     SPEAK HIS WORD over our problems
2.     USE THE NAME OF JESUS to stop an attack of sick­ness or when­ev­er we are threat­ened in any way.
Teach­ing une­d­u­cat­ed peo­ple to accept that they have AUTHORITY to do these things because Jesus gave it to us is not always easy with just words.
 
So God sent us a heal­ing mir­a­cle to dri­ve home his point! J
I just love God’s teach­ing methods.
They don’t believe the one he sent to teach them, so God shows them!
 
After church today, our first teenage con­vert from last week, Nico­lae, was sit­ting in the back of the church being very silent and sad look­ing.  I sensed some­thing was both­er­ing him.  He claimed he wasn’t sick, but when one of our youth ques­tioned him, he admit­ted some­thing was wrong with his hear­ing.  He said for sev­er­al weeks his hear­ing was get­ting worse, like some­thing was plug­ging his ears so he couldn’t hear the teach­ing about God.
 
I called the oth­er believ­ers to gath­er round, and when I laid hands on his ears, IMMEDIATELY I KNEW, it wasn’t phys­i­cal, but demonic.
We imme­di­ate­ly rebuked the demon­ic pow­ers and com­mand­ed them to release his ears in the name of Jesus!
That demon flew out of there so fast that the boy imme­di­ate­ly regained his hearing!
I test­ed him by stand­ing in front of him to keep him dis­tract­ed while Nel­son, my inter­preter, stood 3 ft. behind him whis­per­ing words in Makua, their trib­al language.
The boy repeat­ed every word per­fect­ly!  Hal­lalu­jah Jesus!
 
EVERYONE began to shout and sing, and all doubt was washed away in shouts of JOY!
 
BABY RESCUED JUST AFTER CHURCH
My team and I got home to find a man wait­ing for us with a let­ter and a sick baby from Impire Vil­lage (15 miles away).
He and his sick wife had car­ried their baby to Bala­ma hos­pi­tal yesterday.
Both the moth­er and baby were admit­ted, but the hos­pi­tal had no milk for­mu­la, so sent the father with the sick baby (high fever) to me.
It appears the baby is sep­tic as the moth­er has an infec­tion in her milk glands.
The baby is almost too sick to suck a bot­tle, but we did man­age to get 1 ounce into the lit­tle boy.
Pas­tor Fred gave them a quick les­son in bot­tle feed­ing, before I rushed the baby back to the hos­pi­tal for treatment.
We gave the fam­i­ly some baby clothes and they were most grate­ful as the 3 week old baby had no cloth­ing at all.
 
We are grate­ful that Jesus has giv­en us the means through YOUR LOVE GIFTS to be able to serve in this capacity.
One can of milk ($6) and a baby bot­tle ($1) was beyond the means of this father who had not a cent to his name.
 
STEP OUT IN FAITH AND ANSWER THE LORD’S CALL!
  Today, I took our mas­ter car­pen­ter, Mario, with me to Pequar­ia.  He gave his tes­ti­mo­ny of how he lis­tened to God’s words come from my mouth for 10 years before they final­ly sunk in. (he was a mus­lim).  The church went wild after his very mov­ing testimony.
I can see EVANGELIST writ­ten all over that man, and we plan to train him up to do just that.
He told me he had been wit­nessed to vil­lagers every­where we had sent him to build a roof on a church!
The man has found his call­ing and jumped into it!
 
JESUS walked this earth among the “com­mon” peo­ple per­form­ing mir­a­cles for 3 years.
He expects no less of all of us who know God’s Word.
Prac­ti­cal min­istry is what Jesus was all about and he needs EACH OF US to step out of our com­fort zone to full fill the “call­ing” He gave us.
He had no church build­ing.  Just his voice, hands, and feet, which he used to get His mes­sage out to the multitudes.
I encour­age all of you to STEP OUT IN FAITH, and become DOERS of God’s Word.
There is no high­er reward than bring­ing Jesus in a real way to all those you meet.
 
TIME IS SHORT before He returns.  There is no time to waste.
 
KWE KWE CHURCH con­vert­ed 8 peo­ple today and burned a 2nd witch­doc­tor hut!
That’s 2 witch­doc­tors who have now come to Christ in that vil­lage in 30 days!
 
THE HARVEST IS RIPE, AND WE THANK YOU FOR HELPING US TO GATHER IT IN.
 
Bless­ings in Christ,
Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma Team
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

From: “Bren­da Lange”
Date: Octo­ber 16, 2011 9:51:05 PM CDT
Sub­ject: Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Blog, Oct. 16, 2011

An update on a few hap­pen­ings this week.
 
LINDA STANLEY, our 74 year mir­a­cle mis­sion­ary, will leave us tomor­row to fly to the USA.
Lin­da helped me man­age the “Vil­lage of Love” in  1998 and 99.
She has been a won­der to bestow in these last 2 years as she gave her all to man­age the pre-school, woman’s min­istry, and the cook­ing for this mis­sion­ary team.
Only the Lord knows if Lin­da will return to us next year or not.
Words do not express the “hole” that her depar­ture will leave in this team.
LINDA—you are dear­ly loved by us all and we will miss you dearly.
You may be gone from us in body, but nev­er in spirit.
THANKS MY FRIEND for giv­ing your life to serve all who crossed your path.
 
THE TRACTOR IS UP AND RUNNING!
Eric, our Super Mechan­ic, drove to Pem­ba on Mon­day (8 hour round trip) to fetch the bear­ing, pressed it into place at the marine repair shop, and had the trac­tor repaired by Tues­day after­noon!  You nev­er saw such a hap­py trac­tor crew as they hooked up the trail­er and took off to fetch dirt and sand so Sam and Nate can start mak­ing con­crete bricks for the new teenage boy’s dorm. (we need 1000 bricks to com­plete it).
  There is much to do before the rainy sea­son begins and we are 30 days behind schedule.
 
 
RAINBOW RING SEEN OVER MOZAMBIQUE YESTERDAY
  Yes­ter­day morn­ing we were fas­ci­nat­ed by a com­plete RING of rain­bow col­ors that radi­at­ed from the sun!
It was quite fas­ci­nat­ing to see it grow larg­er and larg­er over a 2 hour peri­od before cloud cov­er wiped it out.
The entire ring was vis­i­ble most of the time. 
 
Below is a com­ment off the inter­net on this very unusu­al type of rainbow:
You know how you see a rain­bow when its real­ly humid, or when it rains and there is sun? Thats what you saw, you saw a rain­bow, but not a half rain­bow, but rather a whole rain­bow around the sun. A ring rain­bow, this is due because of the high humid­i­ty that is in the air, its the same as a rain­bow, but just around the sun.
 
 
Kwe Kwe Church dam­age being repaired.
  Tues­day, we had a food dis­tri­b­u­tion at Kwe Kwe, giv­ing me a chance to see the dam­age for myself.  Our car­pen­ters com­plet­ed the roof over the 14 yard long church.
The 2 end walls are stand­ing just fine, but the ENTIRE MIDDLE of the church caved in after last week’s storm.
The brick lay­er, who is not a believ­er in Jesus, felt so bad about it, that he has offered to repair the 2 walls for $20.
The church mem­bers (whose income is very lit­tle) have raised an AMAZING $16 towards the repairs and the Bala­ma church donat­ed the last $4.
So repairs have begun in haste, as the RAINBOW RING is proof that more rain may be com­ing soon.
 
 
Bless­ings, Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma Team
 
 

From: “Bren­da Lange”
Date: Octo­ber 12, 2011 9:51:05 PM CDT
Sub­ject: Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Blog, Oct. 13, 2011

An update on a few hap­pen­ings this week.
 
LINDA STANLEY, our 74 year mir­a­cle mis­sion­ary, will leave us tomor­row to fly to the USA.
Lin­da helped me man­age the “Vil­lage of Love” in  1998 and 99.
She has been a won­der to bestow in these last 2 years as she gave her all to man­age the pre-school, woman’s min­istry, and the cook­ing for this mis­sion­ary team.
Only the Lord knows if Lin­da will return to us next year or not.
Words do not express the “hole” that her depar­ture will leave in this team.
LINDA—you are dear­ly loved by us all and we will miss you dearly.
You may be gone from us in body, but nev­er in spirit.
THANKS MY FRIEND for giv­ing your life to serve all who crossed your path.
 
THE TRACTOR IS UP AND RUNNING!
Eric, our Super Mechan­ic, drove to Pem­ba on Mon­day (8 hour round trip) to fetch the bear­ing, pressed it into place at the marine repair shop, and had the trac­tor repaired by Tues­day after­noon!  You nev­er saw such a hap­py trac­tor crew as they hooked up the trail­er and took off to fetch dirt and sand so Sam and Nate can start mak­ing con­crete bricks for the new teenage boy’s dorm. (we need 1000 bricks to com­plete it).
  There is much to do before the rainy sea­son begins and we are 30 days behind schedule.
 
 
RAINBOW RING SEEN OVER MOZAMBIQUE YESTERDAY
  Yes­ter­day morn­ing we were fas­ci­nat­ed by a com­plete RING of rain­bow col­ors that radi­at­ed from the sun!
It was quite fas­ci­nat­ing to see it grow larg­er and larg­er over a 2 hour peri­od before cloud cov­er wiped it out.
The entire ring was vis­i­ble most of the time. 
 
Below is a com­ment off the inter­net on this very unusu­al type of rainbow:
You know how you see a rain­bow when its real­ly humid, or when it rains and there is sun? Thats what you saw, you saw a rain­bow, but not a half rain­bow, but rather a whole rain­bow around the sun. A ring rain­bow, this is due because of the high humid­i­ty that is in the air, its the same as a rain­bow, but just around the sun.
 
 
Kwe Kwe Church dam­age being repaired.
  Tues­day, we had a food dis­tri­b­u­tion at Kwe Kwe, giv­ing me a chance to see the dam­age for myself.  Our car­pen­ters com­plet­ed the roof over the 14 yard long church.
The 2 end walls are stand­ing just fine, but the ENTIRE MIDDLE of the church caved in after last week’s storm.
The brick lay­er, who is not a believ­er in Jesus, felt so bad about it, that he has offered to repair the 2 walls for $20.
The church mem­bers (whose income is very lit­tle) have raised an AMAZING $16 towards the repairs and the Bala­ma church donat­ed the last $4.
So repairs have begun in haste, as the RAINBOW RING is proof that more rain may be com­ing soon.
 
 
Bless­ings, Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma Team
 
 

From: Bren­da Lange , ” Bush Bun­ny Brenda ”
Date: Octo­ber 9, 2011 6:25:06 AM CDT
To:  Sub­ject: Blog, Oct. 9th, 2011

MASSIVE RAIN AND COLD WINDS HITS MOZAMBIQUE
 
FIRST, let me say that NO ONE liv­ing in north­ern Mozam­bique has ever seen RAIN in October.
Known as the hottest and dri­est month of the year, what hap­pened this week has nev­er been record­ed before!
 
Thurs­day, heavy rain and cold winds hit Bala­ma at 3a.m.
  We had a spo­radic rain in Sept. but it didn’t last 1 hour, and we expect­ed the same from this Antarc­tic front.  WRONG!
 It con­tin­ued until 12:30 p.m.  Tem­per­a­tures dropped from 95 F to 58 F with this front and stayed that way for 3 days!  We had just packed away our sweat­shirts, so had to dig them out again!
Antarc­ti­ca is hav­ing some real nasty storms for sure.
This helped us to dri­ve home our mes­sage of “Apoc­a­lypse”  to our new believers.
They now real­ize what we mean about God “shak­ing the world” before Jesus returns.
 
Kwe Kwe Church suf­fered the biggest blow, as the 7 hour rain mixed with esti­mat­ed 25 to 40 mph winds on Thurs­day night, knocked over the mud brick walls of this fresh­ly con­struct­ed building.
The car­pen­ters had almost fin­ished the roof’s frame when the storm hit.   At dawn on Fri­day morn­ing, the car­pen­ters called to tell us the news, and want­i­ng to know what they should do.
I told them to com­plete the roof, so the church mem­bers could rebuild “under” the roof.  We have no idea if this will hap­pen again, so we are tak­ing no risk.  The cool tem­per­a­tures dur­ing August and Sept. warned us that the Rainy Sea­son would start EARLY in Novem­ber this year, but NO ONE expect­ed a heavy rain on Oct. 6th!
 
Pas­tor Alber­to, our Evan­ge­list, is out there today to assess the dam­age, as well as encour­age the mem­bers to rebuild what they can with the bricks that didn’t break when the walls fell in.  Adobe brick has it’s draw backs, and this is one of them. That’s why we only build in the hot and dry months of Aug./Sept./ and Oct.
Mud brick, that has total­ly dried, will han­dle a storm such as this with­out a problem.
The End Times are upon us and we know that noth­ing will ever be as it was before.
 
OUR MOTTO after this week is:
Expect the unex­pect­ed, and be ready to flex to what­ev­er comes upon you.
 
 
TRACTOR REPAIRS
The good news:
PTL that Eric found a marine repair shop at the Pem­ba port with a 100 TON press that could do the need­ed “pulling” of our tractor’s wheel hub.
Eric got home from South Africa with the part, but then found out the hard way that his “pulling equip­ment” couldn’t pull out the “guts” from the wheel hub to replace the leak­ing seal.
  (Con­struc­tion is mov­ing very slow­ly with our trac­tor down for 2 weeks now, so need­less to say, de Bun­ny has been a bit frustrated!)
.   Our 1 ton pick-ups are the only trans­porta­tion for bricks, sand, and rocks right now.
 
The bad news:
 The wheel bear­ing was gone as well as the seal! YIKES!
  Pemba’s cell phones were not work­ing well that day, so lit­er­al­ly 50 phone calls lat­er, a mechan­ic shop with an edu­cat­ed mechan­ic, was able to help Eric find the need­ed wheel bear­ing in Maputo (1000 miles to the south).   It would be flown up in a few days, so he returned to Balama.
 
The good news:
We just got word a few min­utes ago (Sun­day, Oct. 9), that the wheel bear­ing arrived on yesterday’s flight from Maputo, so Eric can pick it up tomor­row morn­ing. PTL!!!!
 
Hope­ful­ly, this means by Wed. we will have a work­ing trac­tor again!
That makes for a HOPPY BUNNY. J
 
BLESSINGS TO ALL OF YOU!
Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma Team
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

From: “Bren­da Lange” 
Date: Octo­ber 2, 2011 6:40:38 AM
Sub­ject: Blog, Oct. 2, 2011

WILD CHURCH MEETING IN PEQUARIA (peck-waar-ee-ah)
I real­ized long ago to go expect­ing the unex­pect­ed at the meet­ings in this village.
They are dia­monds in the rough and God is mould­ing them into His Gems in a rapid way.
 
First we had Sun­day school under a huge Man­go Tree near­by, as over 120 kids showed up.  Too many for our lit­tle shad­ed area.
We prayed for the sick chil­dren and had a fun time telling them the Noah’s Ark sto­ry and teach­ing them new songs.
 
Then the fun began as we held the adult meet­ing in our lit­tle rot­ten roofed mud hut.
Since last Sun­day, the new pas­tor opened up huge win­dows in the mud walls for more light, so it was cool and cheer­ful inside their today.
 After telling the sto­ry of Saul becom­ing Paul,  with God’s for­give­ness being the objec­tive of the sto­ry, I asked them if they had any questions.
 
Arlin­do, a young man with a small con­ve­nience store in Pequar­ia, tes­ti­fied that because of Jesus’ love for him, he has giv­en up drink­ing and sleep­ing around.
But he asked for prayer to help him stop smok­ing.  He then con­fessed that once the alco­hol in his store sold out, he did not plan to buy any more to sell.
I told him if he was tru­ly seri­ous about being a fol­low­er of Jesus, that he need­ed to dump out the remain­ing vod­ka and gin instead of sell­ing it to harm others.
He looked at me and said, “REALLY?”  At the same time, his eyes got real­ly big and he says: “I’ll be right back”, and runs out of the room!
Fol­lowed by a crowd of about 50 peo­ple, he returns 5 min­utes lat­er with 30 Gin and Vod­ka bot­tles in his arms.
He told the vil­lagers his tes­ti­mo­ny and then began dump­ing the alco­hol in an old toi­let with the church mem­bers help­ing him.
 
The church men had to hold off the crowd while we dumped it, as they tried to grab the bot­tles from us before we emp­tied them.
I thought they were going to riot, but God used Jose, my most pow­er­ful guard, as His earth­ly angel to con­trol the situation.
One sharp word from him and the trou­ble mak­ers backed off!
(Jose’s nick name is the Goril­la, so you can imag­ine why no one back talks him.) J
He’s reminds me of the “Hulk”.  Sweet and gen­tle until some­one pro­vokes him or tries to harm me.
 
With our stinky mis­sion com­plete, Arlin­do went back into the church and knelt before God to ask for­give­ness for his sin.
We also prayed that God would take away his desire to smoke.  He was so hap­py that he jumped up and began hug­ging every­one (which is not a nor­mal reac­tion in this cul­ture).  We end­ed with a wild Jesus par­ty, singing and danc­ing to the Lord!
 
CHURCH UPDATE:
1.      Pequaria’s new church walls are half way built.  They expect to com­plete the church this week.
2.     Kwe Kwe’s church walls are fin­ished, and awaits repairs on our Trac­tor so it can trans­port their roof­ing mate­ri­als.  Pas­tor Nevis has vol­un­teered to pas­tor that church, but he needs a spon­sor ($115/month).  The mem­bers have locat­ed a mud hut for his par­son­age and he would like to move in this month to begin lead­ing that fast grow­ing flock of new believers.
3.     ERIC DRY is back in Bala­ma, and will begin repairs on our Tractor’s leak­ing rear axle seal tomor­row.  It’s a big job, so he needs prayer to get it done quick­ly as the trac­tor has been out of ser­vice for a week, putting a big strain on our con­struc­tion and food programs.
4.     Nacac­ca Church is still closed due to resis­tance from vil­lage lead­ers.  The gov­ern­ment called them in to respond to the charges, and did not like their replies.
Gov­ern­ment action against them will be tak­en this week, so I’ll keep you informed.   Nacac­ca new believ­ers again walked the 4 miles to come to church in Bala­ma today.
 
It is won­der­ful hav­ing Eric Dry back with us again after his 8 week sup­ply trip to South Africa.
There is much to do before the rainy sea­son hits us in Novem­ber, so all of us will be mov­ing at high speed for the next 6 weeks.
 
We appre­ci­ate your prayers and know that I enjoy per­son­al e‑mails from all of you!
So feel free to write me a note.
Love and Blessings,
Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Entire Bala­ma Staff