From: “Bren­da Lange”
Date: April 29, 2012 6:45:44 AM CDT
Subject:BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG, APRIL 29, 2012

COOL SEASON BLOWS IN EARLY, MAKING FOR COLD KIDS!

Nor­mal­ly our “Cool Sea­son” starts mid-May.  This year, the cold winds hit in mid-April, caus­ing us to make a mad dash for the mar­ket to buy sweat shirts and long pants for the 118 orphans in our care.  The girls wear paja­ma type pants under their skirts to keep warmer.  All 118 kids were out­fit­ted yes­ter­day, as it took us 3 days to find the prop­er sizes for all the kids.  Any­one who has more than a few chil­dren, knows it’s not an easy task.

CONSTRUCTION MOVING AT A SUPERNATURAL RATE, NO JOKE!

THREE WEEKS AND THE DORM KITCHEN ready for its roof.
FOUNDATIONS OF BOTH BATHROOMS are done.  Walls to go up this week.
The new GOAT BARN for the addi­tion­al 60 goats was marked off yes­ter­day. The fence posts and bam­boo are on site for the new barn, so the dig­ging will begin tomorrow.
The barn walls will be up in about 3 weeks with the roof sched­uled for July when food buy­ing is over.

I’ve nev­er seen any­thing like it.  I asked the Lord to expe­dite the con­struc­tion and all this has hap­pened since April 10th!!!!
God is mov­ing things along much faster and smoother than I ever could have imagined.
Thanks so much for your prayers on our behalf.

CHURCHES PREPARE FOR BAPTISM, MAY 5TH.
The Pequar­ia church and the new­ly formed Nama­ra church will hold a joint Bap­tism in a small lake near Pequar­ia next Sat­ur­day with over 22 peo­ple being Baptized.
Eric plans to get it on film for us.
The 3 Man­go Tree church­es also plan a Bap­tism that same day.  Not sure how many are being Bap­tized but will report that next week.

WATER WELL DRILLING STARTS THIS WEEK
First well to go in will be the Nac­ca­ca vil­lage church well (donat­ed by But­ler FUMC).
The 2nd well, donat­ed by a pri­vate cit­i­zen in But­ler, PA will go in near the Bala­ma hos­pi­tal.  It will be open to the pub­lic, but will also serve the hos­pi­tal who’s water well went dry last Novem­ber.  Thanks to one of our large portable tanks, and the well we put in for the Vil­lage of Love last year, we were able to help out the hos­pi­tal dur­ing their “dry days”.
Both these com­mu­ni­ties are VERY grate­ful for these gifts, as clean water is the key to health­i­er living.

On the per­son­al side, Patch­es, our well known “snake find­ing dog”, who is most­ly black in col­or, had 6 ALL WHITE pup­pies last Wed.
One of them has black spots that looks exact­ly like a huge paw print on its back.  Eric couldn’t resist and named it PAWS!

Still no word on the final reg­is­tra­tion of our new Nis­san Truck that’s sit­ting in Maputo.
Eric and his dri­ving team are ready to go as soon as the gov­ern­ment fin­ish­es the registration.
Our food bean buy­ing license has been approved for May, so we will begin to dis­trib­ute feed sacks and bring­ing in the bean crop.

Bless­ings from Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma Gang!

We had a busy one with salaries to over 80 peo­ple, giv­ing out win­ter clothes to 118 orphans in our hous­es, nor­mal con­struc­tion, fix­ing a flat on the trac­tor, and pump­ing diesel fro a 250 liter drum so we can fuel our vehicles.
All in a day’s work.
Weath­er has been quite cold (upper 50’s) at night and this is unheard of for April in Africa.
Looks like it could be a VERY cold year and a long cold sea­son too.  Nor­mal­ly it starts in Mid May.
This year it start­ed in Mid April.  Nev­er seen that before in all my 22 years here.
Bless­ings, my friend.
I real­ly like this Abby’s let­ter and CV, so am hop­ing it works out.
Would like to teach her med­ical mis­sions for 90 days.
Love and Hugs,
BBB

From: “Bren­da Lange” 
Date: April 22, 2012 4:51:10 AM
Sub­ject: blog, April 22, 2012

NEW BABY JOINS OUR FAMILY
  A 6 week old girl, Orten­cia Ramadane, was placed in our care on Wed.  Her moth­er died when she was 14 days old due post partem com­pli­ca­tions.  Her vil­lage area is far from the near­est bush clin­ic.   Orteni­ca was left with her grand­fa­ther, who is the only liv­ing rel­a­tive. He cared well for her, but knew she need­ed a per­ma­nent home as he would not live to see her grow up.  So our lit­tle fam­i­ly keeps grow­ing, and we Praise the Lord that this lit­tle one will grow up know­ing Jesus loves her.
 
CHURCH REPORT
1.      April and May are Bap­tism months, so all 11 bush church­es are prepar­ing the new con­verts for this big event.
2.     Two new church­es are being orga­nized in the remote regions of Nama­ra and Nacala.  Both vil­lages have 20–30 new believ­ers and plan to build mud brick church­es lat­er this year.
3.     Mem­bers of BUTLER FUMC of But­ler, PA have spon­sored a water well.  I was just noti­fied that the well drilling rig we use will be in our area this week.
We hope to locate this well in Nacac­ca, pop­u­la­tion 5000+.
This vil­lage only has one water well which can serve only 1,200 peo­ple if it’s pumped around the clock.
THANK YOU BUTLER FUMC for this pre­cious gift of life!
 
CONSTRUCTION MOVES ON
1.     This week, the dorm’s kitchen foun­da­tion was com­plet­ed and bricks will “fly” this week as we start on the walls.
2.     A sim­ple car­port roof was built for the NEW NISSAN UD 70 (7 ton) truck that Eric will pick up in Maputo by mid-May.
Wait­ing on final import and reg­is­tra­tion to be com­plet­ed.  This truck is an awe­some gift of love from friends in Dal­las, TX.
A 2nd truck will allow expan­sion into a 3rd coun­ty where the gospel has nev­er been preached and the orphans are numerous.
 
3.     On Mon­day, our car­pen­try team leaves for the Man­go Tree Church where they will rebuild the food ware­house which was destroyed by the Decem­ber, 2011 tor­na­do that hit this area.  This ware­house is a key play­er in our bean buy­ing which starts in mid-May.
Love and Hugs,
Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma gang!
 
 
 

From: brenda@orphansunlimited.org
Date: April 15, 2012 5:17:59 AM CDT

Sub­ject: Blog, April 15, 2012

WITH GOD, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE
I arrived in Bala­ma at Noon on Mon­day, unpacked, and hit the dirt run­ning on Tuesday.

On Tues­day, we praised the Lord as over 100 men and women came to wor­ship with us, and were eager to work. We chose our con­struc­tion teams from the best of the best and marked off
the kitchen.

The foun­da­tion was dug in 2 days and the first rock was prayed over and laid in place by Wed. morning.

By Fri­day, the foun­da­tion only lacked a few rocks of being fin­ished.  My men laid the rocks and poured the con­crete mix faster than the trac­tor could fetch rock from the moun­tain, 5 miles away.   The trac­tor had a full day’s start on them, so that tells you they were real­ly moving.

I’m proud of my guys, as they are a fun team to work with, and pray they will keep up the great work.

STATE SOCIAL SERVICE DIRECTOR RECEIVES ADDED RESPONSIBILITY
 Dur­ing my time in the USA, the State Health Direc­tor passed away. 

 The gov­ern­ment has tem­porar­i­ly placed our Social Ser­vice Direc­tor in that posi­tion, leav­ing Social Ser­vices to her Assis­tant Direc­tor (who is very help­ful with our program).

We have been giv­en the full “go ahead” to con­tin­ue our pro­gram and will receive prop­er doc­u­ments to this affect very soon.  We are very hap­py that we can con­tin­ue with­out delay to help the children.

GOLD RUSH CAUSES GOAT SHORTAGE

Car­l­i­tos Jorge, our Youth Pas­tor and expert goat buy­er, went goat hunt­ing and bought 5 young females.

If you remem­ber, about 9 indi­vid­ual donors and the Sun­day School chil­dren from FUMC in But­ler, PA raised funds for 73 goats!
Car­l­i­tos found out that prices went up by $2/goat, and that we may have trou­ble find­ing 73 goats locally.

A gold rush is on in an area south of us (not a large find, but enough to cause many to fight over it). Since over 1000 have joined the rush, the demand for meat is greater than ever.

We plan to increase our heard to 30 goats at the moment, and then wait till our new barn is built before buy­ing the remainder.

Goat hunt­ing will con­tin­ue on Monday.

PEQUARIA AND NAMUNO CHURCHES TO HOLD JOINT BAPTISM

 I just returned from a fun time at Pequar­ia church, where over 80 peo­ple to hear the Word of God.

Saw many new faces, as these 2 vil­lages have joined togeth­er for the
moment to serve the Lord.

A Bap­tism for 22 new con­verts is planned in the local riv­er for the end of the month.

LEONA PHILLIPS has arrived in Bala­ma and begins her mis­sions ori­en­ta­tion tomorrow.

Leona has a heart for serv­ing and hopes to train into man­age­ment to help me super­vise the work here.

It will be a very busy week, so stay tuned for many more sto­ries to come next week!

Love and Hugs, 

The Busy Bush Bun­ny on the hop!

Bren­da and Team in Balama

NOTE FROM LINDA: PLEASE CHECK YOUR EMAIL LATER TODAY. WE WILL BE POSTING NEW GOAT PICTURES. 

FOR ALL OF YOU WHO LOOK FORWARD TO TAKING THE BLOG WITH YOU TO SHARE WITH YOUR CHURCH FAMILY ON SUNDAY MORNING, WE WANTED YOU TO HAVE THE BLOG “RIGHT ON TIME”.

Bless­ings To All,

Lin­da

From: brenda@orphansunlimited.org
Date: April 8, 2012 5:47:46 AM CDT
Sub­ject: Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Blog, April 8, 2012

BUSH BUNNY HOPS OVER TO MOZAMBIQUE

After a smooth flight and 3 days of trav­el, I arrived in Pem­ba Saturday
with all my lug­gage. That is ALWAYS a major achieve­ment when several
air­ports are involved.

We were hon­ored to cel­e­brate Jesus’ res­ur­rec­tion this morn­ing with 30
oth­er Chris­tians, all Eng­lish Speak­ing who are here as mis­sion­ar­ies or
employed by local com­pa­nies.  It was a beau­ti­ful time of wor­ship followed
by a brunch, and as always, the Lord start­ed net­work­ing us with several
oth­er mis­sion­ar­ies in this area.
 Found me a real Vet­eri­nar­i­an and made friends with oth­er missionaries
who have a goat exper­tise.  They have already down­loaded onto our
com­put­ers their orphan train­ing man­u­al for goat man­age­ment, which is a
BIG help to me.

Anoth­er friend is donat­ing 5 table and chair sets, 17 wood doors, and 4
beds with USA mat­tress­es to our orphans.  We just have to go pick it up!

God is mov­ing in a won­der­ful way, and it is a super bless­ing to be back in
Moz.  Mon­day, we will “hit the bank”, grab some baby for­mu­la, and be off
to Bala­ma!  I real­ly look for­ward to get­ting many hugs from the staff and
kids tomorrow.

2012 will be a super busy year, so keep us in your prayers!
Love and Hugs,
Bush Bun­ny Brenda