AND THE LAME SHALL WALK!

Rabia (Rah-bee-ah) is 8 years old and had not walked for 5 years due to some kind of ill­ness that affect­ed both her legs. Severe­ly mal­nour­ished and very frail, both her low­er legs were cov­ered with open, infect­ed ulcers. Rabia and her grand­moth­er came to our church last week for the first time. We prayed for her com­plete heal­ing and com­mand­ed life back into her legs. I treat­ed her ulcers with Melaleu­ca oil (which has 5 times the heal­ing pow­er of the Alav­era cac­tus) and gave her antibi­otics as well as a week’s worth of the high pro­tein cere­al, Hypo Pop, for mal­nour­ished children.

TODAY, RABIA SHOCKED ALL OF US BY WALKING TO THE CHURCH AND SHOWING EVERYONE THAT JESUS HAD HEALED HER!!!!!

It was amaz­ing to see her WALKING on legs that were no more than tooth­picks with skin cov­er­ing them. The smile on her face said much more than words ever could. Her grand­moth­er said that 5 days after we prayed for her, she just got up and start­ed walk­ing. Before this, Rabia had to be car­ried everywhere.

BACKPACK CLINIC BRINGING MANY TO CHRIST

I spent over an hour treat­ing the sick after church today, as many are com­ing to seek prayer and med­ical help from the “back­pack clin­ic” that I hold right after the Nama­ra church ser­vice. A teenage boy brought his lit­tle 4 year old broth­er because his moth­er had neglect­ed the lit­tle boys’ severe­ly injured foot for 7 days. A met­al rod had punc­tured the top of his left foot, caus­ing an open wound that was bad­ly infect­ed. How the lit­tle one tol­er­at­ed the pain, was amaz­ing to me. The moth­er couldn’t be found, so the aunt agreed to come with us so the child could be attend­ed at the Bala­ma hos­pi­tal. The lit­tle one needs 7 days of Peni­cillin injec­tions and fre­quent ban­dage changes, so he will be liv­ing with his friend Veron­i­ca (the woman who was healed of the severe­ly burnt foot). These 2 fam­i­lies know each oth­er well, and Veron­i­ca was glad to have them stay with her while the lit­tle one gets the prop­er treatment.

My Christ­mas Wish List includes med­i­cines for my “BACKPACK CLINIC”. This clin­ic is sav­ing many lives each week with med­i­cines that costs pen­nies per treat­ment. A child’s life can be saved for ONE DOLLAR. That is all it cost to treat a child with an infect­ed wound, diarhea, res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tion, or an ear ache. $60 buys 1000 tablets of antibi­otics that can save the lives of 65 children.

ROCKET STOVES BLASTING A REPUTATION IN BALAMA

FIVE HOUSES received the Rock­et Stoves last week and more will be built this week. As you read this, Engi­neer Michael Lowe, will be land­ing in Atlanta, after work­ing with our brick lay­ers for the last 3 weeks to deter­mine the best stoves for our needs. He built 2 dif­fer­ent types: large stove for the huge pots need­ed for large groups, and the small­er house­hold stove for families.

Rock­et stoves use less fire­wood and put out very lit­tle smoke in com­par­i­son to nor­mal open fire cook­ing (which is all we could do before learn­ing to build the Rock­et Stoves). The moth­ers LOVE THE STOVES as the food cooks so much faster, mak­ing it eas­i­er to pre­pare and eat a meal with­out hav­ing to wait 2 hours for the beans to cook.

THANK YOU MICHAEL LOWE FOR YOUR HELPING HAND IN BRINGING EFFICIENT COOKING TO OUR WIDOW’S HOMES.

We’d also like to thank our Texas donor who blessed Michael with the funds for this trip. God used Michael in many ways. He told me before he left that he real­ly learned a lot from us too. It was a great learn­ing expe­ri­ence for all of us.

Food Dis­tri­b­u­tions are now com­plet­ed for 2012 and it has rained 2 days this last week. We are hus­tling to com­plete all the con­struc­tion as oil paint doesn’t dry well in damp weath­er. More to come next week, so stay tuned to the Bush Bun­ny Blog for fur­ther development.

FYI: due to a slight­ly faster inter­net ser­vice now in our area, I can now down­load Face­book. I have reac­ti­vat­ed my per­son­al page, so look me up if you want to be friends. Search for bren­da­sue­lange and you will find me.

PRAY FOR SAMANTHA BARNHART, as she will fly out this Wed. and be back in But­ler, PA by Fri­day. SAM has been an awe­some helper over the last 90 days as she assist­ed in the Sept. corn buy­ing as well as coor­di­nat­ed the load­ing of all the truck loads of food that was dis­trib­uted in the last 3 months. Sam assist­ed Leona with the woman’s pro­grams, and helped with many children’s and sports evan­ge­lism pro­grams. We wish her well, and hope God will call her back to us very soon.

Bless­ings, Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma gang

P.S. Per­son­al thanks and bless­ings to all our read­ers who have sent get well mes­sages and prayer sup­port for me while I have been mend­ing from my alter­ca­tion with the rogue vac­u­um clean­er. The road to heal­ing con­tin­ues and God is faith­ful teach­ing us new things dai­ly. Con­tin­ued prayers are appreciated.

From: “Bren­da Lange” 
Sub­ject: Blog, Nov. 18, 2012
Date: Novem­ber 18, 2012 4:27:19 AM CST

SURPRISE INSPECTION OPENS EYES OF INSPECTORS
Sat­ur­day at 9a.m. a pick-up truck drove through our gates with 5 gov­ern­ment offi­cials who dropped in to sur­prise us with an inspec­tion of our min­istry and children’s homes.  But the sur­prise was theirs when they say the new girl’s and boys’ dorms that is being paint­ed and almost ready for the chil­dren to live in.
THEY WERE AMAZED!
Then we took them down the street to meet the 7 lit­tle girls that live with fos­ter moth­er, Bal­bi­na. (girls’s dorm)
  Michael Lowe, from Engi­neers with­out Bor­ders, was busy super­vis­ing one of our mas­ter brick­lay­ers, who was build­ing one of the new ROCKET STOVES that uses very lit­tle fire­wood.  The inspec­tors were total­ly fas­ci­nat­ed with the Rock­et Stoves as the lead inspec­tor had heard of these stoves but had nev­er seen one.  These 5 men and women were so pleased with what they saw at Bal­bi­nas, plus the new­ly con­struct­ed hous­es, that they said they did not need to see any more.  They told us to keep up the pos­i­tive work we were doing, and they left, as they had many oth­er children’s pro­grams to inspect.
  We were tru­ly THRILLED at get­ting such a pos­i­tive report from them!
 
Michael’s stoves ARE TRULY WONDERFUL and the women who are cook­ing on the ones we just built are super happy!
They get more heat from less fire­wood, mean­ing that water boils faster, and the food cooks quicker.
 
ROCKET STOVES WILL BLESS ZITO’S HOME IN NAMARA TOMORROW
  Zito’s moth­er will receive the first Rock­et Stove in Nama­ra tomor­row when our truck takes Michael and his stove build­ing team to that village.
We’ve invit­ed sev­er­al brick lay­ers to attend and learn how to build the stoves TOTALLY from local mate­ri­als that they have.
Our objec­tive is to train up sev­er­al men in that area that can build stoves for the many wid­ows of the Nama­ra Church.
 
FOOD DISTRIBUTIONS COMING TO A CLOSE
Last week we deliv­ered food twice to the orphans and their grand­moth­ers (most­ly tod­dler age orphans) in the Kwe Kwe area.
This gives them seed to plant and food to eat dur­ing the rainy season.
This Fri­day, we will make the last food drop for this year to the orphans in the 7 vil­lages of the Mavala area (Man­go Tree Church area).
That will close our 2012 food pro­gram for the remote areas, as the rainy sea­son is about to begin.
For those of you not famil­iar with our area, our roads are clay and sand.  Once the rains begin, many roads become too mud­dy for even 4 wheel dri­ve to nego­ti­ate.  Many of the remote vil­lages we serve are only acces­si­ble by foot or bicy­cle from Jan­u­ary to March.
Not even motor­bikes can get through this sticky mud. 
 
That’s about it from this side for this week.
Hap­py Thanks­giv­ing to every­one in the USA.
Enjoy your Turkey Day!  We hope to find a big fat chick­en that wants to be our guest of honor.
 
Bless­ings, Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma gang
 
 

From: “Bren­da Lange”
Sub­ject: Blog, Nov. 11, 2012
Date: Novem­ber 11, 2012 5:41:29 AM CST

NOVEMBER—HOT AND DRY—WATER OUR MOST PRECIOUS COMODITY
With temps at 95 to 98 F (36 C) most of the day and EVERY CREATURE look­ing for water, this country’s water wells are packed with people.
Our water well team repaired 2 vil­lage wells this week with­in a few hours of being noti­fied, because even 1 day with­out water makes peo­ple desperate.
That means the kids will drink any sur­face water they can find, lead­ing to dead­ly dysen­tery or cholera.

WATER WELL REPAIR GIFTS DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Mpaca’s (M‑pah-ka) well was out for sev­er­al days, when Pas­tor Pin­to out of des­per­a­tion, (his wife was seri­ous­ly threat­en­ing to take the kids and go back to their home vil­lage where water exist­ed), rode his bicy­cle 17 miles in this intense heat, to beg us to come fix it.

There are sev­er­al wells in that area, but over 5,000 peo­ple need­ed water, and women were hav­ing fist fights over the 8 to 12 hour wait­ing peri­od.  He said the 5 gal­lon con­tain­ers wait­ing to be filled cov­ered an area 50 yards/meters square at each well!  Pump­ing 24 hours couldn’t fill the need.
Our team was out there the next day.  The well was down because $30 worth of plas­tic and rub­ber parts had worn out.

On Thurs­day, my dri­ver picked up our painters after they com­plet­ed paint­ing the Nama­ra church walls to pro­tect them from rain.
As they passed the Pequar­ia church, they were stopped and told that the village’s ONLY water well had bro­ken that morning.
They begged us to fix it.  With­in 2 hours our team was there and the same $30 worth of parts was all it need­ed to fix it.
SO LITTLE CAN MEAN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH FOR 1000’S OF PEOPLE.

STOVE BUILDING GOING WELL
The 2 pro­to­types have been built and we will fire them up tomor­row (had to let the mor­tar dry).
The women have seen it and are excit­ed as they are will­ing to try any­thing to cut down on their use of firewood.
We’ll keep you post­ed on how it goes.
Michael is enjoy­ing get­ting to know the local cul­ture and the people.
He’s even learned the essen­tial words of Bom Dia and SALAMA! (greet­ing in the local Makua language)

GOD OPENS THE DOOR FOR MASSIVE HEALTH TEACHINGS VIA RADIO!
IMPACT WILL AFFECT 128,000 PEOPLE!!!!

The Bala­ma radio sta­tion man­ag­er came to us in des­per­a­tion this week, beg­ging for help with his com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice programs.
His spon­sors had slow­ly melt­ed away this year, until he was left with NO funds to help the peo­ple learn to live health­i­er lives.
The men and women work­ing to put these radio pro­grams togeth­er, AND han­dle the dai­ly radio broad­cast­ing only receive $7/MONTH as their reward for over 80 hours of work.  They tru­ly have a heart to help the public.

This is a great OPEN DOOR for us, as it gives us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to impact 128,000 peo­ple with our health teach­ings on Absti­nence against the spread of AIDS,  pre­vent­ing malar­ia, cholera, dysen­tery, TB, and many oth­er health prob­lems that plague these com­mu­ni­ties.  We’ll be able to impact them with Bib­li­cal morals, etc. as well as teach them through Chris­t­ian music.

PROGRAMS are as follows:
COMMUNITY HEALTH: (30 minute pro­gram)  how to avoid and what to do when you get sick with the main killer dis­eases of our area (malar­ia, cholera, dysen­tery, AIDS, etc).
WOMEN’S PROGRAMS (15 min) on bet­ter BABY CARE and how to raise healthy chil­dren, nutri­tion, etc.
SANITATION PROGRAMS: (20 min.) Con­struc­tion of latrines, hygiene, avoid­ing water borne diseases
CHILDREN’S PROGRAMS: (15 min.) teach­ing them the basics of healthy liv­ing in a very sim­ple way

Eric and our Pro­gram Direc­tor, Nilza, who is spe­cial­ly trained in Social Ser­vice work, will be com­bin­ing forces with the local radio sta­tion vol­un­teers to get these pro­grams orga­nized and ready to record in Jan­u­ary.  CHRISTIAN MUSIC will be used to high­light the programs.
These vil­lagers are crazy about our music, so this will be used as a draw­ing card to get peo­ple to learn what they need to know.

WE NEED SPONSORS FOR THESE PROGRAMS that will air WEEKLY for a total of 80 minutes/week start­ing in Janaury.
Nov. and Dec. has been donat­ed, as the radio sta­tion has pro­grams that are ready to air.
30 min. costs $42/week or $168/month
20 min. costs $28/week or $112/month
15 min. costs $21/week or $84/month

This is a gift that will impact the mul­ti­tudes as EVERY VILLAGE has peo­ple with “boom box­es” who blast these pro­grams for all to hear.
If God leads you to help us with this pro­gram, please put RADIO in your check memo so we know how to use your gift.

BIBLE SCHOOL GRADUATION FEAST HELD LAST FRIDAY
NINETY FIVE Stu­dents from 3 bush Bible School exten­sion pro­grams con­verged on Bala­ma Fri­day to receive their final words of wis­dom (and a great goat feast) before being sent out to evan­ge­lize their neigh­bors in very remote areas of Bala­ma county.
Pas­tor Alber­to Pes­sute and I are part of the Inter­na­tion­al Vic­to­ry Bible Insti­tute pro­gram. Vic­to­ry Chris­t­ian Cen­ter in Tul­sa, OK pro­vides us the teach­ing mate­ri­als in Por­tuguese.  Pas­tor Alber­to trans­lates it into Makua for his teach­ings in the remote areas as the peo­ple do not speak Portuguese.
God’s Word is being plant­ed and mul­ti­plies among the lost as we train up lead­ers to help har­vest God’s End Time Believers.
YOUR LOVE GIFTS ARE REAPING A TREMENDOUS HARVEST!

Bless­ings to all of you, as we con­tin­ue to hand out food to the orphans before the rainy sea­son iso­lates them in their remote villages.
Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma Team.

KIDNAPPED

MEET DOMINICA, AGE TWO

Nov. 1st start­ed out as an unevent­ful food dis­tri­b­u­tion morn­ing at our Bala­ma base, which turned into an “AMBER ALERT” by 2pm. The 2 year old tod­dler, Domini­ca, has been with us for over 18 months. She was removed from her home as a 6 month old infant, due to severe neglect by her “men­tal­ly dis­turbed moth­er” (giv­en no food until she almost starved to death, and left out­side to cry for hours with no care). This woman has caused sev­er­al dis­tur­bances at Balbina’s fos­ter home in the past, includ­ing one inci­dent where she brought her machete and demand­ed the return of her child. When that occurred last year, Bal­bi­na sent some­one to fetch us and calm­ly kept this woman “at arm’s length” until help arrived. A severe coun­selling at the police sta­tion, and she kept her dis­tance for over 10 months. Last Thurs­day, this high­ly dis­turbed moth­er went to Balbina’s house demand­ing her food allowance for the week. (She nev­er showed up at our mis­sion sta­tion that morn­ing to get the food we nor­mal­ly give her). Bal­bi­na explained she didn’t have her food, and that she would have to go to Mama Bren­da, as the food dis­tri­b­u­tion was over. She began to scream at Bal­bana and grabbed for Domini­ca, who was being held in Balbina’s arms. Bal­bi­na jerked away, but not before this woman bit Balbina’s arm. The pain from the bite, loos­ened Balbina’s grip enough that this des­per­ate woman was able to snatch the child and run. Balbina’s hus­band got home just has it all hap­pened. He raced to my office on his bicy­cle to tell us that Domini­ca had been kid­napped. Domini­ca was once again in the hands of this men­tal­ly unsta­ble woman and no one knew where she would be tak­en. (FYI: Bal­bi­na was fine as the bite didn’t’ break the skin.)

I imme­di­ate­ly called our Dis­trict Social Ser­vices offi­cer, but he was in Pem­ba (4 hours away). He instruct­ed me to get our lead­ers and go to the police if she wouldn’t return the child. Cape­na, Head Admin­is­tra­tor for O.U, in Bala­ma, and Nilza, our res­i­dent Social Ser­vice work­er, met me at my house. We decid­ed to “trade her” for what she real­ly want­ed. (The food she nev­er picked up that morn­ing.) She has said many times she has no use for Domini­ca, so we knew she didn’t real­ly want the child.

We fixed up the food she was sup­posed to receive that morn­ing and went look­ing for her. PTL that she head­ed to her mud hut in a vil­lage about 3 miles from us, and our team locat­ed her near her home. She will­ing­ly gave up Domini­ca in exchange for the food, and was told that if she does this again, she will go to jail. (The Police is the only thing she is real­ly scared of). In Moz., the laws pro­tect the men­tal­ly dis­turbed. Unless she phys­i­cal­ly harms some­one, the police can do noth­ing to this woman. So although this looks like it was not the right thing to do (giv­ing her what she want­ed), the impor­tant thing is that Domini­ca was returned unharmed. This was very trau­mat­ic for Domini­ca, as she sees Bal­bi­na as her true moth­er. She pos­si­bly has some mem­o­ry of the bad times in her ear­ly life with her birth moth­er, so right now we are con­cen­trat­ing on mak­ing her feel secure. We also real­ize that if this woman fails to pick up her food in future, we need to take spe­cial pre­cau­tions to pre­vent a repeat of this incident.

WEIRD WEATHER IN MOZAMBIQUE

Nor­mal­ly, Octo­ber and Novem­ber are SUPER HOT AND DRY—98–102 degrees F (38–40 C) with no rains till end of Novem­ber. But Antarc­ti­ca has been send­ing us some unique cold fronts this year, caus­ing many kids to have colds and upper res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tions. Remem­ber, these kids have only thin cot­ton cloth­ing, and most don’t own a long sleeve shirt, much less a jack­et. Thurs­day and Fri­day it RAINED many hours with strong, bit­ter­ly cold winds com­ing from the south. I spent the day in a sweat suit!

With the unex­pect­ed rains, our teams had to scram­ble as the Nac­ca­ca church is not roofed yet, and the Nama­ra church need­ed it’s con­crete foot­ing and oil paint to pro­tect it from blow­ing rain. Our 18 man brick lay­ing team went out yes­ter­day and in 6 hours com­plet­ed all the work on the Nama­ra church. Our teams will work hard this week to dig the holes need­ed so the roof can be built over the Nac­ca­ca church.

With Jesus return­ing soon, the only “norm” we can expect is that “NOTHING WILL BE AS IT WAS IN THE PAST”. So expect the unex­pect­ed and you won’t be caught off guard.

ENGINEERS WITHOUT BORDERS rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Michael Lowe, of North Car­oli­na arrived yes­ter­day. After church today, I took Michael to 3 of our homes so he could “get a visu­al” on what is need­ed. He will be assist­ing us in plan­ning and build­ing 2 types of very effi­cient wood burn­ing stoves that use only small amounts of fire­wood, even twigs if that is all you have. I’ll keep you updat­ed on how this goes and we’ll send pho­tos of the end result. Michael has 3 weeks to orga­nize, build, and train our team to dupli­cate what works best with our local materials.

Bless­ings, Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma gang

From: “Brenda Lange” Date: November 4, 2012, 7:25:24 AM CST Subject: Blog addition, Nov. 4th, 2012

THE PRICE OF SERVICE TO OUR LORD JESUS

In Mozam­bique, if you want a church in the bush, the mem­bers have to build it. Pas­tor Alber­to just returned a few min­utes ago with a heavy heart. He went to preach God’s Word at Ntele, a very remote vil­lage with over 40 adults and 80+ chil­dren attend­ing our newest “under the tree” church each Sun­day. The rainy sea­son is only 2 weeks away, so the mem­bers are in a rush to com­plete their church. It only lacks the roof. Late yes­ter­day after­noon, a group of church men were out cut­ting bam­boo poles for the roof. The grass and bam­boos were sway­ing in the heavy winds. It was hard to hear and dif­fi­cult to see with all the dust fly­ing. Unknown to these men, a black mam­ba, the fastest snake in the world, was stalk­ing the area. The snake struck one of the men before any­one saw it. That man only had min­utes to say his good­byes before his tongue was par­a­lyzed by the fast act­ing ven­om. He met Jesus a few min­utes lat­er. Alber­to encoun­tered the church mem­bers dig­ging his grave when he arrived. Alber­to preached the funer­al, as the whole vil­lage looked on.

This man did not die in vain, as many from his vil­lage heard the gospel today who might not have ever heard it oth­er­wise. His earth­ly body lays near the church he helped build, while he’s enjoy­ing a NEW BODY with Christ Jesus in heaven.

BLESSINGS,

BBB and The Bala­ma Gang