DATE:  July 22, 2017

For our new read­ers, Imba­da, bet­ter known as the Ele­phant Vil­lage,  is on the east­ern bor­der of a mas­sive game reserve in the Melu­co Dis­trict of north­ern Mozambique.

Why the name Ele­phant Vil­lage? Ele­phants come out of the near­by reserve to invade the farmer’s fields just before May har­vest.  They eat their corn and any­thing else they want.  Lack of suf­fi­cient corn is one of the rea­sons for mal­nu­tri­tion in this area, for ele­phants are hard to stop.

Liv­ing in a zoo is a dan­ger­ous chal­lenge for these vil­lagers.  Most par­ents leave their chil­dren in the vil­lage when they go out to their farms, with good reason.

The orig­i­nal 105 orphans who entered our pro­gram in 2008 are now healthy and grown, thanks to your love gifts.

The orphan chal­lenge con­tin­ues as we now use your LOVE GIFTS to sup­ports 99 new­ly orphaned chil­dren and the 38 wid­ows who care for them.

ANIMALS LEAVE ORPHANS BEHIND

For any­one liv­ing in the bush of north­ern Mozam­bique, snakes are a dai­ly haz­ard that every­one, even chil­dren, must learn to deal with.

Even though they are dead­ly, at least peo­ple are able to kill them with a 12 foot (4 meter) bam­boo rod.

NOT SO with Ele­phant and Leop­ard attacks where most humans lose the bat­tle.

Such was the case for 15 of these new­ly orphaned children.

Four orphaned chil­dren with their Grand­moth­er on far left.

Four new­ly orphaned chil­dren on the far left in this photo.

Sev­en of the chil­dren from 2 fam­i­lies lost both par­ents in sep­a­rate inci­dents when ele­phants attacked them as they worked in their farm­ing fields.  A wit­ness stat­ed that one of the cou­ples tried to fend off their attack­ing ele­phant with blaz­ing fire sticks. Instead of run­ning in fear, it angered the ele­phant even more. His next charge killed both adults.

A Leop­ard attacked ear­ly one morn­ing, leav­ing 5 chil­dren orphaned after killing their par­ents as they walked down a nar­row trail to their farm.

Three oth­er chil­dren were orphaned when a snake killed their moth­er, their only parent.

These 8 chil­dren now live with their elder­ly grandmothers.

Cape­na, our Field Direc­tor, found most of these 99 orphans to be mod­er­ate­ly to seri­ous­ly mal­nour­ished. Cur­rent­ly our bud­get only allows for dis­tri­b­u­tion of corn, beans, soap, and salt to these orphans.

With your help, we could add much need­ed cook­ing oil to their diet.  They des­per­ate­ly need more fat in their diet.

$1.50 (R21) pro­vides a liter of “liq­uid gold” that will sus­tain 2 chil­dren for a month.

$90/month (R1,260) buys the entire 60 liters of cook­ing oil need­ed for these 99 lit­tle ones.

Due to their mal­nour­ished state, we will be mak­ing an emer­gency food drop to these chil­dren this com­ing Wednes­day. Thanks so much for help­ing us to save these inno­cent ones.

FATIMA’S SCHOOL HOLIDAY BLESSES OTHERS

For­mer Bala­ma orphan, Fati­ma, now lives over 700 miles south of us as she stud­ies Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion at a pro­fes­sion­al school.

To bring her home for the mid-year break was not pos­si­ble, so Mis­sion­ary Col­in and his wife Bet­sie are host­ing her at their mis­sion sta­tion in Chi­moio city.

Today Col­in sent me a pho­to of Fati­ma as she min­is­ters the Word of God to chil­dren in their area.  Col­in hosts a Sat­ur­day children’s pro­gram that touch­es 100’s of chil­dren in his area.  Our thanks to both of these fine mis­sion­ar­ies for all they do for the Lord Jesus.

KEEP ON MARCHING FORWARD FOR JESUS!  HIS RETURN IS NEAR!

Bless­ings to all of you for your con­tin­ued sup­port in prayers and love gifts.

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF