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Monthly Archives: March 2018

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: March 31, 2018

BBC TEAM GOES THE EXTRA MILE
Each Thurs­day our 10 man BBC MOTORBIKE TEAM takes off for a remote moun­tain­ous area south of our mis­sion base. They hold Bawana Games for over a 1000 chil­dren, and then Car­l­i­tos Jorge (C.J.) holds a prop­er adult church ser­vice request­ed by 30+ res­i­dents of that area. Those rock walls look close to us, and are tru­ly mag­nif­i­cent in the after­noon sun, but the rough road lead­ing there demands 60 min­utes of skilled off-road dri­ving on a motorbike.
C.J. and Salmo are on the far right
A granny, unknown to C.J.‘s team,  car­ried a small child into their grass roofed hut dur­ing the adult ser­vice.  At the end, she begged food for her orphaned 2 yr. Old grand­child, because her food was fin­ished.  C.J. told me the child was so small he thought it was under 1 year of age. The team had no food with them, so they prayed for the tod­dler, and returned home with this report.

Thanks to all of you gen­er­ous food donors,  we nev­er, ever, have to say NO to some­one in need. Our teams do what­ev­er it takes to save a life, both phys­i­cal­ly and spiritually.

We imme­di­ate­ly put togeth­er a food gift for 2 peo­ple, and the 2 BBC lead­ers, C.J. and Sal­imo, vol­un­teered to take it to them. GOING THE EXTRA MILE IS THE DEFINITION OF SACRIFICE. I knew both these young men were tired. Their long trip and min­is­ter­ing to over 1000 peo­ple in 3 vil­lages that morn­ing, is a full days work. Yet they nev­er hes­i­tat­ed. Just refu­eled a motor­bike and left. THREE HOURS lat­er they returned after suc­cess­ful­ly deliv­er­ing the food straight to this granny’s mud hut.
True evan­ge­list are res­cuers, for they seize every oppor­tu­ni­ty to bring JESUS to every­one they meet.
THE OSTRICH HOUSE
Each fos­ter home of orphans choos­es what ani­mal name they want to call their home. Here is the non per­fect pho­to of THE OSTRICH HOUSE KIDS try­ing to pose for me in the ear­ly morn­ing sun.The youngest, Joani­ta, does not like cam­eras, so it took some convincing.
BBB’S EASTER CHICKENS
Thanks to a busy Sat­ur­day morn­ing, BUSH BUNNY for­got to set her phone alarm after whisk­ing her 2 birds into the oven. Two and a half hrs lat­er she felt hun­gry, sud­den­ly remem­bered her mis­take, and dashed for the kitchen! Expect­ing “crispy crit­ters” you can imag­ine her delight when there was still some meat left to eat!
I’ll glad­ly share my ‘recipe’!
TAKE A LESSON FROM BBB. Set your timers so East­er lunch does­n’t require “eat­ing out”. In Bala­ma, “eat­ing out” means you open a can of some­thing and eat it out of the can!
HAPPY RESURRECTION DAY FROM ALL OF US IN BALAMA!
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: March 24, 2018

Com­put­er prob­lems makes for short blog this week. I am two-fin­ger typ­ing this on my tablet, let­ting each pho­to tell its story.
BALAMA WOMEN’S GROUP VISITS ORPHANS
FOUR women, all Bala­ma lead­ers in the nation­al­ly known OMM wom­en’s group, vis­it­ed all 5 of our orphan hous­es today. They were very pleased with our accom­mo­da­tion, fos­ter par­ents, and the beau­ti­ful, polite chil­dren we are rais­ing. One fam­i­ly of orphans won their hearts as the chil­dren broke out in a wel­come song as these ladies entered the gate to their home.
UNABLE TO WALK AT 2 YEARS
Orphan Del­fi­na lives in a remote vil­lage vis­it­ed week­ly by our BBC Motor­bike Team. Mal­nour­ished from birth, this lit­tle one had nev­er walked when our team learned of her 3 months ago. With lots of prayer and a week­ly drop of food car­ried in on 2 bikes by the BBC team, Del­fi­na sur­prised every­one when she stood up at last week’s church meet­ing and began to walk!
“THE CHILDREN shall lead them” takes on new mean­ing to the new believ­ers in this vil­lage who are strug­gling to under­stand how faith in Jesus heals. Del­fi­na lis­tened and act­ed on what she heard. Don’t let your brain block what your heart knows is truth.
ORPHANED TWINS ENTER FEEDING PROGRAM
It’s been a busy week as we received 4 new babies into our milk for­mu­la pro­gram. Each time an infant is brought to us, it reminds our staff just how frag­ile life can be.
Twins spells dou­ble trou­ble, espe­cial­ly if 1 baby is not in the prop­er posi­tion at birthing time. Six months of for­mu­la gives these inno­cent ones a chance at life.
Your love gifts are VITAL to this pro­gram, so plz keep these pre­cious babies in your prayers. We have 32 babies need­ed for­mu­la at $5/can/week x 24 weeks. ($120 rais­es an infant to 6 months.)
PASTOR FRED’S 30 STITCHES REMOVED
At Dr.‘s orders, Sis­ter Ligua (Lisha) from the Bala­ma hos­pi­tal did the deed. His post-op cast is most­ly open down the front. In 2 more weeks FRED returns to his sur­geon in Nam­pu­la city for cast removal.
Thank you to all who blessed him with prayer and love gifts to expe­dite his recov­ery. He will soon be able to walk again on his own 2 feet.
FOLLOWING JESUS MEANS MAKING A DIFFERENCE TO THE LIVES WE TOUCH.
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG:  MARCH 17, 2018

FRED IS BACK!

Office man­ag­er, Cape­na, fetched our “cheer­ful” Pas­tor Fred yes­ter­day from the Nam­pu­la pri­vate clin­ic, where he had leg surgery last Sun­day. It is WONDERUL to have him back with us, and to know that his leg will now heal rapid­ly. His cast has 3 “win­dows” in it for suture removals this Monday.

Pas­tor Fred with new “win­dow” cast.

Our Bala­ma Doc­tor just left Fred’s bed­side after ver­i­fy­ing all is good after his 7 hour ride yes­ter­day in the cab of a pick-up. The x‑rays shows his 2 bro­ken leg bones are now held in place by 2 stain­less steel rods. In 6 months, Pas­tor Fred will face anoth­er surgery to remove those rods once the bones are total­ly healed.

Fred’s x‑ray with new rods in place.

In 3 weeks, Fred must return to Nam­pu­la to have his final check-up and hope­ful­ly, his cast removed. He will then be told when he can begin phys­i­cal ther­a­py so he can put weight on his leg.

THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTED TOWARDS PASTOR FRED’S SURGERY!!! The final bill came to $3,500 due to the surgeon’s deci­sion to use “rods” (more expen­sive) than plates and screws. Fred has more patience than most peo­ple, for he has been “off his feet” since Dec. 24th.

WE THANK THE LORD FOR HIS PROVISION THROUGH ALL YOU LOVELY PEOPLE. FRED WILL SOON RETURN TO THE BBC BALAMA GAMES TEAM WHICH IS TOUCHING OVER 15,000 VILLAGE CHILDREN/WEEK!

THIEVES ATTEMPT A TUNNEL BUT FAILED!

In the last 2 weeks, a rash of “break ins” have hap­pened all over this area, keep­ing our neigh­bor­hood res­i­dents and night guards hop­ping! It appears these thieves are a small gang of teenagers, as one of our guards got a good look at 2 of them when they jumped the fence where he was guard­ing. See­ing a guard yield­ing a flash­light (torch) and a machette prompt­ed them to jump out with­out tak­ing anything.

Two “teens” tried to tun­nel under our rice barn Thurs­day night. They qui­et­ly dug a very nice tun­nel, but it only yield­ed good exer­cise and dirty clothes!

Con­crete floors keep 2 and 4 legged rats outside!

Guess their “intel” wasn’t too good, for all our ware­hous­es have sol­id rock and cement floors that are at least 6 inch­es thick! Doubt they will be back, for they are look­ing for easy loot!

KID’S KORNER

The 100+ chil­dren who live with us are all healthy, PTL!  Unusu­al for sure!  As the res­i­dent “Mom” around here, it is nice to not be called out in the night to attend to an emergency.

We had 6 INCHES OF RAIN this week, forc­ing us to shut down all but essen­tial work for 3 days this week. It is final­ly dry­ing up a bit, so our trac­tor began mov­ing large rocks to the next orphan home site. We put in this home’s foun­da­tion before the rains start­ed which was a good thing, or we would not be able to do any­thing until April.

Thanks again for all those who helped us get a great children’s Pas­tor “back on his feet”. Even before he can walk or run, Pas­tor Fred is plan­ning a KID’S KORNER STORY TIME in his home vil­lage once he is out of his cast!

A TRUE EVANGELIST WILL FIND A WAY TO TOUCH OTHERS, NO MATTER WHAT MOUNTAIN RISES UP BEFORE HIM.

Bless­ings,

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange

And the Bala­ma staff

“BUSH BUNNY BRENDA” BLOG: MARCH 10, 2018

BBC PASTOR FRED HAVING MAJOR LEG SURGERY

BBC Pas­tor Fred is the vic­tim of a motor­cy­cle acci­dent which occurred while he was on the road to play BAWANA GAMES with the chil­dren in a remote vil­lage. A motor­cy­cle came around a blind curve at a high speed in the wrong lane, hit­ting our motor­cy­cle broad­side. BBC LEADER and bike dri­ver Car­l­i­tos Jorge swerved to avoid col­li­sion, but there was not enough space or time.

Sad­ly, Pas­tor Fred’s leg took the full blow of the front wheel from the oth­er motor­cy­cle. Car­l­i­tos and the oth­er dri­ver escaped with only minor injuries.

After 10 weeks with 3 casts and 5 hos­pi­tal vis­its, Doc­tors have decid­ed that Fred’s leg will not heal with­out surgery. With lim­it­ed resources in our area, his 2 doc­tors rec­om­mend­ed we trans­fer him to a pri­vate hos­pi­tal in Nam­pu­la. This hos­pi­tal has the need­ed equip­ment and a good ortho­pe­dic sur­geon, but it means pri­vate pay.

Fred’s leg bones are in at least 3 pieces that I can see from the X‑rays, mean­ing it needs plates and screws to repair it.  Not an easy job. Hos­pi­tal expens­es plus 2 doc­tors and an 8 day fol­low up care is esti­mat­ed to cost about $3,000.

Surgery is sched­uled for 8 a.m. Sun­day, March 11th (12 a.m. Cen­tral time in USA). $1,667 had to be paid yes­ter­day in order to get him on the surgery list. The bal­ance is due in 8 days which is the esti­mat­ed post op dis­missal date.

Pas­tor Fred still smil­ing as he faces major surgery

Find­ing that kind of mon­ey on such short notice meant I had to take it from our Children’s Emer­gency Med­ical Fund. That fund is now a bit ane­mic, but no surgery meant a tal­ent­ed Children’s Pas­tor would be crip­pled for life. Much prayer is need­ed for his com­plete and speedy recovery.

Office Man­ag­er Cape­na drove Pas­tor Fred to Nam­pu­la and made all the arrange­ments for his surgery. Cape­na and I are a pow­er­ful team. Togeth­er we keep this mis­sion mov­ing for­ward for JESUS.

SCHOOL EXAMS IN PROGRESS

Our 86 stu­dents are doing well in school, and the proof will be in next week’s test results. For those new to our pro­gram, we have 98 chil­dren liv­ing in our Bala­ma fos­ter homes with 4 liv­ing in our Melu­co Dis­trict Fos­ter home. We stand by the rule that if you live here, you go to school.  (School is option­al here.)

Our 3 to 5 year olds get a head start on school by attend­ing our Lit­tle Dis­ci­ples Activ­i­ty Pro­gram 3 morn­ings a week. The 3 lead­ers teach them Por­tuguese through songs, play­ing games, and art activ­i­ties. I am tru­ly touched when these pre­cious lit­tle ones greet me in Eng­lish. It gives me great joy when I have time  to teach a few words of Eng­lish to them. I call them my “lit­tle sponges”, for what they hear and see, THEY DO!

Our teenagers learn­ing the impor­tance of a weed-free field. Farm­ing is an essen­tial life skill in Mozambique.

BBC TEAMS RAINED OUT 2 DAYS THIS WEEK

March usu­al­ly brings only light rains, so hav­ing 4+ INCHES (100+mm) this week caught all of us by sur­prise. With 6 inch­es (15 cm) of mud cov­er­ing all the soc­cer fields, BAWANA GAMES had to be post­poned twice this week.

It just now stopped rain­ing as I write this and the sun is peek­ing through the clouds. The BBC motor­bike teams should be able to hit the trails TOMORROW!

Bless­ings and thanks so much for your fer­vent prayers for Pas­tor Fred and our faith­ful Youth Pas­tors rais­ing up God’s chil­dren in His Word!

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange

And the Bala­ma Staff

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG MARCH 3, 2018

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA”
DATE: MARCH 3, 2018

IT TAKES A VILLAGE
Car­ing for the needs of 100+ orphans and their 30 sub­sti­tute moth­ers (wid­ows), is a big job that can’t be done with­out mas­sive team work. Our small staff of 7 have mul­ti­ple duties and every­one pitch­es in to do “what­ev­er it takes” to keep the chil­dren healthy and happy.


Wom­en’s Pas­tor Domini­ca help­ing cook lunch on our super size rock­et stove because a moth­er is sick.

Pas­tor Fred and our guard repair a localy made “rope” bed for a orphan in the village.

Fos­ter Moth­er Bal­bi­na “shop­ping” for pump­kins. She calls oth­er moth­ers to come buy when she finds a bargain.

Fos­ter Father Esteven and Granny Ati­ja show­ing off the gar­den that their orphans helped them make. GARDEN SEEDS a gift from Syrah/Twigg employ­ees (graphite mine) at Christmas.

YOU CAN HELP OUR ORPHANS BY SHOPPING SMILE.AMAZON!
(no cost to you)
Orphans Unlim­it­ed is reg­is­tered with SMILE.AMAZON so that our part­ners who shop AMAZON could ben­e­fit our chil­dren with every pur­chase at NO EXTRA COST. THANK YOU to all of you who now par­tic­i­pate for our chil­dren are ben­e­fit­ing! You “went the extra mile”, and this Ama­zon check is now help­ing us to help the children.

Those checks could real­ly grow if our part­ners and those they know would shop at SMILE.AMAZON. Your fam­i­ly, friends, and fel­low work­ers at your com­pa­ny could part­ner with us at no cost to them just by doing their reg­u­lar Ama­zon shop­ping and link­ing to Orphans Unlim­it­ed through the Amazon.Smile program

FROM MARCH 12 TO 31ST, SMILE.AMAZON will TRIPLE their dona­tion on your first purchase.

At SMILE.AMAZON you find the exact items/low prices you do at Amazon.
Dif­fer­ence: Ama­zon just donates a por­tion of the pur­chase price to your cho­sen char­i­ty, at no cost to you.

Your exist­ing Amazon.com account works on SMILE.AMAZON. Your shop­ping cart, Wish List, wed­ding or baby reg­istry, and oth­er account set­tings are also the same.

TO BENEFIT ORPHANS UNLIMITED CHILDREN
Go to: smile.amazon.com/ch/04–3717267
if you don’t like click­ing links, go to Amazon.com like you nor­mal­ly do and search for Ama­zon­S­mile. You’ll find direc­tions for search­ing for us, Orphans Unlim­it­ed, and choos­ing us as your charity.
Then just remem­ber to do your nor­mal Ama­zon shop­ping through their Smile por­tal and we will get a small por­tion of what­ev­er you spend. It is com­plete­ly anony­mous and Ama­zon won’t tell us what you bought or even WHO is link­ing us to their pur­chas­es. It’s just a love­ly, anony­mous sur­prise check for our kids!

TOGETHER, WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE TO OVER 2000 ORPHANS DAILY.
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF