ZITO FACES MAJOR LEG SURGERY AGAIN

On Wednes­day, Novem­ber 27th, the head orthopaedic sur­geon in Pem­ba will per­form an explorato­ry surgery on Zito’s leg as osteomyelitis is a very dif­fi­cult infec­tion to stop. After speak­ing to an OR (oper­at­ing room) nurse very famil­iar with this prob­lem, she stat­ed that it is not unusu­al for patients to need more than 1 surgery to erad­i­cate the infec­tion from the bone.

Zito still smil­ing, even when fac­ing anoth­er major surgery.

PLEASE KEEP THIS BRAVE YOUNG MAN IN YOUR PRAYERS THIS WEEK as he will be admit­ted to the Pem­ba Hos­pi­tal on Mon­day, the 25th for pre-op analy­sis with his surgery sched­uled for Wednesday. 

ORPHANED TEENS JOIN OUR EXTENDED FAMILY

Joao, 17 and his broth­er Isaquiel (ee-zak-ee-el), 15, were tak­en in by Granny Euze­bia who hosts only 1 teenage grand­son. She has plen­ty of room for 2 more, for these young men are her grandson’s good friends who lived next door to them. 

These two very polite and intel­li­gent young men lost their moth­er and father 2 years ago to ill­ness. They were tak­en in by their uncle who had come from the Beira area to work at the graphite mine.  The Uncle passed away last month, leav­ing the boys in a rent­ed mud hut with very lit­tle food reserves, and NO oth­er fam­i­ly in this Province (state).

Isaquiel, 15, (left) and broth­er Joao, 17 (right).

Their rent­ed hut was dam­aged from the rainy sea­son and the walls col­lapsed after the Uncle’s death, thank­ful­ly when the boys were not there! Granny Euze­bia let them eat at her house which is next door, and their plight was brought to the atten­tion of Social Services.

We were asked to con­tin­ue assist­ing them while they looked for the extend­ed fam­i­ly. We glad­ly wel­comed the boys, know­ing there is lit­tle chance for them to return to their extend­ed fam­i­ly in Beira, as that area is still strug­gling to recov­er from the mas­sive Cyclone (Hur­ri­cane) that destroyed the area last March. Many fam­i­lies have moved to oth­er areas, and it will be a mir­a­cle if Social Ser­vices can locate them. So we await the report on their Beira fam­i­ly, and in the mean­time, are try­ing to put some weight on these 2 very skin­ny teenagers.

NEWLY DONATED BBC MOTORBIKE READY FOR SERVICE

This new bike replaces our old 2016 bike which is no longer reli­able for long dis­tance work. MUCH THANKS TO THE 2 CHURCHES (Pasade­na and Rock Island) WHO DONATED GENEROUSLY IN OCTOBER TO MAKE THIS POSSIBLE. YOUR GIFT IS NOW AT WORK!

Our motor­bike mechan­ic, Sim­ba, is sit­ting on the bike, as he had just declared it ready for service.

RAINY WEATHER REPORTED TO BEGIN NEXT WEEK

The BBC Teams will be going out as weath­er per­mits start­ing from next week. Keep their them in your prayers for safe travels.

BLESSINGS

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFFP.S.Don’t for­get to check out and share our 2019 OU Video.

https://youtu.be/M0XCggD68d8

ZITO’S SURGERY FAILS TO RESOLVE INFECTION

The sur­geon opened Zito’s hip mus­cle to find a large pus pock­et which she thor­ough­ly cleaned out. The source of the prob­lem was not locat­ed, so he was kept on IV Antibi­otics for 5 days before being released. Once home, and on oral antibi­otics, his wound began drain­ing pus from the inci­sion with­in 3 days.

A call to the Provin­cial Hos­pi­tal, gained Zito a con­sult with the head orthopaedic sur­geon some­time next week. They will noti­fy us when to bring him in.

Zito today and in great spirits.

PLEASE KEEP PRAYING, FOR THIS YOUNG MAN IS IN A MAJOR FIGHT FOR HIS HEALTH. 

Zito’s infec­tion began in Dec. 2018, and has not been resolved with 3 surg­eries. My con­cern is that the infec­tion is IN the bone itself, and was not com­plete­ly erad­i­cat­ed in the first surgery last June. So we await the next con­sult to see what this orthopaedic sur­geon suggests.

Zito and his fos­ter father, Pas­tor Armando.

SCHOOL IS OUT, BUT PREPARATIONS MUST BEGIN FOR FEB., 2020

My team and I spent 2 days in Pem­ba this week buy­ing fab­ric to make 81 sets of school uni­forms (shirts with pants/skirt), plus box­es and box­es of all the note­books and sup­plies need­ed to out­fit those same 81 chil­dren. Not an easy feat, as it took a pick up plus my King Cab to get every­thing back to Bala­ma on Fri­day afternoon.

Mon­day, our sewing team will expand from 1 to 2 men with Singer ped­al sewing machines. These men will need 2 months to com­plete the sewing of 81 uniforms.

The old­er chil­dren are eager­ly await­ing their test results to know if they passed to the next grade. The 10th and 12th graders will be tak­ing their exams this com­ing week. Loads of fun around here, for SCHOOL HOLIDAYS has begun for all the oth­er grades.

Room full of 2020 school supplies.

BABIES GALORE

With 9 babies in our 4 homes for younger chil­dren, buy­ing 20 pack­ages of dia­pers to meet their needs took up much of the room in our Fri­day trans­port trucks.  We allow the moth­ers to use a prop­er dis­pos­able dia­per at night to pre­vent mat­tress damage. 

Dur­ing the day, they use cot­ton cloth dia­pers as the heat from any plas­tic dia­per cov­er caus­es severe dia­per rash. For the next 5 months it will be in the 90’s F (30’s C).  Hot and humid, as the rainy sea­son begins.

Lit­tle Vic­to­ria with her old­er sis­ters Felim­i­na and Domini­ca. Click to see their video clip on YouTube. https://youtu.be/OF40c4rj8XUAnd don’t for­get to check out and share our 2019 OU Video.https://youtu.be/M0XCggD68d8

TOGETHER, WE ARE TRULY MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES OF MANY CHILDREN!

BLESSINGS,

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF

TINY BABY ANGELINA JOINS OUR FAMILY 

Baby Angeli­na, weight 2.45kg (5lbs.) at 30 days

Angeli­na only weighed 2 kg (4.4 lbs) when born on Octo­ber 4, 2019.  Sad­ly, her moth­er passed away on Octo­ber 24 from post­par­tum com­pli­ca­tions, and her father is in the hos­pi­tal suf­fer­ing the final stages of tuberculosis. 

Angelina’s very elder­ly Granny Clementi­na tried her best for 2 weeks to care for the infant, but it was obvi­ous at this week’s weigh in that the respon­si­bil­i­ty was more than she could han­dle.  She gave up the baby will­ing, so that Angeli­na might live. She explained that there are no oth­er women in the fam­i­ly who can care for Angeli­na, so Social Ser­vices agreed that we should receive Angeli­na into our family. 

Angeli­na is thriv­ing after 3 days of love and care from Fos­ter Moth­er Bal­bi­na, who loves rais­ing babies. Please keep Angeli­na in your prayers, for she is very small and a bit frail.  With Moth­er Balbina’s care, we feel she will be up to a nor­mal weight very shortly.

SPONSOR NEEDED FOR ANGELINA

Angeli­na needs a $30/month spon­sor to help us meet her needs.

Your gift will pro­vide baby for­mu­la, cloth­ing, cloth dia­pers, and baby food that we make our­selves once she is old enough to eat.

Thank you for help­ing us help these inno­cent ones who have no hope of life with­out our assistance.

Please EMAIL ME if you would like to spon­sor this cute lit­tle girl.

ZITO RECOVERING FROM HIP SURGERY

Zito and Pas­tor Arman­do just before he left for the hospital

Zito only had his surgery on THURSDAY instead of Tues­day because we had a major pow­er fail­ure in our area of the Province.

Both Mon­tepuez and Bala­ma were with­out elec­tric­i­ty till late Tues­day after­noon.  All of Tuesday’s surg­eries were resched­uled for Thurs­day.  Because of the surgery back­log, the sur­geon has not yet had time to give us a report on what she found.

He is recov­er­ing well, and Pas­tor Arman­do is pro­vid­ing great care for him.

I will for­ward the Doctor’s report once I receive it.  Thanks for pray­ing for his quick recovery.

NOVEMBER FOOD GIVE OUTS COMPLETED THIS WEEK!

Both trucks loaded with food for an ear­ly a.m. start. Our office is in the middle.

It was a wild week of load the trucks, send them out.  Load the trucks, send them out!  Our entire week cen­tered on the food give outs as the trucks left dai­ly by 4:15 a.m.  IT IS GREAT TO KNOW IT IS FINISHED!

The 1800 chil­dren and wid­ows in 2 coun­ties (Dis­tricts) now have their corn and bean seeds as well as their food. This put BIG SMILES on many faces for sure.

The rains have already swept through our area once this week, so plant­i­ng time is upon us.

THANKS TO YOUR HELP, WE NOW CELEBRATE 15 YEARS OF GIVING ORPHANED CHILDREN A HAND UP IN LIFE.

BLESSINGS FROM THE ENTIRE BALAMA STAFF!

Please keep your prayer cov­er­age over all of us, but espe­cial­ly Angeli­na and Zito.

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange

ZITO NEEDS MINOR SURGERY 

Doc­tors sus­pect Zito has an inter­nal suture that did not dis­solve after his major hip surgery in July, for he devel­oped a fis­tu­la (pus pock­et) in his hip suture line that will not heal. Three weeks of antibi­otics did not resolve it, so the only solu­tion is for the Mon­tepuez sur­geon to go in under anes­the­sia to find the source. Cape­na, our office man­ag­er, will take him Mon­day for admis­sion and anes­the­sia assess­ment. Surgery will be Tues­day. I will keep you informed. 

Zito and his fos­ter father, Pastir Arman­do,  who will stay with him for surgery.

BBC AND PASTORS RETURN TO EVANGELIZING WITH BAWANA GAMES 

Prayed up and back on their motor­bikes, the BBC Youth Lead­ers and 11 remote vil­lage Pas­tors report­ed HUGE turn outs for the last week of Octo­ber, reach­ing a record 13,087 chil­dren with sto­ries about Jesus. 

Bush Bik­ers for Christ (BBC) leav­ing at 4:45 a.m. for vil­lage pro­grams.​ Even with a short­age of gaso­line in Bala­ma, the BBC motor­bike teams still man­aged to bring Jesus to 16,158 chil­dren IN 1 WEEK using only 4 motor­bikes and TWO 4‑man teams.  That goes to show you how much the chil­dren missed our teams pro­gram for they love the Bible stories. 

Vil­lage Pas­tors and Bren­da pray­ing and prais­ing togeth­er after our Octo­ber meet­ing.​ 

Manel took the final load of food to the Melu­co orphans on Wednes­day, and upon his return he was able to alle­vi­ate the BBC fuel crunch by fill­ing THIRTEEN 5‑gal­lon/20-liter con­tain­ers with gaso­line. Every­one works as a team here, and Manel even sur­prised me with a large bag of car­rots when no one else had been able to find any this week. What’s a Bun­ny with­out her car­rots? A very sad Bun­ny with noth­ing to crunch on! 

Please pray for Zito, as he needs a speedy and com­plete recovery.He has been through a lot this year, and still man­aged to main­tain his school lessons even though he missed some school time. 

TOGETHER WE ARE MAKING A BIG IMPACT FOR JESUS! 

Bless­ings 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA AND THE BALAMA STAFF