BALAMA BUSH PASTORS BRINGING IN THE SOULS  FRIDAY was our month­ly Pas­tors meet­ing, and despite the heavy rains, they con­tin­ue to meet with vil­lage believ­ers and are reap­ing a har­vest of souls. PTL! SALVATIONS IN FEBRUARY: 

Adults 35    

Teens 35    

Chil­dren 90 

Bala­ma Bush Pas­tors end­ing the month­ly meet­ing with prayer and Thanks­giv­ing.​ Bawana games in these 46 vil­lages reached 13,641 chil­dren with God’s Word. I praise the Lord Jesus for such faith­ful men who, despite many chal­lenges, con­tin­ue to share the Lord’s sal­va­tion mes­sage with all they meet. Keep us all in your prayers, for God is mov­ing here in a mighty way. 

LITTLE DISCIPLES CLASSES ATTENDED BY 43 CHILDREN WEEKLY 

Our LITTLE DISCIPLES pre-school for ages 3 to 5 is in full swing with our 4‑mem­ber-staff teach­ing coor­di­na­tion games, art, songs, basic math, the alpha­bet, Bible sto­ries, and the Por­tuguese lan­guage.  The chil­dren love it all as it pre­pares them for 1st grade. The fos­ter moth­ers love it for it burns off tod­dler ener­gy in a fun way. Prepar­ing God’s chil­dren with a head start pro­gram that paves the way for 1st grade … Click the link for Video

 https://youtu.be/osRC–h2ECY

Lit­tle Dis­ci­ples learn­ing coor­di­na­tion through games.

​BUSH BUNNY TIDBITS 

1. Pas­tor Alber­to is total­ly healed from his rat­tlesnake bite and spent the week teach­ing God’s Word to our youth at the Bawana games.  He left by motor­bike yes­ter­day for Namuno Dis­trict to con­tin­ue his evan­ge­lis­tic work in 4 villages. 

Pas­tor Alber­to back in action as he teach­es God’s Word to our Bawana kids.​ 

2. The Mon­tepuez Riv­er Bridge (100 yards/meters wide), was replaced by a tem­po­rary bridge and opened for traf­fic this week. Manel rushed a load of sup­plies to our orphans in Melu­co town and returned the same day. Sad­ly, that night high waters dam­aged this new bridge. We are thrilled to have met the needs of our orphans for March when flood waters should receed so the bridge can once again be repaired.  TOGETHER,  WE WILL CONTINUE TO SPREAD GOD’S WORD ABOUT JESUS AND RESCUE HIS CHILDREN IN DESPERATE SITUATIONS. 

BLESSINGS,  

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 

AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Please don’t for­get to check out and share our OU Video.

https://youtu.be/M0XCggD68d8

ORPHANS GET FRESH START THANKS TO LOCAL WIDOWS  “IT TAKES A VILLAGE” to care for a child who has lost their par­ents. That phrase is tak­en lit­er­al­ly around here. OUR JESUS-LOVING VILLAGE is made up of wid­owed grannies and aunts who desire to “make a dif­fer­ence” in the lives of these orphans. Dis­abled or elder­ly makes no dif­fer­ence. It is their love for Jesus and His chil­dren that counts! Our chil­dren dear­ly love their fos­ter mothers. 

The Won­der­ful Wid­ows rais­ing our 105 orphans. I great­ly appre­ci­ate these women, and want to hon­or them for their faith­ful, ongo­ing ser­vice to the 105 chil­dren liv­ing in our 21 orphan homes. Please con­tin­ue to pray for all of us as we con­tin­ue our dai­ly ser­vice to these inno­cent ones.  BREAKFAST, THEN OFF TO SCHOOL It was great fun being part of the Vic­to­ry house break­fast time this week. The kids look super sharp in their new school uni­forms with back­packs loaded for school. 

Vic­to­ry House chil­dren look­ing real­ly beau­ti­ful in their school uni­forms.​ Mon­i­ca, 8, who suf­fers from a genet­ic heart con­di­tion, is hap­pi­est of all the chil­dren. Her health improved so well in 2019 that she now has the strength to attend 1st grade. Her fos­ter father, Esteven, pro­vides her a ride on his bicy­cle to and from school dai­ly (400 yards/meters). That much walk­ing would decrease Mon­i­ca’s chances for a suc­cess­ful school year. Tough and deter­mined is how our staff describes this high­ly intel­li­gent young­ster.  Please pray for Mon­i­ca’s strength, as going to school has been her life­long dream. She has begged us for the last 2 years to let her attend, so we are very hap­py for her. 

Mighty Mon­i­ca thrilled to final­ly be in school​.INFANT PROGRAM SAVING LITTLE LIVES  THANKS TO YOUR LOVING HEARTS, any infant in a des­per­ate sit­u­a­tion is able to receive help 24/7 at our mis­sion sta­tion. With Feb­ru­ary being the height of the “time of hunger” (1 month before corn/bean har­vest), we are receiv­ing des­per­ate moth­ers beg­ging for milk for their starv­ing infants. A mal­nour­ished moth­er can­not pro­duce breast milk, and thus the vicious cycle begins. 

Mal­nour­ished Lau­rin­da, 20 months old, 4.6 kg (10 lbs) receives your love through spe­cial foods.​. TWINS are anoth­er group need­ing our help. Orphans or not, twin infants at 3 to 4 weeks put too much demand on a moth­er’s milk pro­duc­ing abil­i­ty, even if she is well nourished. 

Tiny twins, 2 weeks old, enter baby pro­gram. Their moth­er has no breast milk. Please for­give the markkup arrows on the pho­to­graph… this is the twins with their moth­er and father. BECAUSE YOU CARE, THESE LITTLE ONES GET A CHANCE TO GROW UP. KEEP YOUR PRAYERS FLOWING HEAVENWARD. WHAT’S A DUCK BUNNY? The pho­to says it all, as Bush Bun­ny Bren­da pulls on her rub­ber boots, grabs her umbrel­la, and splash­es out into the rainy weath­er to vis­it the chil­dren. On this day last week, not even our 4‑wheel-dri­ve trucks could man­age the deep mud. 

t’s a DUCK BUNNY loose in the rain!​ We eager­ly await March as the rains should decrease, pro­vid­ed a cyclone (hur­ri­cane) does­n’t stir up trou­ble. A Cyclone can eas­i­ly extend the rainy sea­son into April. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND EVERPRESENT LOVE FOR GOD’S “INNOCENT ONES “.BLESSINGS, BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE (DUCK BUNNY)AND THE BALAMA STAFF

TRIALS TO TRIUMPH!

Tues­day night at 7pm, 17-year-old orphan Ivo­dia called me in a pan­ic to say their Fos­ter Moth­er, Berti­na, had been hit by light­ning! A HORRIBLE THUNDERSTORM was in progress at that moment which caused hor­i­zon­tal light­ning flash­es along the ground.

I raced to my car, call­ing Cape­na, our office man­ag­er, to join me. Togeth­er, we slopped through 6 inch­es of mud­dy road in my 4 wheel dri­ve pick-up to get to Bertina’s home. Upon arrival, I found Berti­na in extreme agony and her entire left arm paralyzed!

Ivo­dia and the oth­er fos­ter moth­er told us that Berti­na was plac­ing cloth­ing into the children’s clos­et when the light­ning flash “came through the door”, knock­ing her to the ground inside the girls’ bed­room! Thank­ful­ly, the 2 lit­tle girls had just gone to bed, and were unharmed because they were not “ground­ed” to the floor.

A quick exam showed no “exit marks” on Bertina’s left hand fin­gers which would have been the case if hit by a strong light­en­ing bolt.  Seems the “splash of the flash” caught her on the shoul­der, caus­ing extreme pain, and par­a­lyz­ing the nerves in her left arm and fin­gers, for she could not move them at all. OUR STAFF IMMEDIATELY PRAYED FOR HER.

With the weath­er so dan­ger­ous, I decid­ed to not move her, but called the head Emer­gency Room Nurse in Bala­ma, who told me that pain relief was the only treat­ment if she wasn’t burned. I gave her pain med­i­cine, and she soon fell off to sleep.  The next morn­ing her arm remained painful, but an anti-inflam­ma­to­ry and Tylenol were enough to relieve her pain. By Thurs­day she was regain­ing use of her fin­gers, PTL!  By Sat­ur­day Berti­na was hap­pi­ly back at work wash­ing clothes for the children

Not many are struck by light­ning and live to tell about it. Thank you, Jesus, for rapid­ly heal­ing Bertina!

Berti­no shows where light­ning hit her, knock­ing her off her feet.

Berti­no hap­pi­ly wash­ing orphans clothes 3 days after light­ning strike.

UPDATE ON PASTOR ALBERTO, 1 WEEK POST RATTLESNAKE BITE

Pas­tor Alber­to is now able to bear weight and walk slow­ly on his right ankle! Anoth­er “tri­al that end­ed in tri­umph”! With a few more days of rest, he is expect­ed to make a full recov­ery and be back evan­ge­liz­ing in Namuno Coun­ty south of Balama.

Pas­tor Alber­to 1 week after snake bite on ankle.

TODDLER SANTOS TAKES A BAD FALL

On Thurs­day, I was in Pem­ba buy­ing sup­plies, when I got a call say­ing 2‑year-old San­tos was on his way to the hos­pi­tal with a pos­si­ble bro­ken left ankle. He had tak­en a fall off the veran­da at his fos­ter home, and land­ing side­ways on his ankle.

THANKFULLY, it wasn’t bro­ken, but bad­ly sprained caus­ing it to swell twice its nor­mal size. Giv­en liq­uid Tylenol (parac­eta­mol) and a wrap around his ankle, he was sent home with our staff. On Sat­ur­day morn­ing, Fos­ter Moth­er Marceli­na brought him to vis­it me because San­tos refused to leave the ban­dage on his ankle.  Typ­i­cal tod­dler, lol!

I removed the wrap and agreed to leave it with­out a wrap for now.  He is hap­pi­ly crawl­ing and play­ing just fine at his home, but refus­es to put any weight on his left foot at this time. So we wait until he shows us he is ready to bear weight, and then I will place a small wrap on it to help him walk more con­fi­dent­ly. Boys will be boys, so I sus­pect there will be oth­er spills and thrills for these moth­ers, as they have 3 oth­er tod­dler boys in this home. 

2‑year-old San­tos two days after sprain­ing his ankle.

Thank you all for your prayers, for our ‘African Adven­tures’ have been many in the last 7 days!

BLESSINGS TO YOU ALL!

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF

ADDER (RATTLESNAKE) BIT PASTOR ALBERTO LAST NIGHT!

Pas­tor Alber­to was walk­ing to his mud hut at 6pm (dark) last night in Namuno District/county, 25 miles (42 km) south of our Bala­ma mis­sion, when he was bit­ten by a well cam­ou­flaged Adder (rat­tlesnake with­out a rat­tle, thus no warn­ing). They are called the “silent killers” in Africa for they wait till their prey prac­ti­cal­ly puts a foot right in front of their mouth before they strike with light­ning speed.

BBC Youth Direc­tor, Berti­no, Alberto’s son, called me at 6:30pm Thurs­day night to tell me of the inci­dent. He request­ed per­mis­sion to fetch Alber­to on his motor­bike, and take him to the Namuno Hos­pi­tal. Trav­el­ing that dan­ger­ous road in a 4X4 at night is basi­cal­ly impos­si­ble, but motor­bikes can make it with lots of care­ful dri­ving. I imme­di­ate­ly gave per­mis­sion, and alert­ed our world­wide prayer chain for both men would be in per­il until safe­ly back in Balama. 

Berti­no’s motor­bike broke down halfway to Namuno Dis­trict, so he called his father to say he couldn’t make it. (Berti­no didn’t tell me of the break­down and spent the night in the open bush, wait­ing to call me for help at 4am. Berti­no knew a 4X4 couldn’t risk fetch­ing him till day­light at 5 a.m. so didn’t want to wake me.

Alber­to got a friend to take him to the Namuno hos­pi­tal, but their lim­it­ed resources meant he need­ed trans­fer to a hos­pi­tal with the need­ed med­ica­tions as soon as pos­si­ble. Bala­ma has such resources, PTL!

THAT’S WHERE YOUR PRAYERS SAVED HIS LIFE LAST NIGHT! For like I said, it was impos­si­ble to fetch him with a 4x4 pick-up until day­light due to the dan­ger­ous road.

After find­ing out about Bertino’s prob­lem at 4 am, I noti­fied our 4 dri­vers to report to work IMMEDIATELY. It would be day­light by 5 am, mak­ing it less risky to trav­el on this dan­ger­ous road that few 4X4’s attempt dur­ing the rainy sea­son. Thank­ful­ly, we are hav­ing a few dry days at the moment, so the road was “pass­able with great care” for expert 4X4 drivers. 

Our 4 dri­vers left in 2 trucks by 4:30am. One truck would bring back the bro­ken motor­bike, while the oth­er truck took Berti­no and our 2 best off-road dri­vers to Namuno to trans­fer Alber­to to the Bala­ma Hos­pi­tal. It was slow going, but they made it back to Bala­ma by 8 am. I had noti­fied the Bala­ma hos­pi­tal staff, so they were ready upon his arrival with the need­ed IV medications.

Alber­to is now rest­ing com­fort­ably under close obser­va­tion in the Emer­gency Room with an IV drip and IV med­ica­tions. The head Emer­gency Room nurse said he would be admit­ted lat­er today for at least 2 days to make sure all the swelling and infec­tion in his lymph nodes and leg are gone.

A SUPER MIRACLE 

Even though Alberto’s ankle and leg were bad­ly swollen last night, much of the swelling had decreased by the time he was tak­en to the Bala­ma hos­pi­tal. (NOT NORMAL) The fang marks were vis­i­ble near his right ankle, BUT THE MUSCLE TISSUE DAMAGE NORMALLY CAUSED BY RATTLESNAKE POISON WAS NOT PRESENT!!! (NOT NORMAL)

As an ICU nurse in San Anto­nio, Texas, I have treat­ed post Rat­tlesnake bite vic­tims who had to have their legs opened sur­gi­cal­ly from knee to ankle after a bite like this, or LOSE THE LEG due to the exces­sive swelling and tis­sue destruc­tion caused by the poi­son. Alberto’s leg only shows gen­er­al­ized swelling with exces­sive pain main­ly in his lymph nodes In the pelvic area. (NOT NORMAL).

WE THANK JESUS FOR HIS DIVINE HEALING POWERS THAT ARE AT WORK IN THIS SITUATION.

It is very rare for any­one to sur­vive a snake bite in this area, espe­cial­ly with only minor med­ical care in the first 14 hours. No on doubts that our Lord is at work here. We thank you for your imme­di­ate prayers dur­ing our night, which absolute­ly acti­vat­ed the Holy Spir­it to save his life.

Due to my busy sched­ule with all that is going on, I will con­tin­ue by nor­mal blogs on Feb. 15th. Thank you for con­tin­u­ing to pray for all of us.

FYI.  My work­ers killed 3 of these same “Adders” (rat­tlesnakes) just 50 yards/meters from my house last week.  That is why we work hard to keep our entire area “grass free” in the rainy sea­son.  Give them no place to hide, and every­one is much safer walk­ing across your yard.

Bless­ings,

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange

And the Bala­ma Staff

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST

Pas­tor Alber­to was bit­ten by an Adder (rat­tlesnake fam­i­ly) just now. He is in coun­ty south of us and we can’t get to him. Youth Pas­tor, Berti­no, his son, has gone by motor­bike in the night on a dan­ger­ous road to try and reach him.

Please PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!

Bush Bun­ny Brenda

RAINY SEASON COMPLICATES CONSTRUCTION, BUT GREAT FOR CROPS

This week has us all “walk­ing like ducks” as we wear our rub­ber boots to wade through mud­dy water pud­dles. Rainy Sea­son “nor­mal” for end of Jan­u­ary and all of Feb. weath­er. We receive any­where from 0.5 to 1 inch (12 to 25 mm) of rain per day. With our dirt roads, that means not even the mighty Toy­ota 4X4 Land Cruis­er we have can ven­ture out for sev­er­al hours after a rain. The Land Cruis­er is the work horse for our project, as it can car­ry up to 750Kg or (1,650 lbs.) for short dis­tances. We are for­tu­nate on our 40 acres (16 hectares) of land, that our roads are well packed with good ditch­es, and con­tain lots of sand, mak­ing our roads durable if we just let them dry a bit after each rain.  Many years ago, a South African Road Engi­neer gave me the “key” to keep­ing a dirt road func­tion­al in the rainy sea­son. His secret:  A dirt road is only as good as it’s ditch­es.  Keep the water con­trolled in the ditch­es, and your road will not wash away in heavy rains. IT WORKS, and we main­tain our ditch­es con­stant­ly dur­ing the rainy months.

SMALL PROJECTS KEEP OUR TEAMS BUSY

11 Dorm Boys in Front of New Bedrooms

Our 11 teenagers are back, and the “new­ly com­plet­ed” 2 bed­room exten­sion our brick­lay­ers built for them dur­ing their 8 week school hol­i­day, is now open. But that means we need more bathing areas and toi­lets, as our 2 new bed­rooms can hold an addi­tion­al 8 boys. (16 boys total in dorm)

2 Bunk Beds Sleep 4 Stu­dents per Room

With rainy sea­son in full down pour, we do things in reverse, as it is not safe to dig a 16 foot (4 meter) deep hole in the ground for the toilets.

FIRST, you build the roof, so the ground will stay dry, THEN YOU DIGthe hole.

So this morn­ing, our car­pen­ters are busy extend­ing the old roof over the bath­room area, while our brick lay­ers are busy mak­ing bricks for Orphan House #7.

Car­pen­ters Extend­ing Old Bath­rooms Roof, Mak­ing Way for the New Facility

The roads are way too wet to con­tin­ue House #7 until March, as our trucks can­not haul build­ing mate­ri­als to that area until it dries up a bit.

BUSH BUNNY TIDBITS:

Baby Angeli­na Eat­ing Well and Get­ting Stronger After Her Hos­pi­tal Time

Both Babies Angeli­na and Neli­ta  are healthy, but in iso­la­tion from the oth­er small chil­dren in our homes, to give their immune sys­tems a chance to rebuild as they regain their strength and weight. 

Baby Neli­ta Get­ting Out­door Time While Big­ger Kids at Bawana Games

ZITO:  

Zito Ready for School to Begin

After con­sults with 4 Dr.’s in Moz.,  and an expert on Pseudomonas in 

RSA, the final con­sen­sus is that fur­ther surgery/IV antibi­otics will not resolve his infec­tion.  WHY?  It has entered his Bone Mar­row, where even IV drugs can­not reach it.  That is why we can con­trol it, but not stop it. It is now labeled “chron­ic”, as his body has become accus­tom to it. NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD

Have we giv­en up on Zito’s heal­ing? NO WAY!!!

We will con­tin­ue our dai­ly prayer, COMMANDING THE INFECTION TO DIE IN JESUS’ NAME, as well as symp­to­matic care to con­trol his infec­tion as best we can with what we have on hand. GOD IS THE GREAT PHYSICIAN.  I have per­son­al­ly seen Him raise the dead twice, and do many heal­ing mir­a­cles. Zito’s faith as well as ours is flow­ingSTRONG. 

PLEASE BE IN AGREEMENT WITH US IN COMMANDING THIS INFECTION TO DIE AND LEAVE HIS BODY.

ZITO IS HAPPY THAT NO FURTHER SURGERY IS NEEDED, (after 3 surg­eries last year), and is NOT depressed by the words of the Doc­tors.   He is stronger phys­i­cal­ly than he has ever been thanks to a high pro­tein diet, vit­a­mins, and con­stant care.  His “chron­ic infec­tion” doesn’t cause him to feel bad, nor does he have fever or pain.  Like most kids, he is liv­ing in the NOW, and look­ing for­ward to begin­ning 7th grade next week. He will live well with us, and con­tin­ue his school­ing like all the oth­er chil­dren in our care. 

Thank very much for your past and future prayers for Zito.

Bless­ings, 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF Please don’t for­get to check out and share our OU Video.https://youtu.be/M0XCggD68d8

BABY ANGELINA IN HOSPITAL WITH RESPIRATORY INFECTION

With 9 babies in our care, and more than1 baby per house, it is a real chal­lenge dur­ing the hot and humid rainy sea­son to keep them from get­ting an Upper Res­pi­ra­to­ry Infec­tion. Baby Angeli­na is only 3.5 months old, and the youngest in our care as of today. 

At about 1 a.m. Thurs­day morn­ing (Jan­u­ary 16), Baby Angeli­na awoke with a cough­ing spasms due to thick phlegm in her throat. She was unable to take flu­ids due to her mouth breath­ing and rapid res­pi­ra­tion rate. It was obvi­ous she was suf­fer­ing a rapid onset Upper Res­pi­ra­to­ry Infec­tion which required IV antibi­otics immediately. 

Baby Angeli­na with Fos­ter Moth­er Bal­bi­na await­ing treat­ment at hospital.

Our team rushed her to the Bala­ma hos­pi­tal where she was giv­en Emer­gency Care, and then admit­ted to Pedi­atrics. Angeli­na is much bet­ter, but still in hos­pi­tal as I write. She might be released on Monday. 

Born on Octo­ber 4, 2019, Angeli­na weighed only 2.2 kg (4.8 lbs). Steadi­ly gain­ing weight since join­ing our fam­i­ly after her mother’s death on Oct. 24th, Angeli­na now weighs 4.6 kg (10.1 lbs.).

Your prayers are great­ly appre­ci­at­ed for her rapid recovery.

FYI:  NOTE ON BABY NELITA: After a week of eat­ing a high pro­tein diet, Neli­ta is off all antibi­otics, but still receiv­ing infant vit­a­mins and iron sup­ple­ments for her ane­mia. We are very hap­py at her progress. Thank you so much for your faith­ful prayers.

Baby Neli­ta gain­ing strength and enjoy­ing her new toy.

HOUSE #6 FAMILY LOVING THEIR NEW HOME

All 6 school age chil­dren are pic­tured (below) today along with Fos­ter Moth­er Maria. Ivo­dia is the old­est at 17, (far right in pho­to, blue blouse), and is a great help to the moth­ers dur­ing meal prepa­ra­tion time. Ivo­dia was once the “moth­er” and sole care­tak­er of her 3 sib­lings as there was no adult in her home after her moth­er died.  We call that a “Child Head­ed House­hold”. She will enter 11th grade in Feb­ru­ary, and we are hope­ful that Ivo­dia will go on to a pro­fes­sion­al school after grad­u­a­tion from 12th grade.

Fos­ter Moth­er Maria with six new res­i­dents orphan house #6.​

FOUNDATION FOR ORPHAN HOUSE #7 NOW COMPLETED

I’m very proud of our 12 man brick lay­ing team who trudged through heavy mud and braved unex­pect­ed rain storms to make this foun­da­tion hap­pen. Our truck dri­vers assist­ed by patient­ly haul­ing in over 6 tons of rock with our 1‑ton pick-ups so that the foun­da­tion could be poured. Due to soft ground, the dri­vers could only put ½ ton in each truck load.

With the rainy sea­son, the ground is way too soft for our trac­tor or 6‑ton truck to be of any use (it would sink in the mud). So, slow­ly but sure­ly, we are mov­ing for­ward with house #7. For the next 3 weeks the foun­da­tion will “CURE” (hard­en), while our team is busy mak­ing bricks for the kitchen/eating area of this house.

Mud­dy ground is no prob­lem for this mas­sive group in a 4 way tug-of-war.

After tug-of-war time to sit down for a great Bible sto­ry les­son taught by BBC Youth Pastors

BUSH BIKERS FOR CHRIST (motor­bikes and bicy­cle teams) are doing their best on the “non-rainy days”  to con­tin­ue our Bala­ma Games and Bible Teach­ing pro­grams. When they are able to go out, the teams record up to 1,000 chil­dren per meet­ing. GOD IS SURELY MOVING IN THE BALAMA AREA.

BLESSINGS TO YOU ALL AS YOU MARCH INTO 2020!

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFFPlease don’t for­get to check out and share our OU Video.https://youtu.be/M0XCggD68d8

BABY NELITA RELEASED AND HOUSE # 6 IS NOW OPEN WITH 7 CHILDREN

Baby Neli­ta, released late Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 10th, is now hap­pi­ly in her NEW HOME at House #6. Enjoy­ing her high pro­tein diet, Neli­ta is still on oral antibi­otics for 5 more days, as her ear and res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tions have not total­ly resolved. Her weight gain should accel­er­ate now that her body is more healthy, and her appetite has returned.

Neli­ta in her new home at House #6.

She is still ane­mic, with a weak­ened immune sys­tem, but on a liq­uid Iron sup­ple­ment for infants as well as mul­ti-vit­a­mins. Being iso­lat­ed from oth­er young chil­dren until her immune lev­els increase, is of vital impor­tance. Thus the move to the new bed­room at House #6.

PLEASE CONTINUE YOUR PRAYERS FOR THIS LITTLE ONE.  IT WAS TRULY “TOUCH AND GO” FOR A FEW DAYS IN HOSPITAL, and there is NO DOUBT that your prayers helped her through those dif­fi­cult days. We are still fight­ing to get her com­plete­ly healthy, and laid hands on her for a rapid recov­ery once she was in her new bed­room yesterday.

Mon­day, due to Nelita’s delayed release, our staff moved Fos­ter Moth­er Ben­di­ta and the 4 orphans in her care into House #6.

They were delight­ed and a bit over­whelmed, as they had nev­er lived in a mod­ern con­crete home with REAL BEDS and MATTRESSES!

It took us 3 days due to heavy rains on Mon­day and Tues­day to set up the new bunk beds, wash the new­ly sewn bed sheets, set up mos­qui­to nets, and get the kitchen ful­ly operational. 

House #6 res­i­dents Baby Neli­ta and fos­ter moth­er Fati­ma, along with fos­ter moth­er Ben­di­ta and her four orphans will be joined by a third fos­ter moth­er, Maria, and two more childten this week. We are busy prepar­ing those beds as I write. We will try to snap and share a com­plete fam­i­ly pho­to next week.

Fos­ter moth­er Maria and her 2 new chil­dren. Belucha is 10 and in the 5th grade and Helder is 6 and in preschool.

GROUND BREAKING FOR HOUSE #7 BEGAN MONDAY

Our 12-man con­struc­tion team made short work of mov­ing Fos­ter Moth­er Ben­di­ta and her 4 orphaned chil­dren into House #6 at 5 a.m. Mon­day. This was nec­es­sary so they could destroy the mud hut in which they lived so it can be replaced by House #7.  

We tem­porar­i­ly left the house and bath­room roofs in place until the foun­da­tion is in place. That par­tial­ly pro­tects the foun­da­tion from heavy rains, and gives the work­ers a place to get out of the rain and the sun, when it decides to show its face. The 2 roofs will be torn down before the walls go up.

Foun­da­tion for House #7 almost completed.

RAINY SEASON FOUNDATIONS are a bit trick­i­er to build com­pared to dry sea­son foun­da­tions.  Instead of dig­ging out the WHOLE FOUNDATION at once, the team must dig a por­tion, and then fill it imme­di­ate­ly with gran­ite rock and cement, leav­ing space for the 8 rebar and cement “pil­lars” that will secure the cross walls.  If today’s rain holds off, the team will com­plete the ground lev­el foun­da­tion by noon.

ZITO WAITING FOR RSA DOCTOR’S RECOMMENDATION

Sad­ly, Zito’s infec­tion is the dread­ed PSEUDAMONIS AUREALIS BACTERIA.  As an X‑ICU nurse, we use to joke that you can’t kill it with a  stick, much less with antibi­otics. RESISTANT TO MOST ANTIBIOTICS, we now wait for the Ortho­pe­dic Dr. in RSA to give us his rec­om­men­da­tion on how to pro­ceed.  I’ll keep you updat­ed as I know more.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS AS WE FAITHFULLY MARCH INTO 2020 WITH THE JOY OF THE LORD AS OUR STRENGTH!

BLESSINGS,

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Pho­to extra:

Farm­ing is a fam­i­ly affair. From the old­est to the youngest, every­one helps. No har­vest means hunger for all.Please don’t for­get to check out and share our OU Video.https://youtu.be/M0XCggD68d8

BABY NELITA IN HOSPITAL WITH 3 ILLNESSES

We knew from the start that 1 year old Nelita’s immune sys­tem was weak­ened due to her mal­nu­tri­tion upon join­ing our fam­i­ly. A sinus infec­tion, resis­tant to Amox­i­cillin, com­pli­cat­ed by malar­ia put her in the hos­pi­tal last Mon­day. Her CBC blood analy­sis showed she had anoth­er infec­tion, but the Doc­tor could not pin point where. One day lat­er, her ears began to drain clear flu­id from the ear drums, so the mys­tery was solved.

Baby Neli­ta sit­ting with Fos­ter Moth­er Fati­ma on Dec. 4th.

With mul­ti­ple IV antibi­otics, plus malar­ia treat­ments, she is doing bet­ter, but still in hos­pi­tal as I write. Please pray for this frag­ile lit­tle girl, for this is a rough start in life for any infant.

NELITA’S ILLNESS MEANS SHE WILL MOVE TO HOUSE #6

The 2 moth­ers who will live at House #6 have been tied up all week, as we had to do the “fos­ter moth­er shuf­fle” so that 2 moth­ers could be at the hos­pi­tal with Neli­ta at all times. 

New Fos­ter Moth­ers Maria (L) and Jami­la ® stand­ing in front of House #6.​

The changes will now become per­ma­nent since Fati­ma (Nelita’s fos­ter moth­er) must move with the infant to House #6. Jami­la took over as Head Moth­er in Fatima’s place at the Ostrich House on Monday.

Ostrich House Fam­i­ly, Decem­ber 2019. Zito play­ing big broth­er until school reopens end of January.

WHY THE MOVE?  The pho­to of the Ostrich House Fam­i­ly shows that most of the res­i­dents are under 6 years of age.  Due to Nelita’s low resis­tance to child­hood res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases, the Doc­tor request­ed that we iso­late her from small chil­dren to enhance her chances of recov­ery. The chil­dren who will live in House #6 are all school age, mak­ing it a safer envi­ron­ment for an immune chal­lenged infant.

We worked all yes­ter­day get­ting House #6 ready to receive the 2 fos­ter moth­ers and 7 chil­dren, but Neli­ta was not released from the hos­pi­tal. HOUSE #6 IS READY, and will receive her new fam­i­ly as soon as Neli­ta is free to come home.

3 BRIDGES DOWN– MASSIVE FLOODING IN MELUCO ORPHANAGE AREA

Rain­fall has been tremen­dous in the last 2 weeks thanks to a trop­i­cal storm that filled all the local rivers to over­flow­ing. Two bridges near Melu­co town, plus the MASSIVE MONTEPUEZ RIVER BRIDGE ON THE MAIN HIGHWAY WERE DESTROYED.

Thank­ful­ly, Manel, our dri­ver alert­ed me to the dam­age to the local bridges near Melu­co that he saw on his Decem­ber 22nd sup­ply trip. 

Mon­tepuez Riv­er Bridge bad­ly dam­aged by floods. (NOT our truck in photo)

We imme­di­ate­ly moved 3 months sup­plies to the 400+ orphans now liv­ing in this area cut off from the rest of Mozambique.

Thank­ful­ly, the rains have returned to nor­mal as of this week, and the riv­er lev­els are decreasing.

Keep the repair teams and our Melu­co orphans in prayer dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time. PTL that all the orphans are safe, and have what they need until end of March.

God’s Bless­ings to you all, and a Hap­py New Year!

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 

AND THE BALAMA STAFFPlease don’t for­get to check out and share our 2019 OU Video.https://youtu.be/M0XCggD68d8