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Monthly Archives: June 2021

“BUSH BUNNY BRENDA” BLOG: JUNE 26, 2021

 FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: JUNE 26, 2021
 
HOSPITAL RELEASES BABY JUMA
 
Nine-week-old Juma suf­fered from gas­troen­teri­tis vs. Malar­ia as first diag­nosed. His treat­ment was changed and he recov­ered rapid­ly, PTL! Thank you all for your prayers.  
 

Baby Juma ready to leave the hos­pi­tal.​
 
Our 10 infants are all home and healthy. Just a few run­ny noses which hap­pens as this is our “win­ter”. Night­time temps are around 50ºF/14ºC. Days are in the 70’s/20’s with a breeze. It’s very cold for our chil­dren, as they are accus­tomed to tem­per­a­tures in the 90’sF/32ºC or greater. 
 

Dave with Baby Adeli­na (who does­n’t like strangers,  but she took to Dave imme­di­ate­ly!)​
 
 
BUMPS IN THE AIR, BUT DAVE IS HOME
 
Dave flew out of Pem­ba on Wednes­day to face a gru­el­ing trip home. Just before board­ing, he received noti­fi­ca­tion that his next flight from Johan­nes­burg to Eng­land had been can­celled!
 
I had to awak­en our USA sec­re­tary at 2:30 a.m. USA time, who prompt­ly called the air­line to request anoth­er flight.
 
Dave made the new flight at 11pm to Hol­land where he caught a flight to Atlanta, then to Grand Rapids. Exhaust­ed, but thrilled to be home, Dave is will­ing to come again next year if pos­si­ble. 
 
I PTL FOR HIS HELP AND DEDICATION WITH FOOD BUYING THIS YEAR. THANKS TO ALL WHO PRAYED FOR HIS SAFE RETURN. 
 
 
TRIPLETS REDUCED TO TWO
 
On Thurs­day, 24th, the aunt and uncle of our lat­est triplets only came to weigh-in with 2 infants. Donito, the first­born infant, had been admit­ted to the Mon­tepuez Region­al Hos­pi­tal with breath­ing dif­fi­cul­ties.
 
Sad­ly, on Fri­day, a fam­i­ly mem­ber dropped by to tell us that Donito did­n’t sur­vive. His sib­lings, who were born by Cae­sar­i­an sec­tion vs. nat­ur­al birth for Donito, are both gain­ing weight, and doing well.
PLZ PRAY FOR THIS FAMILY IN THEIR TIME OF MOURNING, AND FOR THE OTHER 2 INFANTS TO GROW STRONG. 
 

Donil­to (1.9kg/4.18lbs.) and Denil­ta (2kg/4.4lbs) are get­ting stronger.​
 
YOUR LOVING PRAYERS AND EMAILS FOR ALL OF US ARE MUCH APPRECIATED. 
 
BLESSINGS 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
 AND THE BALAMA STAFF 

“BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“DATE: JUNE 19, 2021

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: JUNE 19, 2021
 
TEREZINHA NEEDS A HOME
 
Two-month-old Terez­in­ha was sud­den­ly orphaned last Sat­ur­day night when her moth­er died at the Bala­ma Hos­pi­tal from post par­tum com­pli­ca­tions. The father aban­doned them both when the moth­er became ill, and the only female rel­a­tive is too elder­ly to care for her.
 
A fam­i­ly friend brought her to my door ear­ly Sun­day morn­ing with a let­ter from Social Ser­vices ask­ing us to accept her into our care. Healthy, but small for her age, Terez­in­ha greed­i­ly attached her­self to the bot­tle of for­mu­la I offered her.
 

 
Terezhi­na needs a home.
 
Fos­ter Moth­er Vaneza accept­ed this lit­tle one as her own. She had a nor­mal week at the Zebra House, now bet­ter known as the ‘Baby House’ with 7 of our 10 infants resid­ing there.
 
TEREZINHA NEEDS A $40/MONTH SPONSOR. Please email me if you would like to spon­sor her.
 
 
BABIES SALVADOR AND JUMA BATTLED  MALARIA THIS WEEK. 
 
Mon­day at 11:45pm, Head Fos­ter Moth­er of the ‘Baby House’, called me to say Sal­vador was very sick just 24 hours after com­plet­ing his 3‑day-course of malar­ia med­ica­tion. This meant he had “resis­tant” malar­ia and need­ed IV treat­ment IMMEDIATELY.  He recov­ered well and is now hap­pi­ly back at his home with us.
 

Sal­vador sleeps peace­ful­ly after rough start with malar­ia.​
 

SALVADOR IS BACK!​
 
JUMA, who has only been with us a short time, was rushed by Cape­na to the Hos­pi­tal on Fri­day, as Sal­vador was being released. 
PLEASE PRAY for Juma as he has a sen­si­tive stom­ach mak­ing it hard for him to keep flu­ids in his tum­my. He is on IV flu­ids as I write.  Malar­ia is noto­ri­ous for caus­ing vom­it­ing, as rapid dehy­dra­tion is part of the rea­son it kills so eas­i­ly. 
 
 
BUSH BUNNY TIDBITS:
 
1. Our 7‑ton-truck car­ried our corn pro­cess­ing team to Melu­co this week. Melu­co is our remote orphan sta­tion in a coun­ty north of us, feed­ing 500+ orphans week­ly. 
 

7‑ton loaded with corn chute head­ed to Melu­co on Tues­day.
 
2. Maez­in­ha still work­ing on walk­ing Inde­pen­dent­ly,  but want­ed to show off her new dress.
 

Maez­in­ha shows off her new dress. She strug­gles to walk Inde­pen­dent­ly but is game to keep try­ing.​
 
3. Wid­ows with orphans received blan­kets this week as Bala­ma is deal­ing with record low tem­per­a­tures this June. No one look­ing for­ward to July as the tem­per­a­tures usu­al­ly drop even low­er as our cold sea­son peaks.
 

Blan­ket give-out to our wid­ows and orphans as cold­est win­ter on record begins.
 
YOUR LOVE GIFTS AT WORK AS WE WATCH OVER GOD’S CHILDREN. 
 
Bless­ings, 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF 
 
 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: JUNE 12, 2021

 TRIPLETS SURVIVE A WILD ENTRANCE!
 
The preg­nant moth­er went to the vil­lage hos­pi­tal as she began her labor. Short­ly, a tiny 1.6kg/3.5 lb lit­tle boy was born. To the amaze­ment of the nurse on duty, there was anoth­er unborn infant sit­ting cross­ways that could not enter the birth canal.
 
Bala­ma’s ambu­lance rushed to the scene to take her to the region­al hos­pi­tal for a C‑section. How­ev­er, the region­al hos­pi­tal real­ized there were 2 more infants to deliv­er, so this young moth­er was rushed to the state hos­pi­tal in Pem­ba.
 
Mirac­u­lous­ly,  moth­er and all 3 infants sur­vived!
 

Moth­er holds a baby boy, and Sis­ter holds 1 boy, 1 girl. All born 1.6kg/3.5 lbs.
 
A week lat­er, Social Ser­vices received them in Bala­ma, plac­ing them in our infant for­mu­la pro­gram. 
 
All 3 are hold­ing their weight after the first 3 days, but they are far from being at a “safe weight”. Please keep all of them in prayer, as their Mom is also weak after this ordeal. It will take some time for her to over­come her ane­mia even with vit­a­mins. 
 
The father came to fetch the 2 women and 3 babies in the pho­to after fuel­ing up down the road. It was a “hold your breath” moment as he tied 1 infant onto his chest, then had the 2 women load up, each with 1 baby tied onto their backs. They were back 3 days lat­er using the same trans­port, for it is required that all infants weigh in to receive more for­mu­la. 
 
Pray for their trav­el safe­ty as well! Updates to be giv­en as they devel­op. 
 
 
ROUGH START THAT ENDS WELL
 
Say­ing we had a rough 2 weeks of food buy­ing since June 1st would be putting it mild­ly.
 
RAIN STORMS WITH HIGH WINDS hit us both Mon­days!
 
First, it isn’t nor­mal for heavy rains to hit us in June. 
 
Sec­ond, the June 1st rain was tol­er­a­ble since we were only buy­ing beans and had them all under the roof of our corn barn, PTL! This June 1st rain last­ed only dur­ing the ear­ly morn­ing, so except for wet ground, it did­n’t even delay the Chil­dren’s Day Par­ty.
 
June 7th was s dif­fer­ent sto­ry!
 
A beau­ti­ful sun­rise was whisked away by high winds that pushed heavy rain clouds over our area by 6 a.m. (We start at 5a.m.) As the light rain began, Manel and I remem­bered the “ERIC IDEA” from 5 years ago when rain hit us dur­ing food buy­ing. The 2 of us raced to our base, grab­bing 10 tarps, rolls of rope, and the 7‑TON TRUCK!
 

Food buy­ing in the rain.​
 
The pho­to shows the emer­gency tarp­ing method that our Assis­tant Direc­tor taught us to use dur­ing bad weath­er at the barns.
 
Tying the front of the tarps to the roof­ing beams, we use our 7‑ton truck as the “anchor”.  It gives us the abil­i­ty to con­tin­ue work­ing, although at a slow­er pace. 
 
The 2 tarps placed over the weigh­ing area just behind the 7‑ton truck were RIPPED OFF the weight-room roof by the high winds dur­ing this storm. Thank­ful­ly,  the trucks wait­ing to unload at our weigh-in spot were all tarped, so the corn stayed dry. We PTL that the storm passed in about 90 min­utes, so we were able to fin­ish our pro­gram for the day. 
 

Up the corn stair­case, and throw it on top! The bag weighs 60kg/132lbs. And they make it look easy.​
 
The Bala­ma staff thanks all of you for your prayers for our safe­ty and the fact that 132 TONS of corn and 108 TONS of beans are all safe­ly in their prospec­tive barns.
 
More food fun com­ing in July!
 

Corn Barn after June buy­ing.  More to come in July.​
 
BLESSINGS 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE AND THE BALAMA STAFF 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: JUNE 5, 2021

CHILDREN’S DAY PARTY A DELICIOUS HIT!
 
Our chil­dren and fos­ter moth­ers who live togeth­er also get to par­ty togeth­er! We kept them in small groups as required, but it did­n’t slow them down. 
 
The big hit of the day for me was watch­ing Quis­ton STAND INDEPENDENTLY for the 1st time. He’s a bit behind the norm, but grow­ing fast for hav­ing such a rough start.
 
YOUR LOVE GIFTS MADE THIS PARTY POSSIBLE!  THANK YOU FROM ALL OF US AT THE BALAMA MISSION STATION. 
 

Quis­ton think­ing: I know I can do this! Yep, just give me time!​
 

Lit­tle Quis­ton has been try­ing so hard to stand with out hold­ing on to any thing, that we had to applaud his per­sis­tence as he stands inde­pen­dent­ly at the Chil­dren’s Day Cel­e­bra­tion!​
 
 
SPONSOR’S SURPRISE 
 
Maez­in­ha and Jesuino have the same spon­sor. She asked per­mis­sion to send a tiny gift to them. DAVE, our vis­i­tor, hand car­ried a t‑shirt for each of them when he came last week. 
 
Jesuino was con­fused by the wrap­ping paper since he’d nev­er received a “hid­den gift” before. Car­l­i­tos Jorge helped him open it, explain­ing there was a sur­prise inside. The look on his face when he saw the shirt was pre­cious! Like a light going on inside his head!
 
Maez­in­ha is too young to under­stand so we opened hers for her. Her gift is a bit big, but she will quick­ly grow into it.
 

3‑year-old Jesuino gets a pack­age from donor.​ His thoughts: What do I do with this? It’s all wrapped up on paper?”
 

“OK, I get it! The good stuff is inside!”​
 

Maez­in­ha, 14 months,  gets a pack­age too!​
 
1 WEEK DONE, 1 TO GO.
 
Five days of bean count­ing and the bean barn is full! PTL! A cold front brought heavy rains last Sun­day and Mon­day mak­ing it a slop­py, slip­pery mess try­ing to get large trucks to our mis­sion’s ware­house. 
 
Roads from the vil­lages are all dirt. Mavala, the Man­go Tree Church area, had their road closed for 2 days mak­ing it impos­si­ble for them to get here Mon­day morn­ing. They final­ly made it about 2pm  Mon­day after­noon by tak­ing a longer, alter­na­tive route. Just after they unloaded, the 2nd wave of rains hit!
 
It was so slip­pery near our ware­house after the 2nd rain that Joan­na, who makes our team’s break­fast, fell in the mud break­ing her right wrist! I took her to the hos­pi­tal for a cast, and she and her chil­dren nev­er missed mak­ing food for us. An Amaz­ing woman for sure!
 

JOANNA. Best bagia (fried bean pat­ty) mak­er in Bala­ma!​
 
Anoth­er busy week awaits us on Mon­day.
 
Keep your prayers com­ing as we need to com­plete this pro­gram so our team can go to Melu­co to help them with their corn buy­ing. 
 
BLESSINGS,  
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: MAY 29, 2021

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: MAY 29, 2021
 
DAVE ARRIVES AFTER GRUELING 3 DAYS IN THE AIR
 
Dave, 1 of our 7 board mem­bers, arrived safe­ly in Pem­ba this week, stat­ing he thought inter­na­tion­al trav­el was tough 2 years ago (when he had a direct flight to S. Africa). To get here now, one must fly through Europe to RSA, with doc­u­ments in hand to apply for a Visa at our air­port, which was a stress­ful 2‑hour wait. Dave said you now have to jump through twice as many “hoops” as before.
 
 
He will stay 27 days vis­it­ing me and the chil­dren before leav­ing to do it all over again.
 

Dave and BBBRENDA in Balama​
 
 
I great­ly appre­ci­ate hav­ing him do all this, as he is our only vis­i­tor since 2019.
 
 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA GIVEN SURPRISE PARTY!
 
It was an exhaust­ing day yes­ter­day as we con­tin­ued prepar­ing for the June 1st food buy­ing as well as pay­ing our staff, and meet­ing with our 12 Bush Pas­tors from 2 counties/districts. 
 
At 3:30pm, I heard singing out­side my door.
 
Most of the exec­u­tive staff and house moth­ers were doing their best to dance to my door hold­ing a beau­ti­ful cake and singing Hap­py Birth­day in ENGLISH!  Only 3 in this group speak Eng­lish, so the oth­ers must have worked hard to learn that song! See video at this link —>  https://youtu.be/gEkqtRhjOfU . 
 

Bala­ma staff greet me with sur­prise par­ty!​
 
I great­ly appre­ci­at­ed their lov­ing effort as the cake said “HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMA BRENDA, 66”. It had to be spe­cial­ly made in the next town, 30 miles/55km away, for that town has the only bak­ery with­in a 4‑hour-dri­ve of Bala­ma!
 
We had a great par­ty, as there was enough cake for every­one. A great way to end the week.
 

Birth­day cake enough for all.
 

Even the pup is in on the par­ty.
 
THANK YOU JESUS FOR MY MOZAMBICAN FAMILY, AND ALL MY INTERNATIONAL FRIENDS WHO SENT BIRTHDAY GREETINGS!
 
It real­ly touch­es my heart to receive your love, thoughts, and prayers. 
 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE AND STAFF HOPPING FAST BECAUSE YOU CARE THAT OUR CHILDREN WILL BE FED.
 
BLESSINGS FROM DE BIRTHDAY BUNNY!
BRENDA LANGE

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: MAY 22, 2021

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: MAY 22, 2021
 
ALFERES SAVES A LIFE!
 
Wednes­day, 4:30pm, I hear a yell. “BABY IN TROUBLE!” Leav­ing my kitchen, I see Alferes run­ning to my house while cradling a small bun­dle in his arms. I hur­ried him into my house, instruct­ing him to put the baby on the table inside my door, and remove her clothes.
 
TWENTY-MONTH-OLD BABY ANGELINA from the Gazelle house was suf­fer­ing a full-blown febrile seizure, (eyes rolled back, limbs stiff, con­vuls­ing, and not breath­ing). Her skin was super hot!
 
As Alferes removed her clothes, I plunged my bath tow­el into a bar­rel of water in my near­by bath­room. Cov­er­ing her body with that cool tow­el imme­di­ate­ly began low­er­ing her body tem­per­a­ture.  Alferes stayed with her as I soaked 2 more tow­els to help cool her down rapid­ly. We had to bring down her tem­per­a­ture quick­ly to break the seizure so she could breath!
 
By that time Angeli­na’s Fos­ter Moth­er, Bal­bi­na, had reached my house cry­ing hys­ter­i­cal­ly (think­ing her fos­ter baby was sure­ly dead). As Alferes and I wrapped Angeli­na in the cool tow­els, the seizure broke. I ordered Bal­bi­na to get into my King Cab pick-up as
Alferes got in, hold­ing the now breath­ing Angeli­na. Domini­ca, our Wom­en’s Pas­tor, jumped in to pro­vide emo­tion­al sup­port as I backed out to take her to the hos­pi­tal. 
 
With flash­ers blink­ing, and honk­ing my horn to clear traf­fic, we arrived at the hos­pi­tal in 2 min­utes with Angeli­na CRYING LOUDLY! Music to my ears, for it meant SHE WAS BREATHING JUST FINE!!!
 
A malar­ia quick test in the ER proved POSITIVE in less than 2 min­utes!  As the tech­ni­cian looked for a vein to start the IV meds that would kill the malar­ia lar­vae, he saw noth­ing! I raced to fetch Sis­ter Lisha at her home, as she is the best Pedi­atric Nurse they have. But Sis­ter Lisha also found no viable vein due to Angeli­na’s rapid dehy­dra­tion from the high fever.  
 
The deci­sion was made to give the malar­ia meds via injec­tion into her but­tocks (rarely used) BUT IT WORKS! Her fever began decreas­ing, and she began drink­ing an oral elec­trolyte solu­tion that would rehy­drate her body.
 
Dehy­dra­tion helps the malar­ia lar­vae to kill the kid­neys quick­ly, caus­ing the urine to turn black, thus malar­i­a’s nick­name “black water fever”.
 
The Emer­gency Room that night was full of par­ents with infants suf­fer­ing from malar­ia, which is ram­pant right now. PTL that the cool­er tem­per­a­tures have begun, which will decrease the num­ber of malar­ia mos­qui­toes in our area.
 
WE PTL THAT ANGELINA WAS SAVED THAT NIGHT, AS WELL AS THE OTHER INFANTS WE SAW TREATED WHILE IN THE ER.
 
The Dr. allowed Angeli­na to come home the next after­noon, with strict instruc­tions to com­plete the 3‑day treat­ment of Coartem, and pro­vide twice-a-day liq­uid vit­a­mins with iron, as her hemo­glo­bin had dropped dur­ing the night to bor­der­line low. We are giv­ing her all she needs and she will be retest­ed in 7 days to make sure her Hemo­glo­bin is ris­ing.
 
ALL OF US WERE PRAYING dur­ing this entire time, THANKING JESUS for his mir­a­cle life sav­ing love for our lit­tle Angeli­na. 
 

Hero Alferes, with Bal­bi­na and baby Angeli­na 2 days after her seizure​
 
 
THE REST OF THE STORY
 
The next day, I asked Alferes how he encoun­tered the sick baby.
 
He told me that Bal­bi­na was cry­ing and try­ing to run with the baby to my house when she became short of breath near our soc­cer field. Alferes was play­ing soc­cer when he spot­ted Bal­bi­na. Angeli­na was seizur­ing, so he just grabbed her and ran for my house (about 200 yards/meters away).
 
PRAISE GOD FOR HIS QUICK THINKING, for it helped us break her seizure before she suf­fo­cat­ed!
 
KIDS SAVING KIDS!
I LOVE IT!
 
Right after food buy­ing,  I plan to teach a sim­ple First Aid/CPR class to our teens. We are giv­ing a crash course on malar­ia seizure treat­ment next week to our Fos­ter Moth­ers, as that can’t wait.
 
Alferes react­ed cor­rect­ly, but many of our teens told me they would not know what to do if some­one was real­ly hurt or hav­ing a seizure. 
 
It is fact that many a child or teen has saved a life because some­one showed them what to do when they see some­one is in dis­tress. 
 
As a cer­ti­fied instruc­tor in both First Aid and CPR from my col­lege days, it is time I shared that knowl­edge with our chil­dren.
 
THANK YOU FOR HELPING US TO HELP OTHERS.
 
BLESSINGS 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: MAY 15, 2021

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: MAY 15, 2021
 
BABY OLIVIO DEPARTS SUDDENLY 
 
Last Sun­day night, baby Oliv­io ate his sup­per, then slept sound­ly till mid­night when he spiked a high fever. Vaneza called me, and we raced him to the hos­pi­tal. He was comatose by 3 a.m. and joined hands with Jesus at 4 a.m. 
 
Rea­son: Sud­den death due to Cere­bral Malar­ia 
 
When the malar­ia lar­vae mature, they can clog the ves­sels in the brain. A per­son spikes a high fever becom­ing comatose in a few hours. Most do not respond to IV treat­ment and pass away very quick­ly. 
 
It only takes 1 mos­qui­to bite to inject the malar­ia lar­vae into the blood­stream. Ten to 14 days lat­er the first symp­toms appear.
 
Under nor­mal cir­cum­stances, a 3 day course of anti-malar­i­al meds is all it takes to erad­i­cate it. If it goes cere­bral, it can be dead­ly in hours. The younger a patient, the faster it kills.
 

Fos­ter Moth­er, Vaneza, hold­ing Maiz­in­ha with Baby Oliv­io on her back.​
 
We miss Oliv­io dear­ly, with Vaneza miss­ing him most of all. PLZ PRAY FOR VANEZA to have peace over this. Los­ing 2 infants in such a short time has been dev­as­tat­ing to her, espe­cial­ly since it hap­pened so unex­pect­ed­ly with Oliv­io. 
 
 
HARVEST TIME HAS OUR TEENS WORKING HARD. 
 
Our teenagers were giv­en 3 small fields to plant and care for, as every young adult would nat­u­ral­ly be giv­en this respon­si­bil­i­ty if they were liv­ing at home. With each stu­dent hav­ing “in per­son” class­es only twice a week, these young adults have plen­ty of time to har­vest their crops. 
 

A few of our teens har­vest­ing their Juco Beans.
 
Con­struc­tion Intern, Alferes, is hard at work learn­ing the dif­fi­cult task of plas­ter­ing a wall with cement under the super­vi­sion of a mas­ter brick­lay­er. Learn­ing by “doing” makes the info “stick bet­ter” in one’s brain.
See him at work, here —>  https://youtu.be/ggulfQqHLUA
 

Alferes learn­ing how dif­fi­cult it is to plas­ter a wall with cement​
 
Helder is deep in his stud­ies at his teacher’s col­lege just 60km/32 miles up the road in Mon­tepuez. All seems to be going well as he only called us once this week. He seems to be set­tling in very well. 
 
THE FRUITS OF YOUR LOVE GIFTS ARE COMING FORTH AS OUR YOUTH BEGIN TO BLOSSOM INTO RESPONSIBLE YOUNG ADULTS.  THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU HAVE DONE TO MAKE THIS POSSIBLE. 
 
BLESSINGS, 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: MAY 8, 2021

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: MAY 8, 2021
 
HELP IS ON THE WAY!
 
Long-time friend and O.U. Board mem­ber Dave D. will make the dif­fi­cult trek from USA to Bala­ma in 2 weeks time. No direct flights exist to Africa after a year of shut­down, so he must fly via Europe, change planes, then go south to S. Africa before trav­el­ling into Mozam­bique via anoth­er flight the fol­low­ing day. His stay will be a great boost to my morale, as I have not seen a vis­i­tor in 19 months! De Bun­ny will have com­pa­ny for June! Yeah!
 

Dave joins us end of May.

Please keep him in prayer for safe trav­el as fly­ing inter­na­tion­al­ly is no longer sim­ple. Covid test USA,
$275; Visa $220, return Covid test, $130, plus addi­tion­al flight stops makes every­thing much more com­pli­cat­ed, exhaust­ing, and much more expen­sive!
 
If you’d like to help him with ANY PART of his out-of-pock­et costs, please send to our O.U office for
the Dave fund. Thanks very much.    
 
SOZINHO HAS MINOR FOOT SURGERY 
 
On Fri­day, May 7th, Soz­in­ho stepped on a large thorn which punc­tured his heel, requir­ing a trip to the Bala­ma Emer­gency Room at the Bala­ma Hos­pi­tal for lanc­ing and ban­dag­ing. 
 

Soz­in­ho, 6 years, 1st grade, shows off his injured foot.
 
He is all boy, as his last vis­it to the hos­pi­tal required an arm cast after he fell 4 feet (1.2 meters) onto his elbow from a small tree he had climbed. Boys will be boys, no mat­ter the cul­ture. 
 
 
COOKIES!!!
 
As soon as our chil­dren saw me car­ry­ing the cook­ie box their joy­ful cheers could be heard all over the neigh­bour­hood! I don’t do this often, so when I do, it’s a wel­comed treat that puts ear-to-ear smiles on many faces.
 

Cook­ie treats for all, makes Mama Bren­da very pop­u­lar!
 
Thanks for your won­der­ful Love Gifts that make this pos­si­ble. 
 
ONE DAY AT A TIME WITH SWEET JESUS!
 
BLESSINGS, 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: MAY 1, 2021

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: MAY 1, 2021
 
FUN IN THE SUN!
 
Our chil­dren are super active and healthy, thrilled that their school is open and Bawana-time is now more fun than ever!
 
I man­aged to catch their open­ing sing-a-long time on a short video this week. The youngest in the line on the left is 3‑year-old Jesuino, (Jezz wee no) who came to us in a very mal­nour­ished state as a new­born. His love for danc­ing and singing is hilar­i­ous, and he loves the laugh­ter he sparks. He is a bit of a ham, for sure.
 
We all got a super laugh when I showed the singing video to the chil­dren. As soon as Jesuino heard the singing, he start­ed danc­ing and singing along. The whole group broke out in laugh­ter at his actions, while Jesuino just kept right on danc­ing and singing. He is a char­ac­ter for sure!
Video Link —  https://youtu.be/LwzdTNj5RBQ
 

Jesuino, on the left, mak­ing the most of sing a long time
 
YOUR PRAYERS AND LOVE GIFTS HAVE MADE ALL THIS POSSIBLE.  THANK YOU FOR PROVIDING THE LOVE AND CARE THIS GROUP NEEDED FOR A BRIGHT FUTURE. 
 
NOTE: Helder has made it through his first week of teach­ers’ school, only call­ing us 5 times for advice on uni­form pur­chase and oth­er school relat­ed needs. He’s learn­ing fast how to do what is need­ed to meet school rules.
 
 

Baby Juma still needs a spon­sor.​
 
 
HOUSE #7:  SHAPING UP AT A FAST PACE
 
To the sound of mor­tar slap­ping the walls, I watched as our small con­struc­tion team com­plet­ed the final plas­ter­ing on the front wall of House #7 on April 30th. Now the slow­er paced fin­ish­ing work begins. The kitchen sink and table, as well as the Rock­et Stove must still be built, but that takes time and patience as it must be done 1 stage at a time and allowed to dry before doing more.
 

Major cement work com­plet­ed on all walls of dining/kitchen area.
 
The four 16-foot/4‑me­ter deep “long drop” toi­lets have been capped, allow­ing the bath­room foun­da­tion to be built. In S. Africa, a “long drop” is the name giv­en to a USA “out­house” but the dif­fer­ence is our long drops have no seat but just a cov­ered 3‑foot/ 1‑me­ter-wide, 16-foot/4‑me­ter-deep hole with a small hole cut in the mid­dle for doing your busi­ness. After all, we don’t want any­one falling in!
 

Capped “long drops” allow bath­room foun­da­tion to begin this week.​
 
We will take it one step fur­ther by installing “san­i­tas” or a flat, stand upon, flush toi­let so no one can fall in and our lit­tle ones won’t be scared when their toi­let train­ing begins. SAFETY FIRST!
 
I will send a pho­to when all is com­plet­ed so you will have the full pic­ture. The pho­tos show our cur­rent progress, and I will give an update at the end of May.
 
Food buy­ing begins June 1st, so all con­struc­tion will come to a halt until the all-essen­tial food buy­ing pro­gram is com­plet­ed in mid-July.
 
Bless­ings and love to all of you as we con­tin­ue mov­ing for­ward one day at a time. 
 
As Tex­ans often say:
Your Bush Bun­ny is hop­ping on down the trail, let­ting no grass grow under her feet.
 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: APRIL 24, 2021

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: APRIL 24, 2021
 
14-DAY-OLD JUMA JOINS OUR FAMILY 
 
Juma is our 11th infant to date to enter our home, as his moth­er died of post­par­tum com­pli­ca­tions just a few hours after he was born. His Granny, Belic­i­na, took over the care of Juma and his 3 young sib­lings. Their father aban­doned them, so Granny had no oth­er fam­i­ly to help her.
 
Juma was imme­di­ate­ly placed in our infant for­mu­la pro­gram and was slow­ly gain­ing weight. But after two weeks, Granny was exhaust­ed from try­ing to cope with the demands of a new­born plus three oth­er young­sters, ages 2 to 7.
 

Granny Belic­i­na with 5‑day-old Juma when he entered our milk program​.
 
She pre­sent­ed her prob­lem to Social Ser­vices who imme­di­ate­ly request­ed we help by tak­ing the infant into our home. Juma is healthy and hap­pi­ly eats and sleeps in the arms of his fos­ter mom, Felic­i­na.
 
JUMA NEEDS A $40/MONTH SPONSOR. Please con­sid­er help­ing him to grow into a healthy young boy. He needs your prayers as well as your finan­cial assis­tance. 
 
 

ZEBRA HOUSE chil­dren watch close­ly as Juma is received into his new home​
 
 
HELDER ACCEPTED INTO TEACHERS COLLEGE!
 
He leaves tomor­row, Sun­day, to enter the col­lege dorm. School begins on Mon­day. It will be the biggest chal­lenge he has faced so far in his life. This 18-month-school will be intense as he pre­pares to become a Pri­ma­ry School teacher.
 
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR FIRST ORPHAN EVER TO ENTER INTO COLLEGE LEVEL STUDIES! Please keep your prayer cov­er­age over him as he embarks on a new life.
 

Helder, the 1st orphan from our pro­gram to enter col­lege!​
 
 
YOUR LOVE GIFTS AT WORK, HELPING ORPHANS HAVE A CHANCE AT A GREAT FUTURE. 
 
BLESSINGS 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF