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Monthly Archives: June 2021

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 19, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 19, 2020
 
EVA SHOWING OFF HER HOME SKILLS

Eva, the first child we took into our fam­i­ly in 2000, is now 22 years old. (Yeap, I just com­plet­ed 20 years in Bala­ma!) Two year old Eva and her Grand­moth­er came to us because Eva was suf­fer­ing from 6 major seizures DAILY due to Cere­bral Pal­sy. Long sto­ry, short, the doc­tors that saw her at age 2 told us she would most like­ly be unable to walk, speak, or take care of her­self. SURPRISE!
 

Eva pound­ing whole corn into corn flour.

She is NOW DOING ALL 3 AND car­ing for her grand­moth­er, as well! Pass­ing by her home this week, I found Eva “pil­lar­ing” (hand pound­ing corn into flour). Don’t be fooled, that “pound­ing pole” weighs about 15 lbs (7 kg).
 
Eva shows how it’s done in this video!
https://youtu.be/g‑7hsszrYWk

Yes, Eva is men­tal­ly slow and walks with a fun­ny gait, but with her Grandmother’s patient teach­ing, Eva has proven that she can be a use­ful helper around the house. She runs, sings, and speaks part of 3 lan­guages! NEVER SAY NEVER WHERE GOD IS CONCERNED!
 

REMOTE VILLAGE ORPHANS RECEIVING YOUR GIFTS

This week, we com­plet­ed all 5 remote vil­lage food give-outs using strict guide­lines to pre­vent any viral con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. Bala­ma is CV-19 free, and we hope to keep it that way.
 

Vil­lages orphans and their fos­ter moth­ers fetch­ing food.

Each orphan fam­i­ly received 1 sack of corn, plus salt, 1 piece of soap, and 3 kg (6.6 lbs) of dried beans/person.

THANK YOU FOR MAKING IT POSSIBLE TO CONTINUE HELPING THESE CHILDREN STAY STRONG AND HEALTHY.
 

BUILDING A LOCAL TOILET AND BATHING AREA

The 4 high school stu­dents par­tic­i­pat­ing in our Life Skills train­ing, are hard at work today, build­ing a bath­room for 5 young teenage orphans who will enter our pro­gram in about 10 days. I’ll tell you more about this “child head­ed house­hold” in next week’s blog.

Our boys, Alferes, Helder, Samuel, and Ize­bio start­ed their day by mark­ing out, and then dig­ging post holes for the bath­room. The boys then walked to a near­by neigh­bor and bought 5 bun­dles of grass for the bath­room walls. Car­ry­ing the grass bun­dles on their heads makes them look like a “grass train” as they walk one behind the oth­er.
 

Grass train head­ed to our newest mud brick home.

Once the fence posts were in, the 12 foot/4 meter long bam­boo rods must be split as they will sup­port the grass walls. Ize­bio knew how to split bam­boo, so we had him show the oth­er 3 how to do it.  Life Skills is all about “teach­ing one to teach one”.
 

Stu­dents mount­ing the grass walls on bathing area.​
 
These split bam­boos are then tied onto the fence posts with strong “cords” cut from old tires. The grass walls are secured in place by a 2nd piece of split bam­boo on the out­side of the grass to “sand­wich” it into place. Every house needs a bath­room, mak­ing this a vital part of House Build­ing 101.
 

Teen team with com­plet­ed grass bath­room with BBC mem­ber, Cabral as instruc­tor. (mid­dle, back row)
 
Our young teens are grow­ing into men, all because YOU GAVE so that they could have a bet­ter future. It takes more than aca­d­e­mics to make a well-round­ed cit­i­zen in this coun­try. With­out the basics of “mak­ing a home from local mate­ri­als”, where will they live?

UNTIL NEXT WEEK, MY FRIENDS.  KEEP YOUR PRAYERS FLOWING OUR WAY.

BLESSINGS
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 12, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 12, 2020
 
LIFE SKILLS LEADS TO EMPLOYMENT 
 
Widnes (Wit-ness), an orphan who grew up in the ear­ly years of our pro­gram, is now 27 and a trained car­pen­ter’s assis­tant on his way to becom­ing a mas­ter car­pen­ter. When he grad­u­at­ed high school in 2011, he request­ed to appren­tice under our mis­sion sta­tion’s mas­ter car­pen­ter. This was 9 years ago, long before a life skills train­ing cen­ter was need­ed because most of our orphans were very young.


Widnes using a car­pen­ter’s hand plane to make a win­dow frame.
 
As I write, Widnes and our car­pen­ter are out replac­ing a dam­aged door frame in one of our wid­ow’s homes. The video link shows Widnes hand plan­ing a win­dow frame, the same as Jesus did. Car­pen­try in our area is still done “the Jesus way”, (all with hand tools) because elec­tric­i­ty was not avail­able here until recent­ly, and then only in the cen­tral areas of town. Our homes are just out­side that area.
 
Click here for video —>   https://youtu.be/97AKDdZE44s
 
Life Skills Train­ing leads to Jobs Skills Train­ing, a proven method to help teenagers become pro­duc­tive, skilled work­ers and lead­ers in their com­mu­ni­ties. 
 
 
BABY FORMULA, ORPHANED INFANTS, AND YOUR LOVE…
 
Baby for­mu­la is such a sim­ple, tak­en-for-grant­ed item in most coun­tries. Yet it is the dif­fer­ence between life and death to a new­born who los­es their moth­er just after birth. 
 
Thanks to your Love Gifts, our baby for­mu­la pro­gram is still able to help every infant sent to us by Social Ser­vices dur­ing their “milk depen­dent” days.
 
Such is the case for the frag­ile 8‑day-old THABO, who lost his moth­er a week after his birth on Sep­tem­ber 2nd. His granny, along with the father and aunt, brought him to our mis­sion sta­tion on Sep­tem­ber 10th, with a Social Ser­vices let­ter request­ing for­mu­la to save their 2.8kg (6 lb.)baby boy.
 

Baby Thabo with Granny and Aunt as they pre­pare him a bot­tle.
 
Thabo will be cared for in his infant year by his granny, who will bring him week­ly to our food cen­ter to be weighed and receive baby for­mu­la. As he grows, he will be giv­en baby cere­al to sup­ple­ment his diet until he’s about 9 months old. At that time he will be eat­ing well, and able to thrive on baby food pre­pared by the fam­i­ly. 
 
THANK YOU FOR YOUR LOVE GIFTS. 
THEY ARE A LIFE LINE TO INFANTS WHO HAVE NO MOTHER.
 
 
KID POWER!
 
As I walked through the vil­lage near our chil­dren’s homes, I came across a broth­er and sis­ter using their com­bined force to pump the local water well your love gifts pro­vid­ed 10 years ago. Kids are smart, and will find a way to “make things hap­pen ” using team work. The video I took tells the whole sto­ry.
 
This well is 35 meters/105 ft. deep, and it does take some mus­cle pow­er to pump it, espe­cial­ly as fast as these 2 are doing it.
 

Kid pow­er, fill­ing a buck­et at top speed
Click for video —>   https://youtu.be/QxujwbfUtLc
 
God’s Bless­ings to all of you!
Have a great week walk­ing with Jesus.
 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 5, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 5, 2020
 
LIFE SKILLS TRAINING BEGINS

With all the con­struc­tion delays caused by this virus, our staff decid­ed to go ahead with life skills train­ing for our 4 old­est teenage boys vs wait­ing for the con­struc­tion of an offi­cial “place” in which to teach them. All 4 of these young men are in their final 2 years of school, and need to know how to do basic skills that oth­er teens learn from their par­ents as they grow up.

DAY 1:  Our 4 teenagers paired up with a work­er to dig post holes for fenc­ing repairs. Hole dig­ging is a basic skill used in build­ing homes, out­door bath­rooms and kitchens.
 

Dig­ging post holes so our staff can repair dam­aged fenc­ing.​

DAY 2:  They worked side-by-side with expe­ri­enced BBC mem­bers con­struct­ing a local toilet/bathing area for an elder­ly cou­ple at their mud brick home near our base.

DAY 3:  Assist­ed in sifting/cleaning 19 sacks (1 ton) of corn for milling so our res­i­dent orphans have food next week. (Orphans Help­ing Orphans Pro­gram)  Then our staff taught them how to  pre­pare the corn bags for 3 major vil­lage food give-outs next week to vil­lage orphans. These young men learned how to roll a full sack of corn into an emp­ty sack until the 2 sacks con­tain equal amounts of corn. Seems basic, but they are all impor­tant life skills in this cul­ture.
 

Samuel try­ing to fig­ure out how to open a sack of corn.​
 

Our teenagers show­ing how to divide a sack of corn for dis­tri­b­u­tion to vil­lage orphans.
See video at this link:    https://youtu.be/NxB-tnWYoi0
 

Hold­er and Alferes proud­ly show off their com­plet­ed half sacks
 
DAY 4:   Obser­va­tion-only les­son – Use of a hydraulic jack for tire removal on a truck was taught by our mechan­ics instruc­tor, Sim­ba.  I was amazed at all the details an expe­ri­enced per­son takes for grant­ed when doing this. Sim­ba is very good at clear­ly explain­ing each step in detail. The stu­dents had ques­tions, which was good, for it meant they were tru­ly “engaged” in the les­son.
 

Observ­ing a tire removal after see­ing where to set the hydraulic Jack.

Prepar­ing our young men and women for life in the real world is an impor­tant task that many orphans nev­er receive when grow­ing up in a fos­ter home.
 
The girls are being taught child care, food prepa­ra­tion, and dai­ly home life skills by our fos­ter moth­ers as they grow up. All these lessons are essen­tial for the young women to become good wives and moth­ers. Our boys also learn the basic cook­ing and clean­ing skills around the home, but lacked the many skills need­ed to build a home or make a liv­ing when they leave our pro­gram. Our staff is ded­i­cat­ed to teach­ing our young men and women what the fos­ter moth­ers can’t teach them. 
 
And yes, if the girls want to learn car mechan­ics, com­put­ers, etc., they are encour­aged to do so. In this cul­ture, oth­er NGO pro­grams have tried to teach foot-ped­al sewing machine skills to girls, but they refused to learn it. Rea­son? The girls equate foot-ped­al sewing machines as ‘for men only’ as the mechan­i­cal skills to oper­ate such a machine is only known by men in this cul­ture.
So, we have a few cul­tur­al obsta­cles to con­sid­er when set­ting up our Life Skills class­es.


MIRACLES CONTINUE IN REMOTE AREAS
 
Our Nama­ra Pas­tor report­ed that a female Witch Doc­tor along with her hus­band and 5 chil­dren all came to Jesus last month! It’s a big thing when a Witch Doc­tor accepts Jesus as Lord and Sav­ior after serv­ing the dev­il for most of her life. It opens the door for those who used her ser­vices to find out who the REAL HEALER is. This fam­i­ly burned their witch hut, and the wife is now telling all her friends about Jesus! PTL!

No sur­prise in that our many Bala­ma house church­es con­tin­ue to reach out to their neigh­bor­hoods dur­ing these dif­fi­cult days.
    Sal­va­tions in August:
            Chil­dren: 73
            Teenagers: 30
            Adults: 22

I take my hat off to our remote Pas­tors, as they are doing a great job in preach­ing to small crowds in sev­er­al loca­tions each week.
If a big shade tree was good enough for Jesus, it is good enough for us.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND CONTINUED SUPPORT OF OUR CHILDREN.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: AUGUST 29, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: AUGUST 29, 2020
 
LAST OF THE HARVEST LEAVES THE FIELDS

Our 18 Grannies who are part of our mis­sion base, have kept their orphaned grand­chil­dren very busy in the last 2 weeks as they bring in the last of their har­vest. Each of our Grannies and the Fos­ter Moth­ers of our 6 orphan homes receives about 1 acre of land to use as a “teach­ing ground” for the chil­dren in our pro­gram.
 

Grannies with grand­chil­dren bring in Man­dio­ca Cut­tings that will be plant­ed in Octo­ber.​

KNOWING HOW TO PLANT/HARVEST is an essen­tial skill every Mozam­bi­can must know if they desire to eat. Thus our “train­ing fields” are now being cleared of the last of the Ervelia Beans and Man­dio­ca Root (cas­sa­va), so that these fields can be pre­pared for next year’s crop. Our plant­i­ng sea­sons are the oppo­site of the north­ern Hemi­sphere, which means we plant in Novem­ber to Decem­ber, and har­vest in April to July.
 

NITO, a spe­cial needs orphan (cen­ter) help­ing his Granny with the har­vest.

The objec­tive of our pro­gram is to pro­vide each child with a ful­ly round­ed edu­ca­tion. Not just class­room skills, but farm­ing “sur­vival” skills must be taught as well. Nor­mal­ly, the children’s par­ents would teach these skills to their chil­dren. Since our Fos­ter Moth­ers have tak­en over that role with all that it entails, it is our respon­si­bil­i­ty to make sure they learn every­thing need­ed to be a self-suf­fi­cient cit­i­zen.
 

GRANNY MASACA may be over 70, but still helps her grand­child bring in the har­vest.

BUSH BUNNY TIDBITS:
 
1.   PTL the Mon­goos­es are back! That means less snakes in the area. THANK YOU JESUS!
 
 
2.   Church­es are now allowed to open but with stiff mea­sures.  Since those reg­u­la­tions include only 50 peo­ple and no chil­dren, we will not be open­ing our church at this time. Our Sun­day ser­vices are held in small “house church­es” out­doors so that all our chil­dren may par­tic­i­pate.
 
3.   Schools will remain closed until Octo­ber 1st, when the gov­ern­ment will decide if they open at all for this school year which ends in Novem­ber.
 
4.   PRAYERS are need­ed for all of us, (please don’t for­get the 515 Melu­co orphans), as we con­tin­ue to take it one day at a time.  
PTL that ALL OF US are healthy and strong. Liv­ing out­side in this spa­cious area with lots of fresh air has many advan­tages.
 
5.   Our study and activ­i­ty peri­ods con­tin­ue with the chil­dren each morn­ing, keep­ing body and minds strong and absorbent.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR CONTINUED PRAYERS AND LOVE GIFTS DURING THESE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA TEAM

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: AUGUST 22, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: AUGUST 22, 2020
 
STANDARD BANK DONATES FACE MASKS
 
Our chil­dren, Muzi­la, Fati­ma, and Ali rep­re­sent­ed our entire chil­dren’s group in a sur­prise cer­e­mo­ny on Thurs­day to receive an entire case of cloth face masks with the bank’s emblem on them. The old­er chil­dren will be giv­en instruc­tions on when and how to use them before we dis­trib­ute them. 
 
Thank you Stan­dard Bank for your con­cern about our chil­dren’s safe­ty.
 

Muzi­la, Bala­ma Admin­is­tra­tor, Fati­ma, Ali, and SB Pres­i­dent mod­el their new masks. (left to right) 
 
 
COOL WEATHER HANGING AROUND
 
August is sup­posed to be warm to hot, but not this year. Nor­mal­ly, August and Sep­tem­ber in Bala­ma, the temps match TX weath­er almost per­fect­ly. HOT, HOT, HOT.
 
The 2 lit­tle vil­lage boys in the pho­to are keep­ing warm at the fire they made while wait­ing for the sun to heat up the air. Chil­dren learn essen­tial life skills, like start­ing a fire, at an ear­ly age here, for it is nec­es­sary for sur­vival. They are well trained at an ear­ly age, and rarely burn them­selves.
 

Two intel­li­gent lit­tle boys start a sim­ple fire to keep warm.
 
YOUR LOVE GIFTS pro­vide warm cloth­ing for our chil­dren so they don’t suf­fer the cold. Thank you for keep­ing them healthy and warm dur­ing our pro­longed cool sea­son. 

 
TEEN POWER!!!
 
Our 17 teenage boys helped out this month by giv­ing our 1,600 meter (over 1 mile) fence­line a good clean­ing. They suc­cess­ful­ly chopped and pushed back the weeds dur­ing their week­ly 2 hour work project, over a 3 week time peri­od. 
 

Our TEEN POWER return­ing from 2 hours of fence clean­ing.
Mon­key Bean best dealt with before the dew dries.
 

Mon­key bean grows wild on fences and in trees.
Those tiny hairs make you scratch like a mon­key.​
 
Teen pow­er is quite a force when har­nessed and these young men did a great job. This teach­es them work ethics, gives them work expe­ri­ence and exer­cise, burn­ing off their abun­dant sup­ply of ener­gy. School is not due to open till Octo­ber 1st, so busy hands are a good thing. 
 
All our chil­dren are kept busy dai­ly with games, sports, and class­room activ­i­ties. 
 
THANK YOU FOR PROVIDING A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT AND EDUCATIONAL BENEFITS FOR OUR CHILDREN. 
 
BLESSINGS 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: AUGUST 15, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: AUGUST 15, 2020
 
AND THE LAME SHALL WALK!

Pas­tor Alber­to, in Namuno Dis­trict, report­ed that a woman named, Juli­et­ta, HADN’T WALKED IN 3 MONTHS due to a severe back injury which occurred right after she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Her fam­i­ly are Jesus believ­ers, so they trans­port­ed her from a remote vil­lage deep in the bush to where Pas­tor Alber­to has his church.

TEN MINUTES AFTER PASTOR ALBERTO PRAYED FOR HER, THE LORD JESUS HEALED HER BACK COMPLETELY! SHE GOT UP FROM HER GRASS MAT AND WALKED!!! (sound famil­iar?)
 

Juli­et­ta with her infant daugh­ter a few days after the Lord healed her back.​

Alber­to called me today to say she is now able to haul water on her head from the local riv­er, and enjoys play­ing with her lit­tle girl. THANK YOU JESUS FOR THIS MIRACLE HEALING!

The fam­i­ly and vil­lagers were great­ly impact­ed and are PRAISING JESUS, for many knew of this woman’s inabil­i­ty to walk. She had been told by med­ical per­son­nel, that they could do noth­ing for her.

FYI: The pho­to of Juli­et­ta and her lit­tle girl was tak­en and hand car­ried by Pas­tor Alber­to to me via his motor­bike. TWENTY-FOUR MILES (40km), ONE WAY, as their inter­net wouldn’t send it. I am very grate­ful for Alber­to, for he is a true “man of faith” and tru­ly knows that NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR OUR LORD.
 

TRIPLETS THRIVING AT 5 MONTHS!

It is now warm enough to weigh the babies with­out cloth­ing, so want­ed to show you what your BABY FORMULA LOVE GIFTS are doing for the infants of Bala­ma. Mar­cia and Marceli­no each weigh in at 13.2 lbs (6kg), while broth­er Marce­lo weighs 13.75lbs (6.25kg). Love and good food keep these babies healthy!
 

Triplets Mar­cia, Marceli­no, and Marce­lo show­ing off their chub­by 5 month old bod­ies.​

Will update you on the oth­er triplets lat­er this month, as they are slow­ly gain­ing weight after their res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness that caused them to be admit­ted to the Bala­ma hos­pi­tal.


BONIFACY LEARNING SEVERAL TRADES

Boni­fa­cy, now 20, is a spe­cial needs young man who is men­tal­ly slow. But that didn’t stop him from help­ing his Grand­ma around the house, as well as har­vest­ing her pro­duce from her lit­tle farm­ing field.
 
Grand­ma Sev­e­ri­na took in her 5 orphaned grand­chil­dren when they were all small chil­dren. Two of her grand­sons were men­tal­ly slow, but that didn’t stop her from teach­ing them how to do the basics of farm­ing,  mud brick mak­ing, and fetch­ing water from the local well.
 

The ever-smil­ing Boni­fa­cy with sack of Man­dio­ca root on his head.

I cap­tured the pho­to of Boni­fa­cy was last week as he returned from Granny’s farm with a sack of fresh Man­dio­ca Root on his head. This young man ALWAYS has a BIG SMILE on his face! I’m very proud of Granny Sev­e­ri­na and Boni­fa­cy for team­ing up to take care of the younger chil­dren in her home.
 
WITH GOD AND PATIENCE, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: AUGUST 8, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: AUGUST 8, 2020
 
SNEAKY SNAKE GETS CAUGHT
 
I was walk­ing near my dog pen when I saw a snake track that left the dog pen and returned onto itself after a few yards. It was fresh, cause I had walked that same area just a few min­utes before. Mean­ing: snake is near­by.  Call­ing my guard, I began to look for it when my mechan­ic yelled “STOP! It is in the fence!”.
 
Sure enough, while I’m look­ing on the ground, the snake went UP, tan­gling itself in the chain-link fenc­ing try­ing to get away from me on the out­side and the 2 dogs on the inside.
 
The video says it all as to what hap­pened next. With a 99.9% poi­so­nous rate in the snakes of this area, THE ONLY GOOD SNAKE, IS A DEAD SNAKE!

https://youtu.be/5QYzaPG7Pc8
 
Weath­er is warm­ing up, so 2 snakes in 8 days means time to be on the alert again. JOY! I am very grate­ful for sharp eyed work­ers and pro­tec­tive Angels. 
 

Sneaky Snake lost the bat­tle.
 
LOCAL MOTHER BIRTHS BABY AFTER SEVERE ACCIDENT

Mar­ti­na, 3 months preg­nant, was being giv­en a lift by her Uncle on his bicy­cle when he lost his bal­ance, caus­ing them to have a severe fall. Mar­ti­na suf­fered a frac­tured femur (right leg) which put her in hos­pi­tal for months.
 
Her baby boy, Alberti­no, was born 6 months lat­er in per­fect health. The hus­band aban­doned her dur­ing this time, leav­ing her 2 oth­er boys, ages 6 and 8, with her sis­ter, Vir­ginia.
 
Due to her poor health, Martina’s breast milk dried up com­plete­ly a few days ago, leav­ing 11 week old Alberti­no with noth­ing to eat. The local hos­pi­tal sent her to us for assis­tance. Car­ried to our mis­sion sta­tion on a friend’s motor­bike, Mar­ti­na walked with the aid of crutch­es to bring her baby to us.

Her sis­ter, Vir­ginia, has moved in with her as the 2 boys are too young to do all the house­hold work, plus care for the infant’s needs. The fam­i­ly had only star­va­tion foods avail­able to them, as their farm pro­duced noth­ing this year since no one was there to attend the fields.
 

Aunt Vir­ginia hold­ing baby Alberti­no with moth­er, Mar­ti­na.​

Jesus sent our group to this area so that oth­ers might live and know 
Him. YOUR LOVE GIFTS are pro­vid­ing the LOVE OF JESUS plus the milk and food this fam­i­ly needs so that they have a chance to regain what they have lost in the last year. THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS POSSIBLE.
 

PASTOR’S REPORT FOR JULY

SALVATIONS in our home church­es through­out 2 Dis­tricts:
        31 Adults
        14 Teenagers
        71 chil­dren
Our church­es will be allowed to open lat­er this month but only 50 are allowed to attend at once. I will be orga­niz­ing the Pas­tors with large church­es to have more than 1 meet­ing so that every­one can attend.

The BBC motor­bike and bicy­cle teams are still restrict­ed because the crowds of chil­dren they attract num­bers more than 50. Keep pray­ing for Mozam­bique as they begin a 3 month “reopen­ing” of their infra­struc­ture. Schools may not reopen until Oct. 1st if all goes accord­ing to plan.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: AUGUST 1, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: AUGUST 1, 2020
 
VISITORS ENCOURAGE OUR CHILDREN

At 9 a.m. yes­ter­day we wel­comed Balama’s Admin­is­tra­tor and sev­en oth­er key Dis­trict Lead­ers to our mis­sion sta­tion for a brief 20 minute ori­en­ta­tion of our project. The Admin­is­tra­tor was keen to see our food ware­hous­es, which are stun­ning right now since they are full. The group then vis­it­ed our children’s homes, and were impressed at how well our chil­dren live, and how respect­ful they act.

The Admin­is­tra­tor stat­ed that elec­tric­i­ty is due into our orphans’ 
com­mu­ni­ty lat­er this year, and we promised to get “hooked up” to it as soon as it is installed. That is the only util­i­ty we don’t have as of 
now, since run­ning water was installed last year via an out­door tap at each orphan home.
 

O.U. Office Man­ag­er Cape­na (left) with New Admin­is­tra­tor vis­it­ing our chil­dren’s homes.
 
I thor­ough­ly enjoyed get­ting to vis­it with him, and explain the many 
facets of our pro­gram. THANKS TO ALL OF YOU, WE ARE ABLE TO GO BEYOND THE NORMAL LIMITS TO KEEP OUR CHILDREN IN CLEAN LIVING CONDITIONS SO THEY STAY HEALTHY.
 

PREVENTING ORPHANS IS OUR GOAL

Missi­na, a wid­ow at 27 years of age, was brought into the Bala­ma 
hos­pi­tal by her broth­er because her 10-week-old twin girls were los­ing weight dras­ti­cal­ly. Wid­owed dur­ing her preg­nan­cy, Missi­na has lit­tle food due to a poor har­vest, and her breast milk has dried up.

From birth to 10 weeks, both twins had lost crit­i­cal weight (800 gms each), mak­ing them look like they were 2 weeks old. Upon arrival at our mis­sion, Sahi­na (3.1kg / 6.8 lbs) and Saina (3.3kg / 7.26 lbs) were alert, but HUNGRY! Children’s Direc­tor, Anna, ori­en­tat­ed the moth­er and broth­er on how to mix for­mu­la, as the babies fed greed­i­ly on their new-found milk.
 

Wid­owed Missi­na with 10 week old mal­nour­ished twin girls.

Missi­na has 3‑year-old twins at home, so the whole fam­i­ly will ben­e­fit from your Love Gifts over the com­ing months, as the grow­ing sea­son is far ahead of us. (Har­vest begins next March.) With­out our food help, this moth­er and her 3‑year-olds would prob­a­bly per­ish, leav­ing the babies with no female fam­i­ly mem­ber to care for them.

OUR “PREVENT ORPHANS” PROGRAM is just as impor­tant as our “RESCUE ORPHANS” PROGRAM. One of our goals is to help mal­nour­ished, nurs­ing or wid­owed moth­ers to regain their health so they can con­tin­ue lov­ing and car­ing for their own chil­dren. The last thing we want is to have to raise chil­dren in a sit­u­a­tion that was total­ly pre­ventable. THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROUS MONTHLY GIFTS THAT MAKE THIS PREVENTION PROGRAM POSSIBLE.
 

OUR 3 MUSKETEERS ARE GROWING UP!

Left to right in the pho­to are Adeli­no (3.5 years), San­tos (3 years), 
and Mil­do (4 years). They are quite the com­bo to con­tend with as once their lit­tle feet hit the floor, it is go, go, go, until they take a nap 
after lunch. Mil­do is already in pre-school, and Adeli­no and San­tos 
will join him in Feb. 2021. YOUR LOVE GIFTS ARE AT WORK, PUTTING SMILES ON THE FACES OF OUR LITTLE ONES.
 

Our 3 Muska­teers, Adeli­no, San­tos and Mil­do.

FYI: School and church­es will remain closed through­out August.
Our school year is from Feb­ru­ary to end of Octo­ber, so it looks like a lost year for all our stu­dents.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: JULY 25, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: JULY 25, 2020
 
DOG SAVES BUNNY FROM NASTY COBRA!

Sun­day, July 19, I was about to step out­side my house at noon (warmest day of last week), when Misha (Mee­sha), a vis­it­ing dog from next door, set up an urgent bark­ing. She is nor­mal­ly very qui­et, and loves to lay in the sun on my car port just out­side my back door.

I imme­di­ate­ly stuck my head out the door, look­ing for trou­ble, but saw noth­ing (includ­ing the dog). The silenced was very con­cern­ing, for I had no idea WHAT OR WHO had caused Misha’s urgent bark­ing, and WHY had she run away?

I cau­tious­ly walked out into the car­port, and imme­di­ate­ly saw a LARGE zig-zag snake trail in the sand beside the cement slab. Now I knew why Misha had left! Smart dog!

I called the guard with 1 word, COBRA!  He grabbed our snake killer, a 13-foot (4‑meter) sol­id bam­boo rod and came run­ning. You don’t want to get too close to big snakes in Africa since they can stand up to half their length, and strike up to 10 feet from their posi­tion.

Our 7‑ton truck was sit­ting in my car­port, loaded with food for Meluco’s orphans. When we couldn’t find the snake because it’s sand trail end­ed at our cement side­walk, I was  con­cerned it had crawled up into the truck’s frame when the dog barked at it. (Misha had been sleep­ing in the warm sand just in front of the truck before she barked.)
 

Zide show­ing unwant­ed vis­i­tor at Bush Bun­ny’s house

An extend­ed search found the snake ON THE BACK SIDE OF MY HOUSE, sit­ting on the cement ledge that forms the foun­da­tion.
Obvi­ous­ly look­ing for food and warmth on the cement, this 5‑FOOT (1.5‑meter) SPITTING COBRA was a bit slug­gish in its move­ments when we first spot­ted it.

Zide, my guard, told me to step back, as he took aim with the bam­boo rod. The snake lay in a very dif­fi­cult posi­tion for the guard to hit it as it was against the brick wall of the house.

KAWAK! The bam­boo struck the cement, break­ing the end of the bam­boo rod. The snake was only stunned (not good), but at least the blow had knocked it off the wall. Zide is an expe­ri­enced snake killer, so imme­di­ate­ly struck a 2nd time, but missed as the snake turned in the blink of an eye, lung­ing its full length in his direc­tion!

Jump­ing side­ways with speed and agili­ty, the snake bare­ly missed bit­ing Zide. He then hit it 3 more times in quick suc­ces­sion with the bro­ken bam­boo, end­ing that quick but fero­cious bat­tle. I ran into the house and grabbed a machete (pan­ga), as no snake is a dead snake until it’s head is removed!

I regret that I didn’t get a video of this fight, but it all hap­pened in a mat­ter of 10 sec­onds. It would have showed you the skill and agili­ty need­ed to fight a large, fast mov­ing, African snake. I’ll try to remem­ber this when we next encounter a snake, for there is always a “next time” around here.
 

One-eyed Misha, my won­der­ful four-legged friend​

My thanks to JESUS FOR SENDING MISHA, the dog, who warned me, and Zide, the guard, for his brave attack skills in keep­ing me safe from this snake.

That was the warmest day we had all week (70ºF/23ºC), as the next day the tem­per­a­tures turned very cold again (48ºF/13ºC).
Since the snake was very thin, it was obvi­ous it was look­ing for warmth, and food dur­ing its mid­day excur­sion. It won’t need to look any­more, for Zide gave him a nice bur­ial in our back pas­ture.

2 LESSONS TO LEARN HERE: 
 
In the prac­ti­cal: ALWAYS LISTEN to the ani­mals around you, and imme­di­ate­ly inves­ti­gate with cau­tion. I have had God use birds, dogs, and just the tracks on the ground to give me warn­ing of an impend­ing dan­ger that saved me from harm.

SPIRITUALLY: BE WISE, AND KEEP ALERT, LISTENING TO GOD’S VOICE IN THESE END TIMES. Some “snakes” wan­der­ing city streets come with 2 legs.
 

OUR CHILDREN ARE ALL HEALTHY!

They are just a bit bored with the lack of school. We have increased our games and class­room activ­i­ties to help curb their bore­dom. The big boys love to play “bas­ket­ball-court soc­cer”, so below is a short video show­ing their com­pet­i­tive spir­it as they burn off some of their nev­er end­ing ener­gy. (Click the link or the pho­to to see the YouTube video.) 
 
https://youtu.be/WeG2UFsEXXc
 

Teens play­ing bas­ket­ball court soc­cer.​
 
The ball they are using is a spe­cial ONE WORLD BALL that is super tough. It won’t burst as it made of a spe­cial mate­r­i­al, and has a spe­cial valve that keeps it inflat­ed no mat­ter how rough it is treat­ed. Designed by USA engi­neers specif­i­cal­ly for African ter­rains.

YOUR LOVE GIFTS PROVIDED THESE BALLS, FOR WHICH ALL THE CHILDREN ARE GRATEFUL.

Bless­ings to you all in these chal­leng­ing times.
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: JULY 11, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: JULY 11, 2020
 
SURPRISE PREGNANCY PRODUCES TWINS IN NEED OF FORMULA

Fri­day, July 10th, an elder­ly look­ing cou­ple walked into our mis­sion with a beau­ti­ful set of twin girls, Liana and Riana. Much to our sur­prise, these folks were the PARENTS, not the grand­par­ents with orphaned babies. The moth­er looks to be in her late 40’s so TWINS in addi­tion to this sur­prise “late life” preg­nan­cy has over­whelmed this cou­ple.
 

Twins Liana and Riana, 10 days old with par­ents.

The moth­er devel­oped nasty abscess­es on 1breast, and her 2nd breast dried up on Thurs­day, leav­ing the infants with no milk! They rushed to the hos­pi­tal on Fri­day, July 10th, look­ing for baby for­mu­la and treat­ment for the moth­er. Social Ser­vices was called in and sent them to us for for­mu­la assis­tance. These 10-day-old girls were in need of urgent sus­te­nance!

THANKS TO YOUR LOVE GIFTS, 2 baby bot­tles, 2 cans of for­mu­la, and 2 bot­tles of ster­ile water for mix­ing the for­mu­la were pro­vid­ed imme­di­ate­ly. Few real­ize how impor­tant every LOVE GIFT is, for it can mean the dif­fer­ence in life and death to new­borns. 
 

Chil­dren’s Direc­tor Anna teach­ing for­mu­la prepa­ra­tion to par­ents.
 
LIFE FOR THESE 2 LITTLE ONES WAS A MERE $15 the first week and $10/week until they are 6 months old. This cou­ple could nev­er have afford­ed even the baby bot­tles at our mar­ket. ($1.50/R25 each) 
 
THANKS FOR BEING “GOD’S SAVING GRACE” IN THESE EMERGENCY SITUATIONS.
 

BUSY WEEK BEHIND US…

Our corn barn is now full, PTL!

THE RICE CROP, “straight from the field”, is in its final week of being sun dried. Our trucks will begin fetch­ing the rice on July 20th from those farm­ers who grew it. Grow­ing and har­vest­ing rice by hand is a back break­ing job, for there are no machines to help plant or har­vest it.

We waste no funds on a “mid­dle man” when we buy food for the orphans. All our bulk food sup­plies are bought DIRECT from the farm­ers, so that they alone get the ben­e­fit of your LOVE GIFTS. For most of these farm­ers, it is the ONLY income they receive each year. It means new clothes for their chil­dren and oth­er house­hold items they need.
 
YOUR LOVE GIFTS PROVIDE A 2‑FOLD BENEFIT, 1st to the farmer’s fam­i­ly and 2nd to the orphans who receive it.

THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS ALL POSSIBLE.
 

MELUCO HERE WE COME…
 
While wait­ing for the Rice to dry this week, our 7‑ton truck and 3‑man team will take 2 loads of life-sav­ing food to the 515 orphans of Melu­co Dis­trict, 9 hours dri­ve north­east of our Bala­ma base.

TOGETHER WE ARE CHANGING MORE LIVES THAN ANY OF US CAN IMAGINE.

Per­son­al note:  I tru­ly appre­ci­at­ed the encour­ag­ing emails I received this last week. Please con­tin­ue to drop me a line when you can, as it real­ly helps dur­ing this time of iso­la­tion.
 brenda@orphansunlimted.org

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF