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Monthly Archives: September 2021

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 25, 2021

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 25, 2021
 
BABIES LOVING PLAYTIME
 
With 12 infants in our care, I have warned the moth­ers that the “fun” times are com­ing when all 12 start walk­ing!
I’ll call it chas’em and corral’em!
 
Eight of the twelve are now offi­cial­ly “tod­dling” or crawl­ing while the oth­er 4 are “observ­ing their sib­lings” and think­ing about crawl­ing.  I want to share 2 impromp­tu pho­tos I snapped this week. I caught these curi­ous tykes play­ing while their Fos­ter Moth­ers worked near­by to cook a meal.
 

L to R. Julio and Chebane love their sand­box at house #6.
 

L to R. Fati­ma, Gil­da, and Juma hav­ing fun out­doors.​
 
FRIDAY EMERGENCIES KEEP US ALL HOPPING. 
 
Phone rings 6 a.m. with the Chil­dren’s Direc­tor,  Anna, say­ing our newest infant, Regi­nal­da, had sus­pect­ed malar­ia. She need­ed me imme­di­ate­ly, as this baby is still on the “severe­ly mal­nour­ished” list weigh­ing only 4.7 kgs/10.3 lbs. at 7.5 months of age. Five min­utes lat­er, I loaded them into my King­cab, and off we went to the hos­pi­tal for a malar­ia smear.
 

Baby REGINALDA last week before malar­ia hit her.
 
While Anna and Angeli­na,  the Fos­ter Moth­er, wait­ed for the lab results,  I rushed back to our mis­sion to find our con­struc­tion trainee, Alferes, hav­ing a grand mal seizure!
 

Alferes hard at work yes­ter­day,  before becom­ing sick this a.m.​
 
Cape­na rushed to help me by bring­ing a Land Cruis­er (sin­gle cab pick­up) to the dorm, so we could load him into the open back in a lay­ing down posi­tion. Cape­na and Pas­tor Jose rushed him to the emer­gency room, while I head­ed off to treat tod­dlers Julio and Sal­vador who are present­ly on malar­ia treat­ment at home. Once a baby is over 5 kg/11 lbs., he is old enough to take oral med­ica­tion, PTL!
 
It felt like I was coor­di­nat­ing a dis­as­ter scene instead of an orphan­age this a.m.!
 
We had to call in our “hos­pi­tal helper moth­er”, Mari­amo, to be with Fos­ter Moth­er Angeli­na in the hos­pi­tal.  One moth­er watch­es the infant while the oth­er takes a break.
 
Since Angeli­na is the head moth­er of the Ostrich House, Assis­tant Chil­dren’s Direc­tor,  Fati­ma, will “live in” tem­porar­i­ly at the Ostrich house until REGINALDA is released from the hos­pi­tal. 
 
Thank­ful­ly,  our staff is very good at “flex­ing” to what­ev­er job needs doing. 
 
Out­comes:
1. BABY REGINALDA was admit­ted for 5 days of malar­ia treat­ment as she must have I V med­i­cine (not oral) due to her low weight. The malar­ia lar­vae ate her red blood cells caus­ing ane­mia. With her Hbg now down to a crit­i­cal lev­el of 7 she need­ed blood. Nor­mal is 12 to 14. She is being trans­fused as I write this Fri­day evening. 
 
2. ALFERES does not have malar­ia, PTL,  and his seizures stopped with prop­er med­ica­tion. He was sent home Fri­day after­noon on bed rest, and the dorm father,  Arman­do, will keep a close watch on him. His seizures occurred because he for­got to take his Mag­ne­sium for the last few days. I don’t think he will for­get again.
 
3. Julio and Sal­vador were out play­ing as if they weren’t sick, so no wor­ries there. Amaz­ing how fast lit­tle ones over­come this killer ill­ness when the right treat­ment is giv­en imme­di­ate­ly after symp­toms begin.
 
NEVER A DULL MOMENT WHEN KIDS ARE INVOLVED. 
 
Plz con­tin­ue your prayers for all of us. With food give­outs com­plet­ed on Thurs­day,  we all expect­ed a sim­ple day on Fri­day.  Just Prais­ing the Lord that it is all under con­trol now, and the sick are on the mend.
 
FYI: Two oth­er infants with very low blood counts ben­e­fit­ed from the pint of blood giv­en to our Regi­nal­da. PTL for Jesus’ heal­ing pow­er that spreads to oth­ers as He heals our lit­tle one.
 
BLESSINGS, 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE FANTASTIC STAFF IN BALAMA

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 18, 2021

 
FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 18, 2021
 
REGINALDA FINDS A LOVING HOME
 
At Thurs­day’s baby for­mu­la give out, a record 36 infants were weighed and giv­en for­mu­la. Our staff was shocked when a 12-year-old girl walked in with a tiny infant girl whose Grand­moth­er is sup­posed to be car­ing for her. The girl stat­ed her Grand­moth­er is sick, and unable to care for Regi­nal­da, a 7‑month-old, VERY mal­nour­ished infant, who weighed in at only 4 kg/8.8 lbs.
 
Anna, our Chil­dren’s Direc­tor, called me imme­di­ate­ly, for the infant had lost 300 grams in 7 days! This meant she was­n’t being fed. She had only a mild cough with no sign of a seri­ous ill­ness, PTL, just very hun­gry! I called Social Ser­vices, who imme­di­ate­ly placed the baby into our care until the sit­u­a­tion was inves­ti­gat­ed. 
 

REGINALDA, held by Assis­tant Chil­dren’s Direc­tor,  Anna, with Fos­ter Mom Angeli­na on right​
 
A trip to Granny’s mud hut revealed an elder­ly grand­moth­er who was­n’t tru­ly sick, just did­n’t want the infant. Regi­nal­da was placed with Fos­ter Moth­er Angeli­na, Head House Moth­er for the Ostrich House kids, where 18-month-old Quis­ton lives.
 
Regi­nal­da, “Reg­gie” for short, needs LOTS OF PRAYER and a $40/month spon­sor who will uphold her in dai­ly prayer.
 
With her being severe­ly under­weight, our staff has begun a 6 month high pro­tein food pro­gram to help her over­come her low weight.
 
THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS EMERGENCY RESCUE POSSIBLE THROUGH YOUR FAITHFUL LOVE GIFTS.
 
 
SEPTEMBER FOOD GIVE OUTS IN PROGRESS!
 
Time flies, for 4 weeks have passed, thus mak­ing this week the right time to roll out the trucks and load’em up with corn and beans. Two major vil­lages were served this week, with 3 more sched­uled for next week.
 
Below are a few pho­tos of those you sup­port through this mas­sive food pro­gram. 
 

Even the youngest of orphans love help­ing Granny fetch their Love Gift
 

Ophaned young­sters receive salt, while Granny picks up their beans.
 

Every­one gives a help­ing hand on food dis­tri­b­u­tion day!​
 

Grannies and Aunts pre­pare their Love Gifts into small­er bun­dles for the trip to their mud hut.​
 
THANK YOU FOR HELPING THESE INNOCENT ONES OVERCOME THEIR MALNOURISHED STATE.
 
BLESSINGS, 
 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 11, 2021

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 11, 2021
 
HOUSE #7 IS FINISHED!
 
Health Inspec­tors will check the house on Mon­day and then we can offi­cial­ly open it to receive chil­dren, or more infants if the need aris­es.
 
It was a joint effort from 2 donors on dif­fer­ent con­ti­nents. 
 
Thank you to Caleb and Sarah of Inspire Inter­na­tion­al in the USA for your gen­er­ous gift that built the 4‑bedroom chil­dren’s home and the laun­dry area.
 

House #7. This 4‑bedroom orphan home is com­plete.
 

Laun­dry area for House #7​
 
Bar­ry and Lynette of Aus­tralia, thank you for going the extra mile in send­ing your gift that built the kitchen/dining area and bath­rooms.
 

Din­ing room (L) and cook­ing, food stor­age rooms on right.​
 

3 bathing areas on front with 4 buck­et flush toi­lets in back.​
 
We are thrilled to have had the mate­ri­als avail­able to com­plete this com­plex, for 2 weeks ago both cement and tin roof­ing sheets were sold out with store own­ers say­ing it could be 30 days or more before they receive a sup­ply.  GOD IS ALWAYS “ON TIME” WITH ALL WE NEED!
 
 
HOUSE FIRE WIPED OUT ALL THEY HAD
 
Our Melu­co Orphans Man­ag­er, Syl­vai, sent me this pho­to of a burned out mud hut on Sun­day.
 

Scorched trees show how fast and hot the roof burned.​
 
A Granny and her 3 orphaned grand­chil­dren were clean­ing their farm­ing field when they saw bil­low­ing smoke com­ing from their mud hut. An unknown, obvi­ous­ly very heart­less per­son, had set it on fire. Syl­vai found this very hun­gry fam­i­ly the next morn­ing sit­ting under a tree near their home. They had noth­ing but the clothes on their backs.
 
The Grand­moth­er stat­ed that they had no fire at their hut when they left that morn­ing, so some­one had to have start­ed it on pur­pose. This fam­i­ly has been in our orphan food pro­gram for sev­er­al years, so Syl­vai noti­fied me imme­di­ate­ly, putting our EMERGENCY RESCUE PLAN into action.
 
Cape­na assist­ed me in send­ing the equiv­a­lent of $150 to Syl­vai via phone trans­fer with­in 1 hour of Syl­vai’s mes­sage. He went to the Melu­co mar­ket with the fam­i­ly and bought them each 2 sets of clothes, new plates and a cook­ing pan, as well as new school sup­plies for the 3 chil­dren.
 

Wid­owed Granny with 3 grand­chil­dren in front of burned out mud hut.
 
This week Syl­vai orga­nized bam­boo and 8‑foot bun­dles of roof­ing grass so he can replace their roof for an addi­tion­al $70. (Sent to him yes­ter­day)
 
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR LOVE GIFTS LAST MONTH, FOR THOSE GIFTS MADE THIS EMERGENCY RESCUE POSSIBLE. 
 
 
BALAMA ADMINISTRATOR VISITED ON THURSDAY 
 
On this vis­it, our Admin­is­tra­tor first checked on the chil­dren, then asked to see our food ware­hous­es. He is super keen on help­ing us increase our agri­cul­tur­al yield on the 40 acres/16 hectares of our mis­sion sta­tion. 
 

Bala­ma Admin­is­tra­tor vis­its our corn ware­house.​
 
He request­ed the Direc­tor of Agri­cul­ture to assist us with a plan before plant­i­ng time in Novem­ber. 
 
It’s great to have friends who real­ly care.
 
Bless­ings  
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 4, 2021

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 4, 2021
 
TRIPLETS GRADUATE FROM MILK PROGRAM! 
 
Born Jan­u­ary 18, 2021, these 3 husky babies are now 7 months and 3 weeks old. Triplets at this age are a rare sight around here, but this fam­i­ly, who live in a remote vil­lage over 15 miles from our mis­sion sta­tion, has done an out­stand­ing job in car­ing for these tiny tots. But, by the looks of Mel­bio (far right), “Big Tot” is more like it!
 
In the pho­to, L to R:
Boy, Mel­dio, 12.1 lbs/5.5 kgs
Girl, Mel­dia, 11.7 lbs/5.3 kgs
Boy, Mel­bio, 14.5 lbs/6.6 kgs
 
YOUR LOVE GIFTS MADE THIS POSSIBLE!
 

Mar­i­ca Triplets grad­u­ate from our milk pro­gram.​
 
THANK YOU, for the baby for­mu­la alone is one of our biggest bud­get items at over $12,000/year. We cur­rent­ly have 36 infants in the pro­gram which sad­ly con­tin­ues to increase week­ly.
 
With­out our baby for­mu­la assis­tance, there is lit­tle hope for these pre­cious lit­tle ones who lose their Moms short­ly after birth.
 
YOUR LOVE GIFTS ARE TRUE LIFE SAVERS.
 
 
FAMILY OF 5 JOINS FOOD PROGRAM 
 
It’s not just the infants who are left alone when a Mom dies. In this case, the grand­fa­ther walked his 5 grand­chil­dren to our mis­sion to ask for help. Four-month-old Ambro­sio, and his 4 sib­lings were orphaned after their moth­er died of post-malar­ia com­pli­ca­tions.  Their father died sev­er­al months ago from an unknown ill­ness. 
 

Baby Ambro­sio in arms of grand­fa­ther with his 4 grand­chil­dren.​
 
The old­est girl is 12 and will assist her grand­par­ents with the rais­ing of her sib­lings. Our prayer is that the grand­par­ents’ health will stay strong for many years, or this could become a Child Head­ed House­hold. 
 
 
ELECTRICITY COMING TO OUR AREA
 
At present, our 6 orphan homes use solar pow­er along with bat­tery pow­ered lanterns for lights at night. This week, our long await­ed prayers were answered as the elec­tric lines passed by ALL our chil­dren’s homes. 
 

Elec­tric­i­ty will soon be a real­i­ty for our orphan homes.​
 
Our chil­dren all live on the same dirt road, but their homes are in 4 small clus­ters, each about 100 yards/meters apart with pri­vate mud huts in between. This way, the chil­dren grow up in a vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty, and not in a dorm type set­ting, sep­a­rat­ed from their neigh­bors.
 
God’s vision giv­en to me in 1992: Build homes the African way, keep­ing the chil­dren IN THEIR CULTURE. 
 
We’ve done just that, with Home #7 soon to open. God’s vision has become a real­i­ty thanks to all of you giv­ing a help­ing hand.
 
BLESSINGS,  
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: AUGUST 28, 2021

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: AUGUST 28, 2021
 
AUGUST GIVE-OUTS COMPLETED 
 
The orphans are grow­ing up, thanks to your com­mit­ment with your Love Gifts. Here are a few more pho­tos, this time from the 4 vil­lages in the Kwe Kwe area. On Tues­day, our team served 135 orphans cared for by 71 wid­ows. THANK YOU FOR GIVING THEM A CHANCE AT A FUTURE.
 

Guard­ing the food for his 2 sib­lings and Granny.​
 

Life-sus­tain­ing food. Not ful­ly appre­ci­at­ed by most until you’ve gone hun­gry.​
 

2 orphans care­ful­ly divide their food so they can car­ry it home. Not a ker­nel lost.
 
GIRL’S ROOM PAINTINGS BRIGHTEN EVERYONE’S DAY.
 
Vicente did a great job bring­ing “Cre­ation” to life with a few local ani­mals thrown in. My “bun­ny-rab­bits on a binge” idea became a real­i­ty through Vicen­te’s paint­brush.
 

CREATION, GOD’S gift to us all, bright­ens the girl’s room.​
 

My wild idea. “Bun­nies in the gar­den”. Eat­ing what they should­n’t of course!​
 
As we admired his work, he was busy putting his tal­ent to work cre­at­ing a “tweaked Noah’s Ark” in the #7’s din­ing room. Vicente always changes each Noah’s Ark in some lit­tle way, so they are nev­er exact­ly the same.
 

 
 
BUSH BUNNY TIDBITS
 
1. Alferes is now play­ing soc­cer after a 10-day-fight with malar­ia, togeth­er with a mag­ne­sium defi­cien­cy that caused his mus­cle spasms. Mag­ne­sium sup­ple­ments and extra vit­a­min B quick­ly resolved his mus­cle irri­ta­tion.
 
2. Con­struc­tion of a new kitchen at the Gazelle house is tak­ing shape at a tremen­dous pace with car­pen­ters and brick-lay­ers using their famous remod­el­ing skills. Our builders will tell you that build­ing from scratch is much eas­i­er than remod­el­ing.
 

Old kitchen (L) and new food room on right.
 
The kitchen will include a longer, shad­ed veran­da and a spa­cious store­room for their food sup­plies. The roof and veran­da floor are being com­plet­ed as I write.
 
UNTIL NEXT WEEK, WE IN BALAMA BID YOU GOODBYE FOR NOW.
 
Please keep us all in your prayers, as we pray for all of you, plus our Chris­t­ian fam­i­ly in Afghanistan. 
 
 
BLESSINGS, 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF