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Monthly Archives: May 2023

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: MAY 13, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: MAY 13, 2023
 
UNDERWEIGHT TWINS JOIN OUR FAMILY
 
CRECENCIA (girl), and CRECENCIO (her twin broth­er) lost both their par­ents last year to an untime­ly inci­dent. Their Aunt, who lived near­by, was unable to care for these 7‑month-old babies as she had lit­tle food, and a house full of fam­i­ly to care for. Anoth­er Mozam­bi­can fam­i­ly offered to care for these twins, but they didn’t feed them the prop­er food for their age. The infants slow­ly became mal­nour­ished, and we were asked to reg­is­tered them into our week­ly infant pro­gram for the mal­nour­ished. Even with prop­er high pro­tein food and milk being giv­en to them over the last 2 months, their weight was not improv­ing as it should.

Last Tues­day, Social Ser­vices approved the admis­sion of these 16-month-old tod­dlers into our tod­dler home as they are both 12 lbs./6kg under­weight for their age. A high pro­tein tod­dler diet, as well as a sta­ble envi­ron­ment with 12 oth­er tod­dlers to play with, proved to be just what these twins need­ed! They imme­di­ate­ly start­ed play­ing with the oth­er chil­dren in the sand box.
 

A can­did shot of the twins lov­ing their sand­box play time
 
WE ARE VERY GRATEFUL to be able to give these twins a sta­ble home envi­ron­ment. Nor­mal­ly, new arrivals are afraid of me because my skin col­or and hair are dif­fer­ent than the vil­lage peo­ple. The lit­tle girl, Cre­cen­cia showed her courage on Tues­day when she walked across the sand­box to sit in my lap as I sat watch­ing the chil­dren play. Cre­cen­cia is a hug­ger, and I always wel­come ALL HUGS these lit­tle ones can dish out.

This makes 24 infant/toddlers under the age of 3 now liv­ing in 5 of our 7 homes. Nev­er a dull moment for sure, and it real­ly keeps me hop­ping! Please pray for all our staff as we adjust to man­ag­ing this large of a tod­dler fam­i­ly.
 
THE STORY OF OUR ADVENTURES WILL NEVER STOP!
 
For­give the short­ness of this blog, but all of our staff have extra duties as we gear up for the mas­sive 500 ton food buy­ing on June 1 that feeds over 1,300 vil­lage orphans. I will keep you all post­ed on our many adven­tures as we pre­pare to buy 100 TONS of beans on June 1st.
 
UNTIL NEXT WEEK, THIS IS THE BALAMA BUSH BUNNY SIGNING OFF.
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: MAY 6, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: MAY 6, 2023
 
BABY REGINALDA IN HOSPITAL
 
Baby Reg­gie, as we call her, has resis­tant malar­ia, mean­ing the oral treat­ment didn’t stop it, so she need­ed IV med­ica­tion treat­ments for 5 days. This is her 3rd day of treat­ment, and she is show­ing progress, but still needs prayer, as her immune sys­tem is weak. Her Hemo­glo­bin was only 9.2 upon admis­sion when it should have been between 10 and 12. A Hemo­glo­bin of 8 is con­sid­ered crit­i­cal, need­ing a trans­fu­sion to pre­vent fur­ther com­pli­ca­tions.

Reg­gie is now 2 years old but weighs only 7kg/15.4 lbs. She was born with tuber­cu­lo­sis of the bone. This is a rare dis­ease that was passed to her dur­ing ges­ta­tion by her moth­er who had res­pi­ra­to­ry TB.  Her moth­er passed away short­ly after Reg­gie was born. Reg­gie com­plet­ed the 14-month TB treat­ment and is free of TB in her bones.   No one knows why, but her body hasn’t shown much growth since then.  Please pray for her bones to hard­en, and that she will begin to grow.  She is unable to crawl but can sit up on her own.  She is a sweet lit­tle girl and a fight­er, no doubt about that. The Lord’s heal­ing hand is her only hope, as she needs a JESUS MIRACLE!
 

2 year old Reg­gie sit­ting with Fos­ter Moth­er Angeli­na last week just before Reg­gie’s Malar­ia start­ed
 
 
CHILDREN HELPING OUR CHILDREN
 
The COLD weath­er has moved in ear­ly this year with nights around (55F/16C). Our weath­er went straight from hot and rainy to cold and dry. It is very unusu­al to see these cold tem­per­a­tures until late May or June! The peo­ple of Bala­ma are used to tem­per­a­tures being HOT in the day­time, and com­fort­able at night. NOT SO LAST WEEK, as it has been windy and cold for all of us. It’s time for warmer cloth­ing!
 
Two class­es in an Ohio Chris­t­ian School con­tact­ed us in March want­i­ng to raise funds for sweat­shirts for our chil­dren. The chil­dren were learn­ing about han­dling mon­ey and study­ing mis­sions, so their teacher thought this idea would help them apply what they are learn­ing. Their fundrais­er raised $400 which assist­ed all our younger chil­dren under 12. Our teenagers need­ed adult sizes and were blessed by anoth­er donor. 
 

1 of 2 class­es of Ohio chil­dren who helped fundraise for sweat­shirts for our chil­dren
 

2nd Ohio class of fundrais­ers
 
I TRULY LOVE SEEING CHILDREN HELPING OTHER CHILDREN, as it teach­es them the valu­able gift of “giv­ing” in Jesus name! OUR HEARTFELT THANK YOU TO THESE WONDERFUL CHILDREN AND THEIR TEACHERS WHO SHARED THEIR LOVE FOR JESUS WITH OUR CHILDREN.
 

3 of our 1st and 2nd graders wear­ing their new sweat­shirts in ear­ly morn­ing cold
 

Susan­na (left) and 3 month old Orlen­cia held by Head Fos­ter Moth­er Gil­da as they try on new sweat shirts
 
 
ANOTHER FAMILY OF ORPHANS RESCUED THIS WEEK!
 
Tues­day, May 2nd, found us again giv­ing a help­ing hand to a Granny with 4 orphaned chil­dren. The moth­er died late last year from post-malar­ia ane­mia. Malar­ia kills red blood cells, and caus­es severe, life-threat­en­ing ane­mia if not treat­ed with a blood trans­fu­sion and a high pro­tein diet. The children’s father cared for them with Granny’s help, but then he passed away last week (cause unknown), leav­ing only Granny to look after them.
 
She was over­whelmed with grief and had lost hope until some­one told her to come to us.  
 

4 Orphans with Granny on Tues­day this week as they came to ask for help
 
She left with a big smile know­ing her grand­chil­dren would have food at our week­ly give out and warm blan­kets to sleep under.
 

Hap­py does­n’t come close to express­ing their joy at get­ting new clothes and house­hold items when they only asked for food.
 
 
THANKS TO YOUR LOVE GIFTS, WE WERE ABLE TO OUTFIT THEM WITH EVERYTHING THEY NEEDED.
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF
 
 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: APRIL 29, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: APRIL 29, 2023
 
THE REST OF THE STORY ON GRANNY AND THE KIDS
 
On Mon­day, our dri­ver Mario fetched the entire fam­i­ly of Baby Luisa at their vil­lage mud hut.  Cape­na, our office man­ag­er and I want­ed to make sure that all the chil­dren were in good health, and we had new cloth­ing for them once we knew their sizes.

Mario told me the lit­tle 3‑year-old screamed his head off when they tried to put him into the Land Cruis­er, as NONE of the chil­dren had ever been in a car of any kind.  It was quite a shock to all of them to ride in a pick-up, as you can see by the pho­to I took when they first arrived wear­ing the only clothes they had.  Granny stat­ed that with the help of the old­est girl (14) she would keep all the chil­dren with her. 
 

5 sib­lings of infant Luisa just as they got out of our truck
 
My staff made sure that the 14-year-old girl under­stood that if any­thing should hap­pen to Granny, she was to tell the Vil­lage Chief who now has Capena’s phone num­ber. The Uncle has his own fam­i­ly, and will be return­ing to them. The adults went to the Reg­is­tra­tion Office, where Granny pre­sent­ed the prop­er doc­u­ments. Mean­while, the chil­dren (wear­ing their new clothes) enjoyed a tasty and healthy meal.
 

Eager­ly eat­ing the first nour­ish­ing food they had had in days
 
Lat­er, the fam­i­ly was giv­en cook­ies for dessert. Even though they had not had pack­aged cook­ies before, after a quick les­son their pack­ages were opened and gob­bled up quick­ly!
 

Fati­ma teach­es the chil­dren how to open their cook­ie pack­ets
 
We pre­sent­ed Granny and the chil­dren with new grass mats, blan­kets for sleep­ing, and cook­ing pans with bowls for eat­ing. They proud­ly show off all of these items in the pic­ture below.
 

Very hap­py fam­i­ly with new clothes and house­hold items
 
The 14-year-old told us that they had noth­ing to eat at Granny’s mud hut. A 10 day sup­ply of food was loaded into the truck so the Uncle wouldn’t have to come in on his bicy­cle until next week for his first food pick-up. Dri­ver Mario returned them to their vil­lage in our Land Cruis­er with the 3 year old scream­ing as the fam­i­ly put him into the truck!! Thank­ful­ly, he set­tled down after the old­est girl put him onto her lap. We now have infant Luisa’s birth cer­tifi­cate and the prop­er papers from her fam­i­ly so she can legal­ly stay with us, so all end­ed well.
 
THIS IS A TYPICAL “FAMILY” RESCUE, AS IT’S NOT ONLY THE INFANT WHO WOULD NOT SURVIVE, BUT THE OTHER SIBLINGS AS WELL. 
 
YOUR LOVE GIFTS AT WORK DOING WHAT GOD SENT US TO DO.
 
THURSDAY WAS REGISTRATION DAY AT OUR FOOD CENTER
 
All 300 vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren and their care­tak­ers are required to re-reg­is­ter annu­al­ly in April if they desire to con­tin­ue in our Food Assis­tance Pro­gram.
 

Start­ing at sun­rise, our staff checks doc­u­ments and chil­dren receiv­ing at our week­ly give out
 
This assures us that the reg­is­tered chil­dren are still liv­ing with their extend­ed fam­i­ly mem­ber, as each child has to be pre­sent­ed with their birth cer­tifi­cate. It took about 4 hours to attend to all the fam­i­lies this year. As they are cleared by our staff to con­tin­ue, they hap­pi­ly fetched their food and head­ed home.
 
PLAYGROUND REPAIRS ARE FINALLY FINISHED 
 
The giant slide was the last item to be repaired as it takes lots of courage to climb on top of the “tree house” roof (6 meters/19.5 feet) above the ground. The acid from the leaves of this mas­sive 200+ year old Man­go tree had total­ly eat­en the tin sheets. All 10 roof­ing sheets had to be replaced before it was safe for the chil­dren to play on. It was a two day job tear­ing off the old roof and putting on the new tin sheets, but all is fin­ished.
 

Tin sheets were total­ly eat­en by tree acids from this ancient Man­go tree
 

New roof keeps all debris from falling on the chil­dren
 
The play­ground only lacks a new coat of paint which will be put on in May by our Artist Teacher Ser­gio and his helpers.  Can’t wait to see what crazy design he comes up with.
 
It was a busy week that kept all of us hop­ping. Our staff sees it as all worth it when we can use YOUR GIFTS to put smiles on the children’s faces!
 
THANK YOU FOR BLESSING THESE LITTLE CHILDREN.
 
BLESSINGS FROM ALL OF US!
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: APRIL 22, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: APRIL 22, 2023
 
A RESCUE THAT DEFINES WHY JESUS SENT US HERE
 
On Wednes­day, April 19th, an elder­ly Granny walked in with her 5‑day-old grand­daugh­ter, fol­lowed by the baby’s Uncle.  After hear­ing their sto­ry and read­ing the Vil­lage Chief’s dec­la­ra­tion, they asked us to please take the infant as Granny can­not not care for her.  It was obvi­ous this fam­i­ly is very poor and these 2 were over­whelmed with new respon­si­bil­i­ties. The baby’s moth­er had died short­ly after giv­ing birth, leav­ing them with 5 sib­lings and the new­born baby.  All oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers had died, includ­ing the father, in JANUARY, 2023 from an out­break of cholera in their very remote vil­lage about 12 miles/20 km from us.  
 
We imme­di­ate­ly agreed to take the tiny 2.7km/6 lb. infant girl, named Luisa, as I tried to men­tal­ly rearrange our present 22 infants in my head! This child need­ed a Fos­ter Moth­er who can han­dle such a tiny new­born.  I called our Head House Moth­er, Gil­da, and she helped me sort it out, for she knows the moth­ers car­ing for infants bet­ter than any­one.

As tiny Luisa slept peace­ful­ly after con­sum­ing 3 ounces of milk, my staff and I asked many ques­tions to get the full pic­ture of the chil­dren left at home. The Granny and Uncle hadn’t eat­en all day and were very hun­gry.  I gave them each a bot­tle of water and a big bread roll.  They had nev­er had a bot­tle of water before, and asked us how to open the bot­tle!  I then knew we were work­ing with peo­ple who were very iso­lat­ed from the mod­ern world. We explained in Makua that they need­ed to return on Fri­day with a Dec­la­ra­tion from the Vil­lage Chief request­ing that baby Luisa live with us.  I gave them the $7/R126 trav­el mon­ey for a round trip on a minibus taxi from Bala­ma to their vil­lage with the return on Fri­day.  We then took Luisa to meet her new Fos­ter Moth­er, Ami­na.
 

(L to R) Granny, Fos­ter Moth­er Ami­na with Baby Luisa, and the Uncle.
 
On Fri­day, we wait­ed, and wait­ed. The Granny and Uncle final­ly arrived at 2:30pm as they had used the trav­el mon­ey to buy much need­ed items. I doubt they had ever seen $7/R126 in their entire lives! Start­ing out on the Uncle’s dilap­i­dat­ed bicy­cle for trans­porta­tion, the rear tire explod­ed part way through the jour­ney, leav­ing them to walk most of the 12 miles push­ing the bicy­cle. They had brought the need­ed doc­u­ments required by law for all orphans, but the date for the father’s death was incor­rect and will have to be rewrit­ten by the Vil­lage Chief.  
 
Know­ing more trav­el mon­ey would be used to by oth­er items, the only sure way to get them home and back here on Mon­day with the cor­rect­ed doc­u­ments was to send them with our dri­ver in a Land Cruis­er to their remote vil­lage.  This vil­lage is so far in the bush that the first  “car dri­vable road” was built late last year.  All 5 chil­dren and the Granny will be enrolled in our Food Give Out Pro­gram that takes place each Thurs­day. In order for the Uncle to be able to fetch the food, we bought him a new bicy­cle tire and tube at the local mar­ket. Also, tak­ing them to their vil­lage assured us a good look at where they live, and a pho­to of the oth­er 5 chil­dren.  Our con­cern is that some of the younger chil­dren may need to come live with us also to light­en the load on the elder­ly Granny.  If some­thing hap­pens to her, the chil­dren have no one to live with, as the Uncle said he can’t care for them.


Uncle, Granny, and 4 of the 5 chil­dren. Pic­ture tak­en by our dri­ver when he arrived at their remote vil­lage.
 
Our staff will fetch ALL 7 of them, and the cor­rect­ed doc­u­ments ear­ly  Mon­day morn­ing with our Land Cruis­er. That way Social Ser­vices can review the entire fam­i­ly his­to­ry with them, and pro­vide anoth­er doc­u­ment need­ed by all chil­dren in our homes.
My sto­ry ends here, as you must wait along with us for “the rest of the sto­ry” as it unfolds next week.
 
I tell you this sto­ry in detail so you can bet­ter grasp what flex­i­ble solu­tions are nec­es­sary to save chil­dren in these kinds of cir­cum­stances.
It’s not always easy, or sim­ple by any means.
 
Pray for all of us this week, that we can sort out the need­ed Death Cer­tifi­cates of the moth­er and father, Birth Cer­tifi­cate for Luisa, and any of the oth­er lit­tle ones who might come live with us.  Social Ser­vices requires these doc­u­ments on each child liv­ing with us, so with­out them, Luisa must return to her Granny.
 
BUSH BUNNY TIDBITS
 
1.   LITTLE AMBROSIO, now 2 years old, is final­ly walk­ing!  This is a great mile­stone for him, as he came to us in a very mal­nour­ished state. It just took more time than nor­mal for him to gain his bal­ance and walk­ing legs.  His many broth­ers and sis­ters who were already run­ning all over the place, were a great encour­age­ment to him.
 
Ambro­sio show­ing us he can now walk like the oth­er tod­dlers.
https://youtube.com/shorts/CdR7OExIeBM
 
2.  The Granny who is rais­ing our first set of triplet boys, now 12 years old, came yes­ter­day. The boys were in school so there is no pic­ture of them. Granny need­ed a new cook­ing pan.  Thanks to our New Jer­sey spon­sor for our Cook­ing Pan Give Out Pro­gram, we were able to place 2 brand new pans in her hands as well as two 5 gal­lon water con­tain­ers.  She left a very hap­py Granny, and YES, we gave her a hand car­ry­ing it all back to her mud hut. 
 

Ancient Granny who suc­cess­ful­ly raised triplet boys. 
 
THAT’S THE NEWS FOR THIS WEEK! 
 
Stay tuned for more African Adven­tures next week with Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and her staff.
 
Bless­ings to all of you, in Jesus’ name!
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF