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Monthly Archives: October 2024

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog, October 26, 2024

BABY JORGE IS FINALLY HOME FROM HOSPITAL

Being 2 months old and hav­ing 2 hos­pi­tal stays on record, is not a great way to start a life. Suf­fer­ing from severe mal­nu­tri­tion and now recov­er­ing from malar­ia, this lit­tle boy has had a real­ly rough time of it. On top of that, he start­ed last night with a sinus infec­tion, which we are treat­ing at home, PTL!

This is what hap­pens when an infant doesn’t get his Mom’s colostrum dur­ing their first 3 days of birth, and is severe­ly mal­nour­ished on top of that. But his weight is now 4 kgs/8.8 lbs., so he is grow­ing despite his health set­backs, PTL!B

Hap­py Jorge with Fos­ter Moth­er Fraquina. No place like home!

BABY CLOTHING GIFT MAKES OUR DAY 

Thanks to a won­der­ful group effort, and a per­son­al hand deliv­ery to South Africa, our babies were blessed with 60 lbs./27kg of baby and tod­dler clothes!

Many of you have asked if they could send “clothing/blankets, etc.” but the cost of trans­port, import, etc. is astro­nom­i­cal! Much more than the val­ue of the clothes being sent.

Baby clothes galore!

But friends Dave and Steve, and Steve’s wife received dona­tions of baby cloth­ing so that Dave and Steve could hand car­ry the items to South Africa since they were fly­ing there any­way! What a super bless­ing! The suit­case just arrived after being trucked to us by friends who live near­by. Our babies will be sharply dressed in the com­ing months thanks to a lot of kind peo­ple.

NOTE: Our team is run­ning hard, as we start deliv­er­ing food to remote vil­lages next Mon­day.  

BLESSINGS,
AND MUCH THANKS FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND GIFTS!
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog, October 19, 2024

2 BABIES IN HOSPITAL—MALARIA THE CULPRIT

Esteva­sia (a new admit to our fam­i­ly) went straight into hos­pi­tal after her fee­ble Granny released her into our care late last week.Only 4.3 kgs/9.5 lbs. at 5 months, this tiny orphan was def­i­nite­ly NOT receiv­ing the care she need­ed from her Granny. 

Baby Esteva­sia the day before she was released from hospital.

She test­ed pos­i­tive for malar­ia and had a hemo­glo­bin of only SIX when admit­ted. (Nor­mal is 10–12. Below 8 is life threat­en­ing). A donor was locat­ed imme­di­ate­ly, as thank­ful­ly she is O+, and a trans­fu­sion was giv­en with­in 3 hours of her admis­sion. With new blood in her sys­tem, she perked up, began eat­ing bet­ter, and was released into our care on Thurs­day, Oct. 18th! 

BABY JORGE is once again in the hos­pi­tal as he spiked a fever and test­ed pos­i­tive for malar­ia on Tues­day this week. This tiny 3.7kg/8 lb. new­born has had a real­ly rough start to his short 2 months of life. He is also on the verge of need­ing a trans­fu­sion, as his hemo­glo­bin is sit­ting at 8.4. Since he is below 5kgs/11 lbs., he must auto­mat­i­cal­ly receive a 7‑day IV treat­ment of meds that will kill out his malaria. 

Tiny Jorge with Fos­ter Moth­er Franquina.
YOUR PRAYERS ARE MUCH NEEDED FOR THESE 2 FRAGILE LITTLE ONES AS WELL AS THE MANY OTHERS IN OUR CARE. 

Malar­ia is ram­pant in our area at this time as we expe­ri­enced a heavy rain on Wednes­day this week. Octo­ber is sup­posed to be hot and DRY. This is the first time a heavy rain has hit Bala­ma in Octo­ber, and it caught ALL OF US by surprise.This gul­ly wash­er hung around for 12 hours, flood­ing many homes, as no one had ditch­es in place to con­trol the rag­ing waters that washed through our area. The ditch­es at our children’s homes and our mis­sion sta­tion are left in place year-round, so none of our facil­i­ties were harmed, PTL! 

NEXT FOOD GIVE-OUT DUE BY END OF OCTOBER 
The pho­to shows our entire team help­ing re-sack the rice on Mon­day this week. We get togeth­er 1 Mon­day each month to set up all the “half sacks” for the small fam­i­lies who receive them through­out Bala­ma Dis­trict. These guys are very fast, as they had 235 half sacks com­plet­ed and in the barn with­in 90 min­utes. Then off they went to their nor­mal con­struc­tion job

Our team of men mak­ing half sacks of rice from full sacks.

NOTE: I want to thank EACH OF YOU from the bot­tom of my heart for your LOVE GIFTS that keep this pro­gram viable. The work load keeps me too busy to write per­son­al let­ters to each of you. But know that I THANK THE LORD for every gift giv­en, and ask the Lord to bless you 100-fold for your love of His chil­dren.

This Bun­ny will keep hop­ping down the bush trail, sav­ing the lit­tle ones the Lord sends our way, until that hop is no more.  

TOGETHER, WE ARE SAVING LIVES AND GIVING CHILDREN A CHANCE AT A FUTURE WITH JESUS. 

BLESSINGS,BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog: October 12, 2024

GRANNY PUTS NEPHEWS TO WORK 

Once a month we need to dehull rice for our infants, as the Fos­ter Moms make their own rice cere­al for the babies in our care. This also gives the wid­ows a chance to make some pock­et mon­ey, as I pre­fer the funds to go to the wid­ows vs. a local mill.

Some of our wid­ows hard at work, dehulling rice. See them in action at our YouTube Chan­nel: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I7N_TT6C420
Emilio and Felez show off their perfect rhythm, dehulling rice for Granny. The boys work in perfect rhythm as they cut the dehulling time in half by working as a team.
Emilio and Felez show off their per­fect rhythm, dehulling rice for Granny. The boys work in per­fect rhythm as they cut the dehulling time in half by work­ing as a team. See them in action on YouTube at this link: https://youtube.com/shorts/lRQ7of2YWws?si=DFNu3m43hmc-r4Uo
One of our Grannies brought her 2 nephews this week and put them to work. She is up in age, and no longer has the strength to do the entire dehulling by her­self. I grabbed a video of the boys work­ing in per­fect rhythm as they cut the dehulling time in half by work­ing as a team. I tru­ly appre­ci­ate the wid­owed grannies that live near us, as they tru­ly know how to raise a child in the way they should go so they won’t depart from it.
2 OF THE MIRACLE BABIES NOW WALKING!

Baby Mila­gre (means Mir­a­cle), is now just over 1 year old and walk­ing very well! Milagre’s moth­er passed away after a C‑section was per­formed in the Region­al Hos­pi­tal. Her son, named Mila­gre by his father, was saved, PTL! But the father had no female rel­a­tive to help care for the new­born. So Mila­gre was sent to us by Social Ser­vices as he was very frag­ile after his rough start in life. 

Mila­gre enjoy­ing his new free­dom! See him in action at our YouTube Chan­nel. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Vl6Dz-nqOWQ
He is a joy to care for and a very hap­py boy now that he has mobil­i­ty. He will return to his father when he’s around 4 years old, but until then, we get to enjoy this bun­dle of joy!

ALBERTINA was aban­doned in the Bala­ma hos­pi­tal by her fam­i­ly, weigh­ing only 5.7kg/12.5 lbs. at 13 months of age. Even the Doc­tors held lit­tle hope that she would sur­vive, as her mal­nu­tri­tion sta­tus was one of the most severe they had ever seen. Nev­er under­es­ti­mate God’s heal­ing power!

Alberti­na after 4 months of good care. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YdxApmjFMkw
Prayer by our staff and the baby’s spon­sors, as well as a high pro­tein diet, soon had her released from the hos­pi­tal and on the road to recov­ery. Even the Doc­tors were amazed!

FOUR MONTHS LATER, this lit­tle girl weighs 9.4kg/21 lbs. AND IS WALKING!

ONLY GOD can pull off that kind of recov­ery, for it usu­al­ly takes up to 6 months to get a baby to gain this kind of weight. Alberti­na has been dif­fer­ent from the start, and I believe the Lord has great plans for that lit­tle girl!

YOUR LOVE GIFTS MAKE ALL THIS POSSIBLE, AND FOR THAT WE ARE TRULY GRATEFUL!

Bless­ings,
Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange
And the Bala­ma Staff

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog: October 5, 2024

LITTLE DISCIPLES CLASS RECEIVE NEW LEARNING MATERIALS

Our Lit­tle Dis­ci­ples class is for our chil­dren ages 3 to 5 years. Its pur­pose is to pre­pare them for 1st grade by learn­ing Por­tuguese through song, and grasp­ing “how to learn”. Our Assis­tant Children’s Direc­tor, Fati­ma, teach­es them basic num­bers up to 10, as well as the alpha­bet, and Bible Sto­ries.

While fetch­ing my Pass­port in Maputo last week, I had 3 hours in which to find and buy new learn­ing mate­ri­als that are not avail­able in our area. Bun­nies are always hop­ping around, so thought I’d make this trip ben­e­fi­cial for the chil­dren.

Flash­cards of 10 dif­fer­ent sub­jects can be used in both the Lit­tle Dis­ci­ples Class, and with our 1st to 3rd graders. I also found 5 children’s books IN PORTUGUESE that will broad­en their horizons.
Lit­tle Dis­ci­ples enjoy­ing the new num­ber flashcards. 

Watch the chil­dren repeat­ing their num­ber les­son at this YouTube link: https://youtube.com/shorts/NCiQtHm-XMs?feature=share
Our goal is to help all our chil­dren learn as much as they can dur­ing their young devel­op­men­tal phase.

I don’t know who was hap­pi­est about my find, the teach­ers or the stu­dents. The adults have nev­er seen books and flash­cards like this, so they are just as fas­ci­nat­ed as the chil­dren with their new learn­ing mate­ri­als.YOUR LOVE GIFTS MAKE THIS POSSIBLE, SO ALL OF US SEND OUT THANKS!


CLEAN WATER FOR MELUCO CHILDREN!

A request from Melu­co Dis­trict sent our water well repair team to that area with many spares your Love Gifts pro­vid­ed. The pho­tos tell the sto­ry of how they repaired 16 bro­ken wells with these spares, pro­vid­ing 1000’s of chil­dren with clean water.

Manuel pulling the pump rods on a well.
Suc­cess­ful repair brings clean water and lots of joy to all in this vil­lage!

Click the link to see the YouTube video.https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4RCbrU1ZnUM

Manuel and vil­lagers pulling a bro­ken water well pipe.
All this is pos­si­ble because YOU CARE that the chil­dren in our area have clean water, some­thing most peo­ple take for grant­ed. CLEAN WATER EQUALS HEALTHY PEOPLE.

Diar­rhea and Cholera is caused by drink­ing con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed water, and is still the # 2 killer in our area (2nd only to malar­ia).

THANK YOU FOR MAKING THESE WATER WELL REPAIRS POSSIBLE!

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF