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Monthly Archives: April 2025

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog, April 26, 2025

OUT WITH THE OLD AND IN WITH THE NEW

Our 11 preschool­ers are grow­ing up fast, and will soon need a bed in the schoolchildren’s area of our orphan­age.

One of our widow’s homes was no longer need­ed, so down it came to make room for a new com­plex to house school age chil­dren. PTL that dona­tions have already been received to cov­er the cost of the bed­rooms and kitchen. 

Preschool kids grow up fast! The new house should be ready just in time for their debut in school.
This 4 bed­room com­plex with its own kitchen and eat­ing area must be a bit small­er than the oth­er com­plex­es due to lim­it­ed land (1 acre). The bed­rooms will be 4m x 4 m/13 feet by 13 feet, which is plen­ty of room for 6 chil­dren in each room.

At present we are putting up fence on this 1 acre site, and get­ting set up for the con­struc­tion phase of this new home.

The old house has fall­en, with roof to follow.

And the roof came down with help from our carpenters.
The build­ing plans have been sub­mit­ted and will hope­ful­ly be approved next week. Bala­ma is now a munic­i­pal­i­ty (city) with new reg­u­la­tions, so we had to sub­mit the required paper­work, then wait for an answer.Keep us in prayer as we begin this new project. Our goal is to have it fin­ished by mid 2026 if all goes as planned.

Dig­ging post holes and truck­ers unload­ing gran­ite rocks for the foundation.
BUSH BUNNY TIDBITS

All the chil­dren are doing great, but this is exam week so their heads are in the books ver­sus play­ing on the soc­cer field.

We will be hav­ing a Pem­ba team come on May 5th for a 3 day inspec­tion, as our orphan­age license is up for renew­al. Please keep us in prayer for FAVOR with these 2 State Lev­el inspec­tors.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog, April 19, 2025

HAPPY RESURRECTION DAY TO ALL OF YOU!

Our Lord nev­er slum­bers nor sleeps, so know that all believ­ers are cov­ered by HIS LOVE and PROTECTION 24/7! PTL!
I hope all of you have a blessed week­end with fam­i­ly and friends! 


NEWEST STUDENTS LEARNING TO READ

DINO, our study hall teacher, helps all our pri­ma­ry school stu­dents with their lessons on Por­tuguese and Math. These small, more indi­vid­u­al­ized class­es real­ly enhance the learn­ing of our stu­dents, espe­cial­ly the first graders.

All our stu­dents from Grade 1 to 7 have this “study class” for 1 hour, Mon­day to Fri­day, to help them real­ly under­stand their class­work, as well as what their home­work is try­ing to teach them. The High School has their own Por­tuguese and Math teach­ers 5 days/week to assist them with their school work.

Teacher Dino help­ing 1st graders with their math.
I took this pho­to from a can­did posi­tion to not inter­rupt the 1st graders class. The stu­dents didn’t even know I was there.

Look out kids, CANDID CAMERA BUNNY on the loose! Tee Hee! 


BBC MOTORBIKES DEVELOP PEDAL POWER

Bicy­cles have tem­porar­i­ly replaced the BBC motor­bikes due to an inter­rup­tion in the fuel sup­ply. This means the BBC Team can only serve 6 vil­lages on their list that are with­in 15 kms or 7 miles of our base. 

BBC moves with PEDAL POWER!
Sad­ly, the kids in the far out remote vil­lages are tem­porar­i­ly not receiv­ing the Word of God. Thank­ful­ly, the cause of the inter­rup­tion is being resolved as I write, so hope­ful­ly, they should be able to reach all the kids by the end of April. In the mean­time, it’s PEDAL POWER that deliv­ers the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST to the lit­tle ones.

BLESSINGS,

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog, April 12, 2025

JUMA, AGE 3, IN HOSPITAL WITH SEVERE MALARIA

Received a 3pm call on Tues­day after­noon from House Moth­er Gil­da say­ing I was need­ed imme­di­ate­ly. Juma’s tem­per­a­ture was ris­ing after his first malar­ia tablets! This is NOT nor­mal, as he received his first treat­ment ear­ly that morn­ing, and had been eating/drinking, but was sleep­ing a lot.

Anna, the Children’s Direc­tor and I rushed him to the hos­pi­tal, as his tem­per­a­ture was going UP even after anti-fever med­ica­tions. Very strange indeed!

His fin­ger stick malar­ia test at the hos­pi­tal was POSITIVE WITHIN 30 SECONDS! Nor­mal test time is 15 min­utes, so we all knew he had a strong case of malaria.

Juma doing real­ly great on day 3 of malar­ia treatment.
An IV was start­ed and med­i­cines giv­en to com­bat his fever and the malar­ia. Our Fos­ter Moth­er, Joan­na, arrived to sup­port Juma’s Fos­ter Moth­er, Beni­di­ta. After 3 days in hos­pi­tal, Juma’s lab test is neg­a­tive for malar­ia, PTL! But they request­ed to keep him anoth­er 24 hours for obser­va­tion just in case.  

All our 60 chil­dren have mos­qui­to nets, but it only takes one mozzy to bite you when you go out­side of your net.

WE GIVE THANKS FOR JUMA’S RAPID RECOVERY.  


MORE BABIES FOR US–IT NEVER STOPS! 

This lit­tle boy is 2.5 months old, and only weighs 3kg/6.6lbs. The moth­er has no breast milk, so the nutri­tion­al Dr. referred her to our Infant For­mu­la Pro­gram on Wednesday. 

Direc­tor Anna on right, about to teach this moth­er how to bot­tle feed her lit­tle boy.
Children’s Direc­tor, Anna, taught her how to mix the infant for­mu­la, and request­ed her to return for offi­cial weigh-in on Thurs­day. This gives us a chance to see how well she is doing at clean­ing the bot­tle and mix­ing the milk. The boy’s father was at home watch­ing over the oth­er lit­tle chil­dren they have. Nice to see a father in the pic­ture on this one.

Bless­ings, 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog, April 5, 2025

BABIES ARE US!!!

That’s what I feel our new name should be after this week of babies, babies, and more babies! It is sad that so many moth­ers are not sur­viv­ing after giv­ing birth, but I am glad that the Lord sent us here to save the babies.

ELISABETA (E‑l­iz-a-bet-ah) was wel­comed into our fam­i­ly after 4 weeks of no weight gain. She is only 4.7kg/10 lbs. at 5 months, and is not an orphan. She is severe­ly mal­nour­ished, so we are giv­ing this fam­i­ly a help­ing hand.

Her moth­er is men­tal­ly ill, and can’t care for her. The Aunt of the baby (only 15 years old), and a very car­ing father have tried their best, but the infant was fail­ing to grow even with the help of our Infant For­mu­la Pro­gram. Elis­a­be­ta needs an expe­ri­enced moth­er, and prop­er food and milk giv­en every 3 hours if she is to recover. 

Baby Elis­a­be­ta and Fos­ter Moth­er Joan­i­na after 1 night togeth­er at Zebra House.
Social Ser­vices agreed we could assist this infant until she is 3 years of age, as it will takes an aver­age of 8 months to a year for her to recov­er her weight and strength. At the moment, she has an upper res­pi­ra­to­ry treat­ment that we pray will respond to the antibi­ot­ic she is receiv­ing. YOUR PRAYERS FOR THIS TINY LITTLE GIRL ARE MUCH NEEDED!


MARCH 31ST ENDED WITH 2 FAMILIES BRINGING ORPHANED BABIES TO US AT LUNCH TIME!

With­in min­utes of each oth­er, 2 fam­i­lies walked up to our office, each request­ing help (via Social Ser­vices) with baby for­mu­la and food for their orphaned grand­chil­dren.

The FIRST FAMILY lives only 3km/1.5 miles from our base. Four chil­dren were orphaned when their moth­er died just a few days before. The grand­moth­er and uncle brought the infant and the sec­ond youngest child, about 2 years old (shown in pho­to) as they had no food to feed them. The lit­tle girl was very shy until I gave her a pack­et of cook­ies. I received a big smile for that lit­tle gift!

1st Fam­i­ly with Granny hold­ing her tiny Grand­child and Uncle hold­ing the shy 2 year old.
The SECOND FAMILY is from 6km/3+ miles out of town on our West side. This granny brought the old­est orphaned girl to car­ry the men­tal­ly ill, 4‑year-old orphan boy, as she car­ried the infant. Food and baby for­mu­la were also giv­en to this fam­i­ly, and thank­ful­ly they had 2 neigh­bors who brought them in on 2 bicycles. 

Chil­dren’s Direc­tor, Anna teach­ing 2nd Granny how to bot­tle feed her tiny Grandbaby.
Six kms or 3+ miles is a long way to walk with a 4‑year-old on your back. This lit­tle girl is still a teenag­er, but obvi­ous­ly very strong.

The old­est orphan girl with the men­tal­ly ill 4 year old on her back.
YOUR PRAYERS FOR ALL THESE CHILDREN ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED.IT IS BECAUSE OF YOUR LOVE GIFTS THAT WE ARE ABLE TO PUT LIFE SAVING MILK INTO THESE LITTLE ONES.

BLESSINGS,

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF