FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA” DATE: JANUARY 11, 2015

FATHER AND SON EVANGELISTIC TEAM

Pastor Alberto and his son Manuel, are quite the dynamic duo for Christ!

Most sto­ries start with the Father being the lead employ­ee and his son fol­low­ing in his footsteps.

In this case, Manuel is the long term employ­ee, with the Father join­ing us many years later.

Manuel was my first ever employ­ee back in August, 1999 when I arrived in Bala­ma. I bought a mud hut and need­ed some­one to fetch water dai­ly, as no wells exist­ed in the area. The only hand pump water well in all of Bala­ma at that time was 2km (1.2 miles) down an old dirt path. I could get there with my pick up, but it was much eas­i­er by bicy­cle (motor bikes didn’t exist in our area at that time).

I bought Manuel a bicy­cle (equiv­a­lent to hav­ing a CAR at that time), and he spent 6 morn­ings a week haul­ing in 80 to 120 liters of water, using 2, 20 liter water jugs.

Manuel has now been with me 15 years and is far from being a water boy!

Work­ing his way up the lad­der through hard work, faith­ful­ness, and show­ing great respon­si­bil­i­ty, he I taught him to dri­ve our trac­tor in 2002. When God gave us our 6 ton truck, I sent Manuel to com­mer­cial truck dri­ving school in Pem­ba. In those ear­ly years of our orphan feed­ing pro­gram, it was Manuel who hauled in over 300 tons of corn and beans each year so that orphans would not starve. When we received the 7 ton truck, Manuel became the sole Mozam­bi­can dri­ver, with Eric and I being the only oth­er peo­ple allowed to dri­ve this mas­sive truck. Over the last 10 years, Eric Dry, my Asso­ciate Direc­tor and Mas­ter Diesel mechan­ic, taught mechan­i­cal­ly mind­ed Manuel how to main­tain all our vehi­cles, so he now serves as our Mis­sion Mechanic.

While work­ing for us, Manuel fin­ished his High School diplo­ma by going to night school. He com­plet­ed 4 years of Bible Train­ing through his Assem­bly of God church in Bala­ma, and now Pas­tors 4 remote church­es in our area. He is also the head Youth Pas­tor for the Assem­bly of God. God rewards the faith­ful, and Manuel has cer­tain­ly shown him­self worthy!

Alber­to joined our staff 5 years ago, as our Head Evan­ge­list, and Bible School Teacher. He taught Bible Class­es IN THE BUSH his first 3 years, train­ing up over 20 Pas­tors and 150 church mem­bers in the Word of God. Instead of requir­ing the Pas­tors and church mem­bers to come to us, Alber­to took God’s Word to them.

These last 2 years, Alber­to has plant­ed 10 church­es in 3 Coun­ties, and trained up the men who now lead them. Church plant­i­ng and Evan­ge­lism are his anoint­ing from the Lord.

He is on fire for Jesus, and has lead at least 6 Witch Doc­tors to the Lord, which is more than any Pas­tor in our area. Courage, Bold­ness, and Faith­ful Ser­vice well describes Pas­tor Alberto.

GETTING READY FOR SCHOOL DAYS!

Atumane, our clothing master, is busy making school uniforms for our ever growing bunch of orphans.

Maroon pants/skirts with white shirts for 1st through 7th graders, and black pants with white shirts for 8th to 10th. All 75 orphan chil­dren in our care advanced to the next grade, except for the 2 lit­tle ones with Por­tuguese lan­guage challenges.

This is a great record for any orphan group, and I praise our staff for mak­ing sure they have their home­work done, and get spe­cial tutor­ing when need­ed. School starts again the end of January.

THANKS TO YOUR GENEROUSITY our store room is full of note­books, pens/pencils, math sets, art mate­ri­als, back packs, and all the small items it takes to out­fit a large group of chil­dren for school. TEXT BOOKS for the 8th, to 12thgraders are a rar­i­ty in Bala­ma. Dif­fi­cult to find and expen­sive, we are very pleased that our chil­dren will have these books. It is one of the major rea­sons our high school stu­dents do so well in school.

Still to be found are SHOES for these kids. We are promised a bale of school shoes lat­er this week, so am pray­ing it shows up on time.

More next week, as our saga con­tin­ues with .….… GOAT WARS of BALAMA!

Bless­ings in this AWESOME YEAR OF OUR LORD,

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange Bala­ma Blaz­ers: Katie Pol­cyn Ash­lynn Grabill

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA” DATE: JANUARY 3, 2015

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We are blessed to begin a new year with Jesus Christ!
It has been a week of hard rains, dig­ging drainage ditch­es, and keep­ing every­one inside and dry.

We are now 6 inch­es in mud, and try­ing not to QUACK UP by falling down when walk­ing through it.

So Bush Bun­ny and the kids want to share more of last week’s pho­tos with you.

Our orphans are grow­ing up fast, and all passed to the next grade in school except 2 of our lit­tle boys who need more lan­guage training.

These 2 lit­tle boys, 6 and 7 years, will be giv­en spe­cial tutor­ing this year to help them get a bet­ter grasp on Portuguese.

JUNIOR CHOIR MARCHING IN TO SING AT CHURCH

OUR orphans are quite the site with their great voices and swift dancing feet when they Praise the Lord!

SENIOR PASTOR FRED, AND BRENDA IN CHURCH ON CHRISTMAS MORNING

Fred and I are the State Leaders of Aguas Vivas (Living Waters) Church with me holding the title of Church Coordinator.

ORPHANS RECEIVING GIFTS ON CHRISTMAS MORNING

Brenda and Youth Leader Daude busy “playing” with the trucks to show the boys how they work.

ASHLYNN WITH A LAP FULL OF ORPHANS, ENJOYING THE CHRISTMAS PARTY

May you have a blessed year with Jesus, and know that He is ALWAYS beside you.

Bless­ings in Christ,

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange Katie Pol­cyn Ash­lynn Grabill

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA” DATE: DECEMBER 27, 2014

SUPER SLIDE OPENS FOR CHILDREN’S CHRISTMAS PARTY!

The photos tell it all, as you can see the slide, and the monkey bars (attached to the right side of the slide), are all a bit hit with the children.

Just like any great play­ground, it was stand in line to take your turn. But with the slide accom­mo­dat­ing 2 kids at a time, it only takes a few min­utes of wait­ing before you start climb­ing the 2 sto­ry lad­der to have anoth­er thrilling ride on the slide!

JESUS’ BIRTHDAY PARTY GREAT FUN FOR ALL!

170 orphans and street chil­dren attend­ed our Christ­mas par­ty and 2 of our fat goats along with 220 lbs (110kg) of rice pro­vid­ed the noon feast for the chil­dren and their fos­ter mothers.

Pho­to shows the chil­dren all feast­ing on our great food.

Katie and Ash­lynn com­ment­ed on how qui­et it got once the chil­dren were served. The kids were so busy eat­ing, they didn’t utter a peep. For the street kids, it is the ONLY time they get meat and rice all year, so they were total­ly “focused” on eating.

To explain: the street chil­dren have par­ents, but most are left alone to fend for them­selves dur­ing the day, and few get any lunch.

These chil­dren are reg­u­lars at our Sun­day School pro­gram, as the love they feel there is like a mag­net to those who are love starved.

Every­one who attend­ed Jesus’ Birth­day Par­ty received 2 kinds of lol­ly pops and a pack­et of cook­ies as they left. It was smiles all around, as every­one left with a heart full of love and joy!

CHRISTMAS DAY ORPHAN TOY GIVE OUT

Can’t show all the pho­tos of our orphans receiv­ing their small trucks, cars, dolls and jump ropes, so I chose BABY DANIEL’s pho­to as he had the most unusu­al look on his face when he saw his toy (it lights up).

His “light up” octo­pus was an instant hit with all the orphans in Ernestina’s house. It was a joy­ful week and super fun for all of us.

We prayed for all of you and your fam­i­lies to have a won­der­ful Christmas.

Now we ask the Lord to keep you safe and pro­vide you with a GOD BLESSED 2015, for it will be a year of many changes.

A full solar eclipse as well as the 3rd blood moon all appear in ear­ly March, which marks the 6th month of this Shemi­tah year.

All these signs are Bib­li­cal, mark­ing the skies with sig­nals that Jesus’ return is very near.

ARE YOU READY? GOD ANSWERS MY PRAYERS WITH MORE HELP ON THE WAY

Stephen Miller, expe­ri­enced mis­sion­ary who taught Bible to both Adults and chil­dren in Bali, Indone­sia for 18 months, will be join­ing our team on Feb 4, 2015.

His pre-mis­sion­ary work skills include truck dri­ving, ware­house man­age­ment, and inven­to­ry work. All of which will be very use­ful, since most of what I do is man­ag­ing ware­hous­es, tak­ing inven­to­ry, and buy­ing sup­plies as needed.

I am very grate­ful to God for pro­vid­ing a helper before the Bala­ma Blaz­ers com­plete their 1 year com­mit­ment dur­ing food buy­ing time in 2015.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange Bala­ma Blaz­ers: Katie Pol­cyn Ash­lynn Grabill

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA” DATE: DECEMBER 14, 2014

NAMUNO FAMILY GIFTED WITH NEW MUD HUT

The Del­fi­na fam­i­ly in their old hut with no walls, and no beds, shel­ter. or security.

Thanks to your gen­eros­i­ty, we were able to gift Del­fi­na and fam­i­ly with a new mud hut for $126! It lacks an out­door “latrine” and kitchen/cooking area, but the vil­lage chief assures us that he will orga­nize neigh­bors to help them with to add on these need­ed items.

Social Ser­vices (both Dis­trict and State) agree that “at this time” stay­ing in their home vil­lage near fam­i­ly and friends is the best solu­tion for this fam­i­ly of 9. The hus­bands “inde­ci­sion” about mov­ing was a key fac­tor, as he changed his mind dai­ly about what he want­ed to do.

We donat­ed 6 sacks of corn (120lbs each/60kg), 1 sack of corn flour, and 60kg (120lbs) of beans. That is enough food to help them through the rainy sea­son. Our gift includ­ed CORN AND BEAN SEEDS to help them get a new start at being inde­pen­dent. I per­son­al­ly spoke to the Dis­trict Social Ser­vice Direc­tor in Pem­ba yes­ter­day (we ran into each oth­er while I was in town get­ting sup­plies), and he is going to assist them this week in get­ting a big­ger “ma-cham-ba” (farm­ing field), as their present field is too small to pro­vide for them.

The wife was in tears over all this, as our gifts includ­ed 3 new “rope beds” so that all the kids would have a place to sleep off the ground.

Giv­ing this fam­i­ly a “hand up” vs. just a “hand out” is what we do best.

The option is still open to move them next year if the sit­u­a­tion changes.

THANK YOU for your prayers and love gifts that made this “res­cue” possible.

RAINY SEASON BRINGS OUT OUR SLITHERING NEIGHBORS

Last Sunday morning dawned fresh and beautiful after an all night rain cleared the air. As I went to our kitchen, which is a building 30 yards/meters from my house, I met the first of our unwanted neighbors.

Next to the fence was lay­ing a 2 foot black mamba.

He began mov­ing away when he saw me, so I wast­ed no time in yelling, “GAURDS, COBRA!” It was shift change, so there were 3 men present.

With their trusty snake stick of bam­boo, they made short work of that crit­ter. Mam­bas hatch from eggs, and as they unwind them­selves it is amaz­ing to real­ize that they mea­sure 18 to 24 inch­es at hatch time (45 to 60cm).

A new hatch in the area is a seri­ous mat­ter, as there could be up to 20 or more roam­ing around.

So BUSH BUNNY SENSES WENT ON FULL ALERT!

The next day my Bala­ma Blaz­ers, Katie and Ash­lynn, found a small snake hid­ing behind our stove in our kitchen. It was NOT a mam­ba, but a more docile type of snake, accord­ing to the guard who killed it. It came in under the door, which is our biggest chal­lenge around here. With all the fre­quent walk­ing on this con­crete, the area had worn down just slight­ly, so that a small snake could slide under. They can com­press their bod­ies more than any­one realizes.

My brick lay­ers will build up that part of the floor to make it more snake proof.

Rainy sea­son always dri­ves them out of the rat holes where they live in the dry sea­son. The rains fill their holes with water, and out they come look­ing for a warm, dry place to live for the next 4 months.

We deal with it by ask­ing God to keep us “aware” of our sur­round­ings, and REVEAL THEM before we get too close to them.

I was proud of Katie and Ash­lynn for not pan­ick­ing when they dis­cov­ered the snake in the kitchen.

They left the room imme­di­ate­ly, and even remem­bered to grab our lunch on the way out the door as they yelled for the guard!

We praise God for His Divine Pro­tec­tion at each encounter. TIME FOR PLANTING

Our 40 acres is now cleaned with the brush burned, and is ready for planting thanks to our 23 foster mothers.

Each fam­i­ly is giv­en an area to clean and plant so that the orphans can learn farm­ing, as well as pro­vide some fresh food for themselves.

Every­one must farm or go hun­gry in our area, as there are no “food stamps” to apply for once your food sup­ply is gone.

It’s also time for intense spir­i­tu­al plant­i­ng, as we have orga­nized a 1 day train­ing sem­i­nar this Wednes­day to pre­pare our 19 Bala­ma Pas­tors for our rainy sea­son (20150 evan­ge­lis­tic program.

OUR THANKS GOES OUT TO ALL OF YOU WHO MAKE IT POSSIBLE TO BRING “THE MESSAGE OF JESUS” TO THOSE WHO HAVE NEVER HEARD THE GOSPEL.

Our staff tru­ly embraces the “pio­neer spir­it” it takes to face the numer­ous chal­lenges they face when they are the first in an area to bring God’s mes­sage about His Son.

FYI: Car­l­i­tos Jorge accom­pa­nied AWANA leader Bilali through the “python area” this week to make sure all went well.

Trav­el­ing in pairs is always the safest, but not always possible.

They romped and played with over 150 kids in the Sir­a­mu­la AWANA pro­gram this week.

DEEP BUSH RESCUE

After Sun­day school today, I was intro­duced to 2 boys, 1 of them blind since birth. They are liv­ing with their very sick moth­er in a small grass hut that sits deep in the bush at their macham­ba (ma-sham-ba—farming field). The father of the chil­dren died a month ago, leav­ing the chil­dren with very lit­tle food. The old­er sis­ter, Rosim­i­na, has been vis­it­ing them and bring­ing what food she could spare from her own family.

Today, Rosim­i­na walked to the Rovu­ma church with the blind boy, Isu­fo, 11, and his lit­tle broth­er Isake, 8, to ask if our Jesus could help save them.

The old­er boy, Lido,12, had to stay to help his moth­er who is not able to walk.

Upon hear­ing their sto­ry, we imme­di­ate­ly agreed to help the boys with food, but told the sis­ter that the chil­dren and their moth­er must be brought into the vil­lage to live with her family.

Rosim­i­na is present­ly orga­niz­ing some­one with a bicy­cle to go fetch Justi­na, the sick moth­er, as it is quite a dis­tance to their hut, and there is only a small bicy­cle path that gets you there.

Once she is brought in, we will take her to the Bala­ma hospital.

Nel­son returned to our base with me and assist­ed me in fetch­ing food for the boys. The bicy­cle res­cue of the moth­er is still in progress.

Will update you on the sit­u­a­tion next week.

Bless­ings to all of you! Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Bala­ma Blaz­ers: Katie Pol­cyn Ash­lynn Grabill

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA” DATE: DECEMBER 6, 2014

SUNDAY MINISTRY ON A DIFFERENT LEVEL

Last Sun­day, I was leav­ing for the Rovu­ma Church ser­vice, when Pas­tor Joaquim called to tell me that one of the chil­dren in the church had just died. It was Meheto (Mee hey too), the lit­tle 4 year old boy that always danced to the Lord with me at the front of the church. This hit me like a bomb, as he was one of those boys who was always wear­ing super dirty torn cloth­ing, but would show up for church with a big smile and a warm hug.

He suf­fered from a tes­tic­u­lar her­nia, but his par­ents didn’t believe in hos­pi­tals, so they refused to have any­thing done about it.

His par­ents said he began hav­ing intense abdom­i­nal pain in the mid­dle of the night, and passed away just after dawn. Church was can­celled, as all the mem­bers went to help the fam­i­ly orga­nize the funeral.

As I walked the dirt path to the family’s mud hut with Youth Lead­ers, Car­l­i­tos and Nel­son (our grad­u­at­ing orphan, 17 years old), I told them I knew the Lord could res­ur­rect Meheto, and we would ask the Lord to do just that. They read­i­ly agreed. I’ve per­son­al­ly seen 2 peo­ple (1 adult and 1 child) res­ur­rect­ed from the dead while work­ing in Mozam­bique, so my faith in this area is very strong.

When we got to the mud hut, there was already a 100 peo­ple sit­ting around, most­ly muslims.

The women were wail­ing, as they do in this cul­ture, with the men sit­ting under the grass roof of anoth­er mud hut in total silence.

We asked the women to be silent, and for all to leave the mud hut where Meheto was wrapped in a bur­ial cloth and lay­ing on a woven rope bed made from dried tree limbs.

DOING WHAT JESUS DID IN THE BIBLE, I want­ed no unbe­liev­ers in the room.

We knelt next to the bed, laid our hands on his body, and began to pray. But as we prayed, the Lord sent a clear mes­sage to sev­er­al of us, that this lit­tle one would stay with Him in heaven.

I total­ly under­stood and accept­ed this since his earth­ly life had been one of neglect and much suffering.

I was upset, but had to admit it wasn’t fair to bring him back, as he was hav­ing such a great time danc­ing before the Lord.

That lit­tle boy tru­ly loved to dance. We explained to the fam­i­ly that Meheto was hap­py to be with Jesus, and would con­tin­ue to dance in heaven.

I’ve spo­ken to many who are ter­ri­fied of death, and for the unbe­liev­er, this is very true sit­u­a­tion, as HELL is more hor­ri­ble than we can even imagine.

But not so for a per­son who has giv­en their life to Jesus as lit­tle Meheto had done even at the ten­der age of 4. There is no fear of death when one knows the type of “life after death” that Jesus had pre­pared for us in heaven.

MEHETO’S GRADUATION TO HEAVEN PROVIDED 300+ LOST PEOPLE WITH THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT JESUS.

MEHETO SAVED HIS LITTLE BROTHER’S LIFE, as he became very ill 2 days later.

Our truck was in Rovu­ma drop­ping off brick lay­ers to repair the church, when the fam­i­ly came run­ning with Meheto’s 2 year old broth­er, beg­ging a ride to the hos­pi­tal. We glad­ly took them and I was thrilled to know that their hearts were now open to receiv­ing med­ical help for their children.

We expect that more “fruit” will be com­ing forth very soon from those who heard the gospel for the first time last Sunday.

MANGO TREE CHURCH PASTOR MEETS 6 FOOT PYTHON!

Pas­tor Bilali and Car­l­i­tos Jorge proud­ly show off Car­l­i­tos Jorge’s new motor­bike. This pho­to was tak­en on a calmer day last sum­mer. We are using this pho­to because no Pythons were avail­able to pose. PTL.
Pas­tor Bilali, the new Youth Direc­tor at the Man­go Tree Church, was return­ing home last Mon­day on his bicy­cle via a remote, nar­row bike trail after doing an AWANA pro­gram in a dis­tant village.

A large python (esti­mate 6 foot or 1.75 meters,) rose up and struck at this leg (they have vicious teeth), but missed, hit­ting the rear spokes of his bicy­cle. The bike flipped as the snake’s body jammed the spokes, but the Pas­tor was thrown clear with only a few scrapes.

Bilali said he jumped up and ran a good dis­tance, wait­ing to see what the snake did, as he had no weapon to kill it with. Sad, but this snake lived to strike anoth­er day, for after clear­ing him­self of the bike wheel, he slith­ered off into the woods, seem­ing­ly unharmed. Need­less to say, the bike’s back wheel was demol­ished, but we were thrilled that Bilali was unharmed.

It was a long walk home car­ry­ing his bike on his shoul­der, but he was hap­py to be alive.

Bilali’s courage and deter­mi­na­tion to spread the gospel were evi­dent when he walked the 11 miles (18Km) to my house on Tues­day, to tell me the sto­ry and ask for mon­ey to repair his bicycle.

He was in no way “scared to return” to that area, just angry that his brand new bike had been so bad­ly damaged.

We glad­ly gave him the $25 need­ed to fix the bicycle!

SIDE NOTE: Just a few months ago, a 7 year old boy was killed by a python in this very area. Seems him and a friend were walk­ing this same path when one of the boys need­ed to go to the bath­room. The snake got him when he went into the woods. Africa is an unfor­giv­ing envi­ron­ment, and it is only safe to ven­ture into its inte­ri­or when your faith is strong and Jesus’ angels are at your side.

SUPER SLIDE’S FINAL TOUCHES DELAYED

Manuel, the main fence builder, must still mount the chain link “safe­ty fence” on the 2nd sto­ry this week.

Manuel, who is also my main dri­ver and mechan­ic, returned very sick from our Melu­co orphan­age on Tues­day with resis­tant malar­ia. He was hos­pi­tal­ized in Bala­ma and receive IV treat­ments for 5 days.

He is now home, but still on treat­ment till Sun­day. He told me today that he expects to fin­ish the slide by Wed. this week.

Bless­ings from all of us in Balama!

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange Bala­ma Blaz­ers: Katie Pol­cyn Ash­lynn Grabill

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA” DATE: NOVEMBER 29, 2014

GOING THE EXTRA MILE

Church mem­bers, Julian­na, her hus­band, and 6 day old baby girl, were dri­ven the 8 miles by motor­bike to the Bala­ma hos­pi­tal by Pas­tor Ramadane from our Nama­ra Church.

After the birth of their baby, Julian­na devel­oped a severe infec­tion (abcess) that caused her left breast to swell as large as a #4 soc­cer ball. She had no breast milk so her lit­tle new born girl was starv­ing to death.

They arrived just before clos­ing time, receiv­ing a con­sult and pre­scrip­tion, but the phar­ma­cy had closed so they couldn’t fill it till the next day.

They were told to come to me for Baby Formula.

One look at Julian­na, and I made a sling to sup­port her painful breast. The baby’s for­mu­la needs were met. A phone call to the Dis­trict Doc­tor got them an imme­di­ate con­sult in the ER, and I was asked to assist in the imme­di­ate surgery she need­ed to drain her abcess. It wasn’t pret­ty, and I will spare you the details. She was admit­ted and spent sev­er­al days recovering.

Mis­sions is full of not so nice tasks. But Jesus did the “not so nice” thing of dying on the cross to save us from an eter­ni­ty in a place beyond our worst imagination.

So when I face a tough job, I just think of what He did for me.

Many reject Jesus, but I guar­an­tee you that they would not hes­i­tate to love and accept Him, if they had to go expe­ri­ence what He did for us.

Our Bala­ma Team con­sid­ers it a great priv­i­lege to be able to help those in life threat­en­ing sit­u­a­tions. Going the “extra mile” is our gift to Him.

STARFISH ON THE BEACH

There is a sto­ry of 1000’s of starfish wash­ing up on the beach after a great storm. A lit­tle boy walked the beach and began throw­ing them back into the ocean, one by one.

A man comes along and tells him he is wast­ing his time, because there was no way he could throw them all back before they died. The boy answered: “Yeah, I know, but it makes a dif­fer­ence to this one,” as he threw anoth­er starfish into the ocean.

We also know we can’t save them all, but we CAN SAVE those who desire our help.

TRUE HAPPINESS COMES FROM SERVING OTHERS FOR JESUS.

The Lord does not expects mis­sion­ar­ies to be “Lone Rangers”, as it takes a TEAM with every­one doing their part, so that those who can phys­i­cal­ly be on the scene, can do what is needed.

WE ARE THANKFUL FOR ALL OF YOU WHO ARE PART OF OUR TEAM, for you are the “bricks” that build the Orphans Unlim­it­ed foundation.

With­out your help, res­cu­ing orphans would not be possible.

This Thanks­giv­ing, I spent time in prayer for all of you. Our “thanks” goes beyond what words can say.

THEN YOU HAVE THE LIONS, ALWAYS LURKING ABOUT, Ready to devour whoever they can.

“Look at all those peo­ple lined up out­side the fence! Do we get to choose one for our Thanks­giv­ing meal?”

These big cats always GIVE THANKS when “the lost” join them as guests of hon­or for a “late lunch”.

Hap­py to say that the Melu­co and Bala­ma areas have been free of these pret­ty kit­ties this year.

AWANA TEAMS BLESSED WITH SOCCER BALLS AND MORE AWANA LESSONS IN PORTUGUESE

Each week, these 10 Pas­tors are cov­er­ing 18 vil­lages while the BBC cov­ers anther 15.

Amaz­ing to find out that the newest clubs in the Man­go Tree Church Area are reach­ing up to 340 in their meetings.

So that more chil­dren can play at the same time, we are now mak­ing more sand bags, and batons from local materials.

The one thing we can’t make from local mate­ri­als is the Tug-O-War ropes.

For Christ­mas, our Pas­tors are ask­ing for THIRTY more large tug-o-war ropes, which will cost $20 a piece. ($600 total)

We make the “ring ropes” our­selves, but the super thick rope is expensive.

FAMILY FROM NAMUNO WILL NOT BE JOINING US

Sad to say, but the men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent hus­band is forc­ing the fam­i­ly to stay in their home vil­lage, as he is afraid to move to the city.

After agree­ing to come, the hus­band changed his mind 2 days lat­er, decid­ing to stay where he is.

The wife begged to come with the 5 younger chil­dren. Broke my heart to know this, and the local gov­ern­ment has worked these last 2 weeks to con­vince him it was safe to come, but he refuses.

We will give them anoth­er food drop which we hope the moth­er will use wise­ly dur­ing the rainy sea­son. This family’s vil­lage is total­ly out of reach from Dec. to March, as the mud­dy roads are too much for 4 wheel drive.

Our prayers are with this faith­ful moth­er and her 5 young ones that are strug­gling to survive.

Bless­ings to all of you!

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange

Bala­ma Blaz­ers: Katie Pol­cyn (back from RSA with her tooth fixed and a bag full of good­ies for the holidays.)

Ash­lynn Gra­bill (now a res­i­dent, as her offi­cial res­i­den­cy card came through this week)

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA” DATE: NOVEMBER 21, 2014

EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE GIVEN TO DELFINA’S FAMILY

On Wed. we received per­mis­sion to meet with Del­fi­na (Hand­i­capped Mom) and her entire fam­i­ly in Namuno District.

Five gov­ern­ment offi­cials, rep­re­sent­ing the Coun­ty and Vil­lage, joined us to present our pro­pos­al to Del­fi­na. (to move the entire fam­i­ly to one of our homes in Bala­ma). Del­fi­na and her hus­band (who was hav­ing a “good” day) read­i­ly agreed to move. Their reac­tion to our gifts was one of dis­be­lief. Now we await final per­mis­sion from gov­ern­ment offi­cials to move them to Balama.

Pho­to of this fam­i­ly: Back Row: (Left to Right) Amelia, age 12 Paulo, age18 Rachide, age 16 Moth­er: Delfina(standing with help of her “crutch”) Father: Gimo, hold­ing 2 year old Antonio

Front Row (L to R) Mon­i­ca, age 4 Jor­dana, age 9 Gei, age 7

KATIE FLIES TO RSA FOR DENTIST

Katie has a toothache and will fly to South Africa on Sat­ur­day to have it attend­ed too. (That is why this blog is being sent out today.) It’s an 8 hour round trip by pick-up to the air­port and back, so no time for blog writ­ing tomor­row. Eric Dry, our ever faith­ful assis­tant in RSA, has orga­nized his den­tist to see her on Tues­day. Eric will fetch her at the air­port and host her at his daughter’s home until she returns to us on Thurs­day, Nov. 27th.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL OF YOU!

Katie will bring us treats, so we will have a great cel­e­bra­tion with baked chick­en, mashed taters, and gravy. Moz. is a lit­tle short on turkeys, so flex­i­bil­i­ty is the name of the game.

SUPER SLIDE HAS BEEN MOUNTED AND DULY TESTED!

It was a 2 hour job get­ting the 3 gal­va­nized steel sheets nailed into place, (bent a few nails for sure), but our men did a great job! Their reward—being the first to test it, of course! It’s a bit slow at the moment but we know for a fact that once the kids are allowed on it, they will have it “pol­ished” in only a few min­utes, mak­ing it faster than “greased light­ning” as we say in Texas!

FINAL STAGE of con­struc­tion is in progress, as our brick lay­ers are quick­ly build­ing the “catch pit” at the end of the slide. The “pit” will be filled with sand to soft­en everyone’s land­ing. Can’t say “kids land­ing” cause I know there a whole “slew” of adults who wants to give it a try. Our Bala­ma Blaz­ers, Katie and Ash­lynn, as well as most of my staff can hard­ly wait to try it out!

Our Decem­ber 1 open­ing date looks good to go.

Bless­ings, Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange Bala­ma Blaz­ers: Katie Pol­cyn Ash­lynn Grabill

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA” DATE: NOVEMBER 15, 2014

Some of our orphans eager­ly await­ing Awana Games program.

GOING THE EXTRA MILE

Late Thurs­day, Social Ser­vice Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Pem­ba dropped by for a sur­prise vis­it. They are thrilled with our “help­ing hands” pro­grams to over 2,500 chil­dren in 2 Dis­tricts, and encour­aged us to keep up the great work.

This team of 3 spe­cial­ists were very dis­tressed because they had just come from vis­it­ing a fam­i­ly in a remote vil­lage in Namuno Dis­trict, the area south of us that is so “on fire” for Jesus. The Dis­trict Social Ser­vice Direc­tor had tak­en them to vis­it a fam­i­ly in dire need of help, but the team was at a loss as to what could be done.

They describe the fam­i­ly as a recent­ly dis­abled moth­er (unable to walk, rea­son unknown) with 7 chil­dren (5 of them ages 2 to 7, plus 2 teenage boys), and a hus­band who has devel­oped men­tal ill­ness to the point that he is like a child himself.

They are liv­ing in an open air shack with a poor excuse for a grass roof, no walls, and only 1 grass mat for all of them to sleep on. All of them are severe­ly mal­nour­ished with open sores need­ing med­ical treat­ment (no clin­ic is avail­able in that village).

The moth­er is quite the busi­ness woman, and is try­ing to pro­vide for her fam­i­ly by using the $18 (R60) “dis­abil­i­ty gift” she receives month­ly from Social Ser­vices to buy local­ly killed wild game, and resell it at her “spot” at the vil­lage mar­ket. Neigh­bors have been giv­ing them some food that pro­vides them with a small meal once a day.

I request­ed to move the fam­i­ly to Namuno Town where our church mem­bers could assist them, but our idea was turned down since there is no one that could be “offi­cial­ly respon­si­ble” for meet­ing their needs. (We are reg­is­tered only as a church in Namuno Dis­trict, and not an aid program).

I prayed about it, and then yes­ter­day, Cape­na, our Bala­ma Pro­gram Direc­tor, and I phoned the Dis­trict Social Ser­vice Direc­tor of Namuno County.

Since we are the ONLY assis­tance pro­gram in the entire state that has hous­ing to help whole fam­i­lies in need, I pre­sent­ed a pro­pos­al to the Namuno Social Ser­vices request­ing per­mis­sion to bring this fam­i­ly to Bala­ma to stay in one of our “widow’s hous­es” at our mis­sion base. We are not sure what their response will be, so you’ll have to wait for the “rest of the story”.

What they request­ed us to do is make an “assis­tance drop” of much need­ed items.

On Mon­day our staff will put togeth­er a Life Sav­ing Gift of food, cloth­ing, bed­ding, and kitchen mate­ri­als which will be deliv­ered direct­ly to this fam­i­ly by Cape­na in coor­di­na­tion with the Dis­trict Direc­tor of Social Ser­vices in Namuno District.

JOIN US IN PRAYING FOR FAVOR THAT WE CAN WORK OUT A SOLUTION THAT WILL BRING THIS FAMILY TO BALAMA. Those 5 lit­tle chil­dren are sick and suf­fer­ing great­ly, and need prop­er care and a chance at a future and an education.

SUPER SLIDE UPDATE

The painting is almost complete and all that is left is to mount the metal slide sheets, build the sand filled “catch pit” at the foot of the slide, and mount the safety fencing that will enclose the walls of the 2 story playhouse.

This “play area” comes com­plete with mon­key bars, and a 30 foot long (10 meter) sand box under the whole slide area. OUR TRACTOR CREW is busy today haul­ing in the sand need­ed to fill the 2 sand boxes.

Open­ing date set for Dec. 1st. A great “ear­ly Christ­mas Present” to our orphans and the local children.

RAINY SEASON GARDENING has always been impos­si­ble in this area due to the “heavy flash flood type” rains we get where the clouds dump up to an inch in an hour.

We couldn’t get plas­tic roof­ing sheets to orga­nize a prop­er green house, so my gar­den­er and I are “using what we have” to see if car­rots and Swiss Chard will grow in our raised gar­den with a grass roof. Plant­ed it this week, so I’ll let you know if this Bun­ny has “greens” for the rainy sea­son or not.

The key to suc­cess will be if the plants can sprout and take root before the heavy rains begin in Decem­ber. I have 2 small tarps that I can use to enforce the roof­ing as need­ed against the night rains, yet be removed to give sun­light dur­ing the day.

TEXAS AGGIE with an Agri­cul­ture Degree at work here, so there is ALWAYS A PLAN P! PRAYER!

FOR GOD CAN GROW ANYTHING, ANYWHERE!

Until next week! Bless­ings, Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange Bala­ma Blaz­ers: Katie Pol­cyn Ash­lynn Grabill

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA” DATE: NOVEMBER 9, 2014

REACH OUT IN FAITH AND JESUS ANSWERS

TUG-O-WAR at Nama­ra church’s AWANA GAMES,(prior to church ser­vice) . It attracts up to 190 kids who then join us in church after the AWANA program.

NAMARA CHURCH FILLED TO OVERFLOWING TODAY

Armin­do, 20 years old, and his daugh­ter, Alis­han­d­ri­na, 2 years old, had been sick for over 3 months. Armin­do with a swollen leg from an abscess that wouldn’t heal, and his daugh­ter with con­stant stom­ach pain. Armindo’s mus­lim moth­er, Lau­rin­da, took them both to the witch­doc­tor and the local mosque mul­ti­ple times with­out suc­cess. Then she heard about Jesus’ heal­ing pow­er. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, when no one was around, she took her son and grand­daugh­ter to our church build­ing in Nama­ra vil­lage. As they knelt on the floor, she asked this “Jesus” to heal her chil­dren. INSTANTLY, the baby’s stom­ach pain stopped, Arminda’s leg swelling dis­ap­peared, and the abscess healed over. I saw his leg this morn­ing, and all that was vis­i­ble was some peel­ing skin where the abscess had been. The 2 year old was sleep­ing peace­ful­ly in her mother’s arms. Pas­tor Ramadane of Nama­ra, knew noth­ing of this until Lau­rin­da came to his house last Sat­ur­day. She asked per­mis­sion to tell a tes­ti­mo­ny in church the next day. Ramadane said she refused to tell him her sto­ry at that time, but promised to reveal every­thing the next morn­ing.   Today, I met the entire fam­i­ly, (Lau­rin­da ‘s hus­band and her son ‚Armin­do, as well as Lau­rin­da and Armin­do’s wife and Moth­er of healed baby ). All FOUR of them accept­ed Jesus as Lord and Sav­iour! The Bible has many sto­ries of how 1 person’s faith brings many to Christ. That sim­ple action of faith is still sav­ing many souls today! ZITO WALKING MUCH STRONGER AFTER MIRACLE HEALING I didn’t catch it on cam­era, but I saw Zito hop out of his 3 wheel bicy­cle, piv­ot on his good leg, and march right up the isle of the church to his place on the front row. His legs have strength­ened great­ly, but they do remain slight­ly bent. Doesn’t slow him down, that’s for sure! He gets around well when trav­el­ing short dis­tances, and only uses his tri­cy­cle for the long trek to the church and to school. He com­pletes the 2nd grade next week. (Our school year is from Feb. 1st to Mid­dle of Novem­ber.) SUPER SLIDE CONCRETE WORK FINISHED All that remains is let­ting the con­crete hard­en, slap the paint on it, and mount the 3 slide pan­els. I plan to mount the 3 Gal­va­nized Met­al slide plates by next week­end if the rains hold off.

NOVEMBER IS “WRAP UP” MONTH FOR FOOD HAND OUTS AND THE SCHOOL YEAR

It also means TRIBAL INITIATION TIME for all chil­dren who are ready for puber­ty. Our boys do not par­tic­i­pate in this trib­al rit­u­al of “cir­cum­ci­sion in the bush” by the witch doc­tor. This is done with­out anes­the­sia and in unster­ile con­di­tions. Some boys die from infec­tion they receive dur­ing the 30 days they are kept hid­den in the bush “to heal”. Ten year old girls are tak­en to a sep­a­rate area, and taught how to please a man and han­dle all female issues. If our boys choose to be cir­cum­cised, it is done at the hos­pi­tal in the prop­er way. Our girls are taught all they need to know to by the female lead­ers in our church. This is one part of the African cul­ture that the health depart­ment is try­ing to change, but as every­one knows, old tra­di­tions die hard. I’m proud to say that our local hos­pi­tal has great­ly cut the infec­tion rate of the young boys by send­ing a male nurs­es to the 30+ remote vil­lages to per­form cir­cum­ci­sions with ster­ile tech­nique and anes­the­sia. They fol­low up with week­ly vis­its to make sure the boys are recov­er­ing with­out infec­tion. Many fam­i­ly are now opt­ing for prop­er care vs. send­ing their boys “into the bush” with the local witch doc­tor. We PTL for all those fam­i­lies who are com­ing to Christ and real­iz­ing this is NOT the right way to han­dle this sit­u­a­tion. KATIE RECEIVED OFFICIAL RESIDENCY when Immi­gra­tion gave us her OFFICIAL (D.I.R.E) card that states she can live in Mozam­bique for a year at a time. Ashlynn’s is still in the Cap­i­tal city, Maputo, await­ing review. It takes 3–4 months to obtain approval.

Bush Bunny and one of TEN new baby goats this week.

Thanks so much for your faith­ful prayers and love gifts. We are mak­ing a dif­fer­ence through teach­ing about Jesus in a very REAL WAY.   BLESSINGS FROM BALAMA Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange Bala­ma Blaz­ers: Katie Pol­cyn Ash­lynn Grabill

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA” DATE: NOVEMBER 1, 2014

MANGO TREE CHURCH RECEIVES AWANA GAME COUR

This morn­ing at 4:30a.m. (sun­rise), I drove our 2 man “paint­ing team” to the cement Bas­ket­ball court at the Man­go Tree Church.

Why 4:30a.m.? If you’ve ever been in Africa at the peak of the hot and dry sea­son, you won’t need to ask. The day­time heat is worse than Texas in August!

Built sev­er­al years ago, the Man­go Tree Church boasts the only oth­er cement­ed area we have that can host REGIONAL game com­pe­ti­tions for the children.

Pas­tor Bilali (BEE-lah-lee) and his wife trans­ferred to Mavala yes­ter­day, and will now live at the Man­go Tree Church mis­sion base with Pas­tor Anto­nio and his family.

Their objec­tive: To man­age the AWANA pro­gram for 4 vil­lages in that area where church­es do not exist, and to assist Pas­tor Anto­nio with the Sun­day School pro­gram at the Man­go Tree Church.

With the AWANA games pat­tern paint­ed in 4 bright col­ors on the court, we plan com­pe­ti­tions with AWANA church teams that are now being orga­nized by the 2 Pastor/Awana lead­ers from the “sis­ter church­es” of the Man­go Tree Church.

One thing we are good at, is flex­ing to use the mate­ri­als at hand. The vil­lage lead­ers draw the pat­tern in the dirt when they play in the vil­lages, and most use ash from the local fires to help the pat­tern show up bet­ter. Con­crete courts are nice, but expen­sive. We are blessed to have TWO such courts (Bala­ma and Mavala) that can be used for major competitions.

It has been my “dream” to be able to spend more time with the CHILDREN, EVANGILISM, AND DISCIPLESHIP.

As the “Coor­di­na­tor” for the entire Mozam­bique pro­gram, I’ve been tied up 5 days a week with man­age­ment, con­struc­tion, and staff/pastoral train­ing for the last 15 years. Now that major con­struc­tion is FINISHED, watch this bun­ny HOP OUT AND HAVE SOME FUN!

Our BBC and Church Pas­tors are now reach­ing the lost in TWENTY FIVE VILLAGES a week!

BBC reports from this week: 1,050 chil­dren heard the sto­ry of Cre­ation in 15 vil­lages. (Atten­dance ranges from 35 to 105 children/village). The Church Pas­tors in the 9 major church­es across the dis­trict record­ed from 100 to 240 chil­dren last Sat­ur­day EACH SESSION.

Larg­er church­es are hold­ing 2 ses­sions on Sat­ur­day in the vil­lages of 5,000+ pop­u­la­tion, due to the great num­ber of chil­dren that want to attend.

Church Teams atten­dance: 1,140 chil­dren reached with “HOW GOD MADE THE WORLD AND MAN IN 6 DAYS” last Sat­ur­day. THIS PROGRAM WORKS and will bring many chil­dren to Christ in a very short time frame.

CLOTHING 2,500+ ORPHANS—NOT AN EASY TASK ON PEDAL SEWING MACHINES

I want to thank all of you who give so that we can buy mate­r­i­al and have shirts/shorts or blouses/skirts made for ALL THE ORPHANS in our pro­gram. My thanks also goes out to Ate­mane and Luis (the 2 Chris­t­ian men who ped­al away on man­u­al sewing machines for 8 hours a day to make these clothes.

Why Ped­al machines? Elec­tric­i­ty is now in some parts of Bala­ma town, but it is not always reli­able. Elec­tric machines would sit more than they could be used. At least with “man­u­al” machines, the work can con­tin­ue no mat­ter if elec­tric­i­ty exists or not.

UPDATE ON PASTOR NAMARO FROM KPWEETO VILLAGE

While prepar­ing his field for plant­i­ng, Pas­tor Namaro stepped on a thin 6 inch stump of a “can­na plant” which is a type of sorghum. This is like push­ing a piece of bam­boo up the inside of your foot. It splin­ters as it slides inside your body, mak­ing this punc­ture wound very hard to clean. After 3 oper­a­tions to clean out splin­ters inside his foot and leg, and 8 days of Peni­cillin injec­tions, he will hope­ful­ly be able to go home on Mon­day Nov. 3rd.

Thank you for your prayers for his fast recov­ery and com­plete recov­ery. The Lord Jesus used the tal­ents of Dr. Fumo at the Bala­ma hos­pi­tal to go beyond the “nor­mal” to help save his leg.

These types of wounds going untreat­ed usu­al­ly lead to the loss of the foot, and pos­si­bly the person’s life. Help start­ed with a cell phone call that sent one of our Land Cruis­ers scur­ry­ing into the bush to fetch him 8 days ago.

We PTL for cell phone ser­vice that now cov­ers most of our coun­ty. For only 4 years ago, we still depend­ed on some­one com­ing in by bicy­cle to ask for help.

Bless­ings,

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange Bala­ma Blaz­ers: Katie Pol­cyn Ash­lynn Grabill