From: Bush Bunny Brenda Lange October 26, 2013

ALL IS QUIET AT THE MOMENT, PRAISE THE LORD!

After our lit­tle scare ear­li­er this week, we are glad for the present peace, even though it may not last. Seems every­one is re-group­ing at the moment, so I want you to know we need your con­tin­ued prayers for our safe­ty, as it is hard to deter­mine what is real­ly going on “behind the scenes in the bush”. Lar­ry Friend from AWANA is safe­ly back in the USA as of today, and we are so thank­ful for the pro­gram he left with us.

THE KIDS ARE BEGGING to get start­ed with the AWANA Pro­gram, so I have ATOOMANY, our mas­ter seam­stress, busy mak­ing bean bags in the 4 need­ed col­ors. Eric bought plas­tic pipe that we can paint and cut to make the relay batons. All is in progress and we hope to orga­nize the first Awana Club meet­ings once we jump into Novem­ber. Our kids are just fin­ish­ing their school finals this week, so that clears the way for new things to happen.

The BBC, look­ing great in their new BUSH BIKERS FOR CHRIST shirts. On your mark, get set, GO with AWANA style games.

At first we will be set­ting up 4 teams as the BBC (Bush Bik­ers for Christ) will be tak­ing mod­i­fied games that can be played with­out a games court and the scrip­ture lessons to 15 vil­lages. This will take some orga­ni­za­tion, but once all the kinks are worked out, the pro­gram will ben­e­fit the 1000+ chil­dren they min­is­ter to each week.

GOATS GALORE!!!!

Our 50 moth­er goats are about to BINGO, and we expect a busy November/December birthing sea­son. I just got in from the barns as our 35 young­sters need­ed to be dewormed to keep them healthy. It looks like the rains will come ear­li­er than the Nov. 15th date, so it is time to buy the new breed­ers with the funds giv­en to us by sev­er­al dif­fer­ent donors. With 50 new ones on the way, our barns are going to lit­er­al­ly be “hop­ping” with lit­tle ones. Noth­ing cuter than a baby goat as they bounce around on their springy lit­tle legs, super excit­ed as they play and butt each other.

Nilza, orga­niz­ing children’s cloth­ing for over 2000 orphans. A big job and a super bless­ing to see the smiles on the children’s faces when they receive their packet.

Keep your prayers com­ing. I’m off to Pem­ba tomor­row for a need­ed sup­ply trip. I’ll be return­ing with 3 “teach­ers” from Social Ser­vice who will hold a 3 day “REQUIRED” sem­i­nar on prop­er child care for our fos­ter moth­ers. So back to the class­room for most of my staff this week.

Bless­ings, Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Eric Dry Melis­sa Olmesdahl

From: “Brenda Lange” Subject: Blog, Oct. 19, 2013

YOUTH NIGHT DRAWING TEENS TO CHRIST

Melis­sa Olmes­dahl and Car­l­i­tos Jorge, our 2 Youth Lead­ers, pro­vide a great Fri­day night pro­gram to an ever grow­ing crowd of over 80 youth. Eric wired 12 volt lights into our Bala­ma church so the town’s teens can have a fun, Christ cen­tered educational/games pro­gram instead of walk­ing the streets.

Carlito Jorge leads Youth Night program: He and Nito, the lifesize puppet, have a chat.

Bertino hides behind the suitcase.He is having fun performing the voice of Nito, the puppet.

Last night, NITO, my life-size pup­pet, per­formed a pro­gram to explain how Christ is the LIVING WATER. Sports Direc­tor, Berti­no, hid behind the suit­case, pro­ject­ing his voice so the kids thought Nito was real­ly speak­ing Makua! All the teens were total­ly focused on the puppet’s sto­ry as they were fas­ci­nat­ed with the pre­sen­ta­tion. Our Youth Pas­tors are becom­ing much bet­ter at “flow­ing with the Holy Spir­it” as they reach out to cap­ture the hearts of these young folks. Four young ladies came to Christ last week, and Praise the Lord for the many new faces seen this week.

AWANA “TRUTH SEEKERS” PROGRAM COMES TO MOZAMBIQUE

Lar­ry Friend teach­es our BBC Pas­tors with the help of Bush Bun­ny Bren­da pro­vid­ing translation.

Thanks to Lar­ry Friend from Awana Inter­na­tion­al, USA, the Bala­ma kids will now increase their Bible knowl­edge through this AMAZING Bible pro­gram for kids who can’t read. TRUTH SEEKERS com­bines lots of visual/verbal Bible lessons with the famous AWANA games, played on the AWANA games court that we hand paint­ed onto our bas­ket­ball court.

Lar­ry’s stu­dents have a great time learn­ing the games they will be teach­ing as they deve­l­ope the AWANA BIBLE CLUBS in the vil­lages they serve.
Larry’s “stu­dents” this week (seen enjoy­ing the games as they learned to play them) are the mem­bers of our Bush Bik­ers for Christ, preschool teach­ers, and Youth Lead­ers. These 13 stu­dents will be our core group who will train oth­ers to help them devel­op AWANA BIBLE CLUBS in the 34 vil­lages where we have church­es and youth pro­grams. It will take a few months to get more lead­ers trained and the pro­gram going well, but we know beyond a doubt that ABUNDANT FRUIT will come from teach­ing the chil­dren the Bible from GENESIS to REVELATIONS in an order­ly fash­ion. At the same time, they will be learn­ing respect, dis­ci­pline, obe­di­ence, and hand/eye coor­di­na­tion via the AWANA GAMES.

A SPECIAL THANKS TO LARRY AND ALL THE AWANA INTERNATIONAL STAFF WHO HAVE MADE THIS POSSIBLE.

FYI: This pro­gram has been 3 years in the mak­ing for Mozam­bique, as Truth Seek­ers is a very new part of AWANA Inter­na­tion­al. We are super grate­ful to be the first to try it in Mozambique!

Bless­ings, Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma Staff Eric Dry Melis­sa Olmsesdahl

From: “Brenda Lange” Subject: Blog, Oct. 12, 2013

CHRISTMAS IN OCTOBER!

Means “DE BEAR” IS BACK! Eric Dry, bet­ter known as the “Bush Bear” by his chil­dren, arrived late Wednes­day with a truck and trail­er loaded with “impos­si­ble to get” sup­plies. His jour­ney from Johan­nes­burg, S. Africa to Bala­ma took 6 days. It’s only 1,500 miles (2,500km) by road, but “the only road that comes here” has more holes than Swiss cheese in some areas. The mil­i­tary con­voy is still func­tion­ing in the mid­dle of Moz. due to ban­dit attacks in that area. That caus­es a delay, as they only have 2 con­voys a day. Eric caught it at the right time this trip so only had a short delay. How­ev­er, the con­voy of trucks and pick-ups was 7.2 miles/12 km long, and moved very slowly.

We are very hap­py to have him back, and have spent 3 days unload­ing, unpack­ing, sort­ing, and orga­niz­ing the sup­plies in the after­noons after com­ple­tion of our dai­ly pro­grams with the kids. Does tend to help one sleep bet­ter at night since we all fell into bed last night, total­ly exhausted.

EVA GETS A DOLL

Our lit­tle Eva is very hap­py with her new “baby doll”.

EVA, now 14, has been a mem­ber of our fam­i­ly since she was 2 years old. Due to a dif­fi­cult birth, she had many seizures as well as cere­bral pal­sy. By the time she was 3, God super­nat­u­ral­ly healed her and the seizures have nev­er returned. Because of her brain dam­age, no one thought she would ever talk, much less sing, lead in the children’s choir at church, attend pre-school, learn TWO lan­guages, jump, run, and play!

Last week, while dri­ving past Eva’s mud hut, I saw her play­ing with a LARGE stuffed doll that belonged to a neigh­bour­hood girl. I imme­di­ate­ly told our sewing mas­ter, who made her one just like it. It’s twice the size of the oth­er dolls, and just right for Eva to car­ry around. She hap­pi­ly pos­es with her new “baby”.

BABY CHITO GETS HELPING HAND

Baby Chi­to took to a baby bot­tle with­out hesitation.

Baby Chi­to is 2 months old, and only weighs 1.8 kg (3.96 lbs). That’s .5 lbs (.2kg) LESS than his birth weight. This being a first time moth­er moth­er, Lau­rin­da didn’t under­stand that her breasts were dry­ing up. A neigh­bour in Rovu­ma final­ly brought her to us so she could receive life-sav­ing baby for­mu­la for Chi­to. Chi­to took to a baby bot­tle with­out hes­i­ta­tion, as he’d already fig­ured out the “oth­er sys­tem” wasn’t work­ing any­more. Lau­rin­da, is also severe­ly mal­nour­ished, as she was try­ing to sur­vive on local roots and leaves. She left with a smile on her face, and her hands full of high pro­tein food for her and Chito.

YOUR LOVE GIFTS SAVE LIVES EACH WEEK HERE, as we are now in the severe dry sea­son when very lit­tle grows, and water becomes a high­ly val­ued com­mod­i­ty. THANK YOU for allow­ing us to be Jesus’ hands and feet here in Mozam­bique. Only through spread­ing HIS LOVE, will the world ever change.

MANGO TREE CHURCH–FOOD DISTRIBUTION

This group from Mavala are a spe­cial bunch…

We had a great time on Fri­day giv­ing out food to over 400 orphans and wid­ows from 7 remote vil­lages. Just want­ed you to see some of the wid­ows who receive your love gifts. This group in front of me are a tough bunch, who sur­vived the civ­il war which start­ed in Mozam­bique in the ear­ly 1960’s. To have sur­vived a 32 year war takes a lot of “know how”. I take my hat off to these coura­geous men and women. They were also some of the first to respond when we brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to “THE MANGO TREE CHURCH”.

Off to a busy week, as all our kids are tak­ing SCHOOL FINALS! Our school year starts in late Jan­u­ary and ends Oct. 28th.

Next 6 weeks is prepa­ra­tion time for the “rainy sea­son” in Novem­ber, as we still have 5 food dis­tri­b­u­tions in Bala­ma Dis­trict, as well as 3 left in Melu­co Dis­trict. Our truck team leaves Mon­day for Melu­co with anoth­er load of life sav­ing corn, and they will also be repair­ing 2 water wells that are out of order. Water is so scarce in Melu­co Dis­trict, that most wells are pumped 24 hours a day dur­ing the 6 dry months each year. HIGH main­te­nance is need­ed to keep them all func­tion­ing. THANKS TO DALE MEINDERTSMA’s Min­istry, Eric was able to pur­chase the need­ed water well parts as he passed through Nam­pu­la this week.

JESUS IS THE LIVING WATER, and with­out HIS SACRIFICE ON THE CROSS, NO ONE WOULD RECEIVE HIS GIFT OF ETERNAL LIFE. It is an hon­or and a priv­i­lege to serve Him dai­ly here among the won­der­ful peo­ple of Mozambique.

THANK YOU FOR HELPING US TO SPREAD HIS LOVE TO THOSE WHO HAVE NEVER HEARD.

Bless­ings to all of you!

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA AND THE BALAMA TEAM ERIC DRY MELISSA OLMESDAHL

From: “Brenda Lange” Date: October 3, 2013

NEWEST ORPHANS BLESSED BY AMERICAN GIRL’S GIFT

Late yes­ter­day after­noon, Felic­i­na, a grand­moth­er with 5 orphaned grand­chil­dren, walked in with 5 chil­dren dressed in rags. She was des­per­ate as she had no more food in her house. I was alone at our mis­sion base, but with our guard’s help, we man­aged to orga­nized emer­gency food, clothes, plates, cups, deworm­ing pills, and baby food for 7 month old, Celesti­no. (We feed chil­dren, not worms, so this is pro­to­col upon entry to our food pro­gram.) The moth­er of these chil­dren had died last week from heart prob­lems. The father of all 5 chil­dren had aban­doned them while the moth­er was preg­nant with Celesti­no. So Grand­ma was in a fix and couldn’t thank us enough when she left with her arms full, and 5 smil­ing chil­dren! They came back today to receive a week’s worth of food, and are now offi­cial­ly part of our family.

Left to right: Grand­ma Felic­i­na (Fell-i-CEE- na) is hold­ing Baby Celesti­no. Broth­ers: Jac­in­to, 11, and Almei­do, 5. Sis­ters: Delosa, 8, and Deolin­da, 2.

When I opened my e‑mails at 4a.m. this morn­ing, I had a let­ter from a father named Tom, who’s young daugh­ter had sav­ing her tithe mon­ey to send to an orphan. He researched online for orphans, found us, and watched our video on our web­site. His let­ter was to inform me that he was send­ing his daughter’s gift to bless an orphan. Her $31 gift has now blessed these 5 orphans with our “start up kit”, and will also pro­vide them with anoth­er set of clothes lat­er this year.

I am so, so blessed when chil­dren of this world show true com­pas­sion for those chil­dren who don’t even have the basics. GOD IS NEVER LATE, AS HE KNEW THE NEED AND SENT THE SEED JUST AS WE NEEDED IT.

GIRL’S DORM RECEIVES TOY DOLLS MADE IN OUR OWN SEWING SHOP

Have you ever seen more joy on sweet lit­tle faces? Lit­tle girls and dolls — a nat­ur­al combination !
Our girls were in need of toys, so I asked Atu­many (Ah-too-mah-nee), head of our clothes mak­ing project, if he could make dolls for our girls. The pho­to says it all, as those girls were ear to ear smiles as they hugged their new toys. He made the dolls for $3 each, and we can make more if any­one wants to give dolls to our oth­er 40 girls who live in our church housing.

CONSTRUCTION IS MOVING QUICKLY

Con­struc­tion on our 3rd orphan com­plex is mov­ing along swift­ly. Our con­struc­tion crew is “The Best”.

Last week I showed you the begin­nings of the fos­ter mother’s house at our 3rd orphan com­plex. As you can see, our men work quick, as we start­ed the roof today.

BUSH BUNNY OFFLINE FOR A DAY

I’ll be head­ing out to do a sup­ply run tomor­row and won’t be back till late. Time to restock baby for­mu­la and bolts of mate­r­i­al so we can start mak­ing the 98 school uni­forms for our orphans to wear in 2014. Our schools run Feb. to Octo­ber, and because we use FOOT PEDAL Singer Sewing machines to make all our clothes, we have to get a head start. Will answer e‑mails on Sat­ur­day for sure. Have a great weekend.

Bless­ings from Bala­ma Bush Bun­ny Brenda

From: “Brenda Lange” Subject: BLOG, Sept. 28, 2013

AUSTRALIAN GRAPHITE MINERS IN BALAMA ENCOURGE OPHAN BASKETBALL TEAM

Wed. this week was a hol­i­day, and our bas­ket­ball team was chal­lenged to play the Hos­pi­tal team at the city court in the mid­dle of Bala­ma. Near half­time, Berti­no, our team cap­tain, wore through the bot­toms of his ten­nis shoes, and had no choice but to play in his socks on hot cement. This is the out­door court we repaired in July, and there is very lit­tle shade in the area. A few min­utes lat­er, two Pick-up trucks stopped near the court, and out popped 6 tall, mus­cu­lar Aus­tralian men from the near­by graphite mine. The men sat in the stands on the far end of the court from me, and seemed to thor­ough­ly enjoy the intense­ly com­pet­i­tive game.

A hearty “Thank You” to the gen­tle­man from Aus­trail­ia who showed us such kind­ness. Every­one was blessed to see such a beau­ti­ful gift.
The ref­er­ee called a time out, and a hush fell over the crowd as 1 of the min­ers stepped out onto the court with a pair of shoes in his hands. He motioned to the ref­er­ee that he want­ed to give them to Berti­no, the boy play­ing bare­foot. Every­one con­tin­ued to watch in silence as this very touch­ing scene unfold­ed. Berti­no slipped his foot into one of the shoes AND IT FIT! As a big smile spread over his face, the crowd went WILD!!!

I intro­duced myself to the min­ers dur­ing half­time, and we all had a great time as they shot bas­kets with our boys. Even the ref­er­ee thanked them for what they had done. We were sad to hear they would only be in town 2 days. It all hap­pened so fast (and I didn’t have my cam­era), that it seemed like a dream. Drop in, donate shoes, and move out a few min­utes lat­er. It was a fun­ny site see­ing one of the men leav­ing in his socks, but the smile on that man’s face showed that he was thor­ough­ly pleased that his gift was just what was needed.

God pro­vides in mys­te­ri­ous ways, and the pack­age it comes in, nev­er ceas­es to amaze me!

The teams are real­ly enjoy­ing the new­ly sur­faced bas­ket­ball court. For those of you who are keep­ing score — we won 26 to 21.

ERIC’S RETURN TO BALAMA DELAYED 1 WEEK

Eric will return in mid-Octo­ber due to a fam­i­ly emer­gency that required his assis­tance this week. It takes 6 days to dri­ve from Johan­nes­burg, RSA to Bala­ma with a loaded truck and trail­er. Pas­tor Fred, will ren­dezvous with Eric in Maputo city by tak­ing a taxi to Mon­tepuez, a bus to Nam­pu­la (7 hrs away), then hop a plane to Maputo, the nation­al cap­i­tal of Mozam­bique. It is nei­ther wise, nor prac­ti­cal to dri­ve ALONE in Mozam­bique, so a 2nd trav­eller is a must!

On his way down to RSA in July, Eric was delayed a whole day as a 150 km (75 mile) sec­tion had to be trav­elled by armed mil­i­tary con­voy. Unrest by mil­i­tants want­i­ng changes in the gov­ern­ment, made the con­voy the only safe way to trav­el through the mid­dle of Mozam­bique. The only thing for cer­tain these days is that JESUS is LORD! You nev­er know what awaits you around the next corner.

TODAY IS NATIONAL SPORTS DAY IN MOZAMBIQUE As I write this, our Bas­ket­ball team is suit­ing up so I can haul them in my Land Cruis­er for a rematch with the Hos­pi­tal team. A major exhi­bi­tion of soc­cer, vol­ley­ball, and bas­ket­ball are being played in the town square in hon­or of this holiday.

Our team lost by 7 bas­kets at last Wednesday’s game, bring­ing the sea­son tal­ly to 2 to 1 in the Hospital’s favor. They boys are pret­ty fired up and plan to change that today.

Bless­ings Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and her Bas­ket­ball Mobile off to the town square!

From: “Brenda Lange” Subject: Blog, Sept. 21, 2013

FLEXIBILITY: WITHOUT IT, NO MISSIONARY CAN SURVIVE FOR LONG

The week flew by as we jumped from one job to anoth­er, as pri­or­i­ties changed rapidly.

1. Manuel and his 2 man team filled the 7 ton truck and left on Mon­day for 2 full days of food dis­tri­b­u­tions in Melu­co coun­ty where we have 515 orphans in our pro­gram. The 64 Revia orphans and the 112 Ele­phant Vil­lage orphans live on the edge of the great Game Reserve, and no mat­ter how hard they try to defend their fields, the ele­phants and baboons play hav­oc with their crops. They receive enough har­vest to last a few months, but by Sep­tem­ber, they are hun­gry. As Manuel drove slow­ly with the heav­i­ly loaded truck on the rock based road that leads to our ware­house in Melu­co town, 1 of the new tires explod­ed. I PTL that he was only going 10 miles an hour at the time, or it could have caused him to lose con­trol. A rock had wedged itself in the tread caus­ing the blow out. The tires were still like new, but a sharp piece of gran­ite can do heavy dam­age. (we car­ry 2 spares, so they were still good to go). The dis­tri­b­u­tions went with­out inci­dent, and YOUR LOVE GIFTS pro­vid­ed these 176 kids with new clothes as well as food for the next 2 months. They returned on Thurs­day with­out fur­ther problems.

2. RAISING TEENAGERS is not an easy task. Here in Bala­ma, if you break the rules, you get to dig “Mama Bren­da” a new trash hole (6ft.X3 ft.X 6 ft. deep) (2 m.X1m.X2m. deep) You’d be sur­prised how 3 days of dig­ging dur­ing a boy’s “free time” (when not in school), can change a rebel­lious mind. Just the thought of hav­ing to do it a 2nd time keeps most of our won­der­ful teenage boys from future infrac­tions. This week one of the boys missed a manda­to­ry pro­gram and lied when we con­front­ed him with it. So he was dig­ging away when he heard a noise in the next hole over. Seems our trash holes have become per­fect snake pits!

The holes are right next to a stand of heavy woods, home to our local wildlife (mon­goos­es, fer­rets, rats, and snakes). The ADDER (Africa’s ver­sion of the rat­tlesnake) goes after a rat, as I’ve seen these lazy killers be quite active just after dusk. The rat runs up on the loose dirt mound next to the new­ly dug trash hole. The snake fol­lows, but once on top, his heavy body can’t get trac­tion in the fresh­ly dug dirt to stop his slide, and PLOP, he ends up in the bot­tom of the 6ft deep pit and can’t get out. This has hap­pened twice this month, and we are hap­py to be rid of these silent killers (God didn’t give them a rat­tler). The ADDER is a lazy snake, and loves to sit in the sun next to a walk path, and wait for its prey to walk by. If that hap­pens to be a per­son, so be it, as these nasty guys have a tal­ent, the USA rat­tler doesn’t. THEY CAN STRIKE BEHIND THEM and they give NO WARNING. Need­less to say, it gives the boys added incen­tive to DIG FAST, know­ing those guys are roam­ing the woods behind them. (not to wor­ry, as the boys make so much noise dig­ging, every snake in the area avoids that area in daytime)

3. BABY REPORT: Great to be able to say this week that ALL BABIES in our For­mu­la Pro­gram are doing well. The moth­er of the twins, whom I rushed to the hos­pi­tal last week, WALKED IN this week to weigh her live­ly twins. The moth­er was brought in by bicy­cle from Rovu­ma vil­lage, 5km (3 miles) out and was walk­ing slow, but steady after her trans­fu­sion last week for her life threat­en­ing ane­mia. BABY SARA from an area we call “Coconut Vil­lage” (100’s of coconut trees grow there), is also doing great, and gain­ing weight.

4. CONSTRUCTION: Our 3rd children’s com­plex is over 70% fin­ished. The children’s home is almost fin­ished and the men are 75% done with the fos­ter mother’s house. Then the slow­er fin­ish­ing work begins. We hope to have the chil­dren in this new home by November.

Construction in progress for children’s complex #3.

5. A per­son “in the know” about what inspec­tors are look­ing for, just hap­pened to drop by today to check on the improve­ments we made since our last inspec­tion in late July. SURPRISED and IMPRESSED were both words he used to describe what he saw. He has a few minor rec­om­men­da­tions, but stat­ed it looked like we were ready for the major inspec­tion. The inspec­tors were sup­posed to arrive this next week, but once again have delayed until Octo­ber. No prob­lem, as it gives me the time need­ed to TWEEK the few things he told us about. (The objec­tive for his vis­it today.) Our staff is most grate­ful to those who tru­ly care about the kids, and who will “walk the extra mile” with us to make sure our orphans have secure futures.

6.AMBULANCE WORK If all this wasn’t enough, our dri­vers have been kept busy haul­ing the sick to the Bala­ma and Mon­tepuez hos­pi­tals, as the Bala­ma ambu­lance broke down this week. Cape­na, our office man­ag­er, spent 5 hours Thurs­day night deal­ing with a call that took him 30 km (15 miles) into the bush to fetch a woman with a breach birth. The baby was lost, but the moth­er was saved after Cape­na drove them late that night to Mon­tepuez’ Region­al Hos­pi­tal which is the clos­est place for an emer­gency Cae­sare­an Sec­tion. On Fri­day, our Dri­ver Manuel was kept busy doing 2 runs into the bush for the bad­ly sick and an OB in trou­ble. He then took anoth­er OB in dis­tress to Mon­tepuez for an emer­gency C‑section. Both of these men are excel­lent dri­vers and we PTL for the time they give to help save lives.

Now it is Sat­ur­day after­noon, and time to take a deep breath and RELAX. Tomor­row is anoth­er day wait­ing to sur­prise us. Nev­er a dull moment with Jesus lead­ing the way.

Bless­ings to all of you for bless­ing us with your love and prayers. Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma staff

From: “Brenda Lange” Subject: BLOG, Sept. 14, 2013

BABY RESCUE SAVES 4 LIVES

On Thurs­day, I received an urgent call from Nilza, our Children’s Direc­tor, who han­dles our week­ly Baby Weigh In and For­mu­la Pro­gram. Baby Sara, who I wrote about last week, was brought in with a fever and bad­ly swollen legs (3rd spac­ing flu­ids due to a lack of pro­tein for 3 weeks). (Don’t shoot de Bun­ny), but I still didn’t get a pho­to of her, cause she need­ed imme­di­ate med­ical atten­tion. I packed up her aunt and uncle in my pick-up truck and took off for the hos­pi­tal. Lit­tle Sara received med­ica­tion to fight a res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tion, while the Aunt was giv­en train­ing on how to han­dle her frag­ile con­di­tion. (In the mean­time, I was called back to my home for a 2nd emergency.)

The best days of plan­ning can’t fore­see days like these. Thank God for His promis­es. His strength iS sufficient.

Upon arrival back at my house, I found a fam­i­ly con­sist­ing of a moth­er with twins, accom­pa­nied by her crip­pled father (in an adult size tri-cycle), and her broth­er on his bicy­cle. The broth­er had pumped his sis­ter and her twins on the back of his bicy­cle from the Rovu­ma vil­lage 3 miles (5km) away. (The hus­band had aban­doned this young moth­er for a stronger woman who could have his babies.) Makes my Bun­ny blood boil! The moth­er basi­cal­ly has NO BLOOD (eye lids total­ly blanched white), is unable to walk, and thus her body isn’t pro­duc­ing Breast Milk for the twins. The twins (a boy and a girl) are now 6 weeks old and basi­cal­ly weigh the same as their birth weights of 5.5 lbs. each.

The Father speaks Por­tuguese, and told us his daugh­ter was hos­pi­tal­ized in Bala­ma in mid-August for the ane­mia and received 1 unit of blood. The babies were not giv­en any milk for­mu­la, and have sur­vived on only fruit drink since then. She was released from the hos­pi­tal on Sept. 1st, but isn’t get­ting bet­ter. The fam­i­ly feared the babies would per­ish with­out help as both were sick with dysen­tery since they didn’t know the water should be boiled before giv­ing it to the babies. Manel, our best dri­ver, pulled up next to the moth­er in our Land Cruis­er, and helped lift her into the back of the pick-up. The father’s wheel­chair fol­lowed, as we held the babies. Off we went to the hos­pi­tal with the entire fam­i­ly. With the Hos­pi­tal Director’s help, we got the moth­er and both babies admit­ted. They would pre­pare the moth­er for anoth­er trans­fu­sion as soon as a blood donor could be locat­ed. (No cross match­ing is pos­si­ble here, only blood typ­ing, so they min­i­mize trans­fu­sion reac­tions by using a relative’s blood.)

Two Days lat­er: (today) The father rolled into our mis­sion with a BIG SMILE on his face, and his tri-cycle loaded with 10 grass mats and 5 brooms he’d made from local reeds. I’d told him if he had any to sell, that I’d glad­ly buy them (I make a point to buy ALL local­ly made prod­ucts we need from our hand­i­capped cit­i­zens in the area.) He told us that his daugh­ter was doing OK, and that his broth­er was com­ing in today espe­cial­ly to give her a unit of blood. The Father is THRILLED that the twins are mak­ing a fast recov­ery, and are full of ener­gy after only 2 days of milk for­mu­la and treat­ment for dysentery.

These 3 babies as well as the women who care for them, will remain in our pro­grams until the chil­dren are strong and eat­ing well at 6–7 months of age.

It only takes $6/week ($24/month) to save the life of a baby under 3 months of age. We are able to keep baby for­mu­la and baby bot­tles in stock because YOU CARE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR LOVE GIFTS that help us save the lives of these inno­cent ones

“HAND IN HAND WITH THE LEAST OF THESE” is more than a mot­to with ORPHANS UNLIMITED. IT’S REALITY.

BUNNY VISITS ROVUMA CHURCH LAST SUNDAY- RESCUES 4 ORPHANS

I had a blast last Sun­day, danc­ing and singing with GENONO, the old­est mem­ber of the Rovu­ma church. No one knows how old he is, but Genono has been blessed with THREE MIRACLE HEALINGS since we start­ed the Rovu­ma church 5 years ago. Unable to walk 5 years ago, Genono lis­ten­ing to us teach on how Jesus heals the sick. Noth­ing shy about this man, as faith rose up in his heart, he asked Jesus to heal his legs and the man began to walk! Next we knew he was DANCING FOR JESUS! He’s had sev­er­al seri­ous sick­ness­es since, and Jesus healed them all!

So after church, Genono pre­sent­ed me with 2 beau­ti­ful­ly made “pin­eras” that he’d made just for me. (Genono is hold­ing them in the pho­to I took of him and his fam­i­ly in front of their new mud hut). Pas­tor Joaguim then pre­sent­ed Genono’s dif­fi­cul­ty. A fam­i­ly mem­ber had died, leav­ing him with 4 orphans (3 girls 12, 9, 8 and a boy, 7), and he didn’t have food to feed them. Would I help, as he need­ed food that very day! Genono’s house had fall­en down dur­ing this last rainy sea­son, and the church mem­bers had rebuilt it for him. He invit­ed me into his new hut, which con­tained only 1 local­ly made rope bed, a cook­ing pot and 2 water con­tain­ers. NO clothes except what they were wear­ing, and NO FOOD at all. (Genono and his wife have received food assis­tance from us for over a year due to their inabil­i­ty to farm enough to feed them­selves.) Their week’s food allot­ment had been eat­en up in 3 days with the arrival of the orphans.

I told him to give me an hour and I’d be back with what they need­ed. I didn’t have every­thing they need­ed on hand, but was able to get an emer­gency pack­age togeth­er. YOUR LOVE GIFTS PROVIDED THEM WITH: 3 grass mats and 3 blan­kets Cook­ing Pot as well as bowls and cups to eat from FOOD: A week’s worth of corn flour, beans, and salt for 6 peo­ple CLOTHES for the entire family

Genono received fur­ther assis­tance this week dur­ing our week­ly food dis­tri­b­u­tion. He and his new fam­i­ly will receive assis­tance until the chil­dren are grown thanks to YOUR LOVE.

It’s been a busy week with these res­cues as well as the largest food hand­out we have– Kwe Kwe.

Keep us in your prayers as we will spend this next week giv­ing out food in Melu­co Dis­trict (coun­ty). Our truck team will spend 4 days in 2 major parts of this huge coun­ty, giv­ing out food to the 60 orphans in Revia (near the game park) as well as the 112 Ele­phant Vil­lage orphans.

GOD’S BLESSINGS TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU FOR LOVING GOD’S CHILDREN IN MOZAMBIQUE. TOGETHER WE ARE SPREADING JESUS’ LOVE TO THE MULTITUDES!

LOVE AND HUGS,

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA AND THE BALAMA TEAM

From: “Melissa Olmesdahl” Subject: BLOG, SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

A NOTE TO ALL FROM MELISSA OLMESDAHL

Hi fam­i­ly and friends

One of the most amaz­ing sounds for me is the sounds of the vil­lage at night. Some­times I just lay there and lis­ten to our kids wor­ship­ping God before I go to bed. I’ve only dis­cov­ered this recent­ly, but it’s so beau­ti­ful and peace­ful. It’s like my own lit­tle piece of heav­en to hear their sweet voic­es just before bed time, as they ser­e­nade the Lord.

It makes me think of the scrip­ture in Colossians3:16 – Let the mes­sage of Christ dwell among you rich­ly as you teach and admon­ish one anoth­er with all wis­dom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spir­it, singing to God with grat­i­tude in your hearts.

I told you last time about our lit­tle sol­diers, and I just love them so much. They nev­er fail to lift up my spir­its and keep me moti­vat­ed to spread the gospel.

Last Fri­day on our ladies prayer walk, many of our ladies didn’t arrive, and so at first we were just two, myself and one of our lead­ing ladies, Domini­ca. At first I was a bit dis­cour­aged, but we had God’s busi­ness to attend to, so off we went.

We start­ed singing as we walked, singing is part of our life style here, and before we knew it, we had a whole army of kids fol­low­ing us and singing along. We had our own cru­sade going. It was so cool, and the kids even laid hands on the sick with us. It was spe­cial, and such a con­fir­ma­tion that God is in con­trol and His plans are mighty!

Some­times mom­mies run out of milk, and out here, when a mom­my runs out of milk, the babies have a very slim chance of sur­viv­ing. For­mu­la is real­ly expen­sive, as most of you know, and in a place like Bala­ma, a can of For­mu­las cost a whole pay check. It’s so sad.

So we have many peo­ple come to us because we run a baby care pro­gram, and every week we give out for­mu­la to the babies on our pro­gram. It’s real­ly awe­some to see God’s hand at work in sav­ing all these lit­tle babies.

I’ve seen some real­ly sad cas­es. Just last week, a very young cou­ple came to get assis­tance from us, her milk had been dried up for two weeks, and by the grace of God, the baby was still alive. We mixed up some for­mu­la right there and then, and she was so weak she could bare­ly drink. But she was hun­gry, so she drank that bot­tle right up.

Anoth­er lit­tle baby that came to us a few weeks ago was lit­tle Ester, when I told you about her she was 2,9 kg’s. Well, to give you an update, she is now putting on weight nice­ly, and we see her grow­ing super strong every week. I look for­ward to see­ing her pret­ty lit­tle face, she is so cute. Oh ja, and she has a strong pair of lungs on her.

Anoth­er big per­son­al­i­ty in a small lit­tle body around here is Dick­son! He is a mir­a­cle baby. He was on our baby pro­gram, and start­ed off also as a very under nour­ished baby, he was almost dead. Now he is big and strong and tod­dling around all over the place. He start­ed walk­ing in the last month, and it’s so cute how he wad­dles around. He is also quite the card at our ladies devo­tions, when we say Hal­lelu­jah, he shouts “Amen”, and it’s precious!

And our youngest orphan on the pro­gram has also just start­ed walk­ing. Her name is Orten­cia, and she is the apple of everyone’s eyes around here. In fact she doesn’t get much chance to prac­tice her walk­ing skills, because every­one takes turns in hold­ing her. You just can’t resist her big sparkling eyes, and chum­by kiss­able cheeks though. She is total­ly adorable.

She was brought to us by her grand­fa­ther, she was left with him, but he is too old to be able to look after her. So now she is ours, and we love her to bits. She has a bril­liant fos­ter mom, and five oth­er sis­ters who love her and look after her like she was blood.

We have also just fin­ished food give outs. For the last cou­ple of days, we have been hand­ing out food to the fam­i­lies in our pro­gram at var­i­ous vil­lage dis­tri­b­u­tion points.

This was an awe­some chance for me to see more of what God is doing through orphans unlim­it­ed. Being able to serve the peo­ple in their needs is such a hum­bling expe­ri­ence. We have many elder­ly on our pro­gram, that despite the pain and suf­fer­ing they have faced over years of war and famine, they are as com­i­cal and lov­ing as they come. Yes­ter­day i start­ed devo­tions by lead­ing some songs, and I even got an invi­ta­tion to come and live with them in their vil­lage. Fan­cy that.

My days are filled with many activ­i­ties, every day dif­fer­ent from the next. There is nev­er a day with­out laugh­ter and singing or play­ing. Nev­er a day that goes by where one of my new lit­tle broth­ers or sis­ters don’t grab my hands as I’m walk­ing, or nest them­selves under my arm to give them a love. Some­times on a Sun­day morn­ing, while we are walk­ing from the church to Sun­day school, I have about three kids hold­ing each of my hands. It’s real­ly fun­ny when you try and walk through a door way with six chil­dren grip­ping your arms!

I miss and love you all so much, with the love of Christ. I pray that the Lord will open your ears to His beau­ti­ful music in your lives. Speak to you all again soon,

MELISSA xox­ox­oxxoxo

From: Brenda Lange, Date: September 7, 2013

MANY SMILING FACES THANKS TO YOUR LOVE GIFTS!

Melis­sa and one of the old­est wid­ows in the pro­gram at the Man­go Tree Church give out.

Rollin, Rollin, Rollin! Get those trucks a rollin! The old “Rawhide” theme song was our team’s jin­gle these last 3 days as we car­ried 18.3 TONS of corn and beans to 433 hun­gry orphans and the 252 wid­ows in 3 major areas of Bala­ma Dis­trict. We have nev­er missed an August give out before, but many sched­ul­ing inter­rup­tions, caused the delay, mak­ing us all very unhap­py. So once we found a 3 days spot, we loaded up both our big trucks and moved’em out! As you can see by the pho­tos, there are many smil­ing faces, as it was great fun see­ing all the famil­iar faces dur­ing this time of bless­ing those in need.

KWE KWE HAND OUT STILL TO COME NEXT WEEK

Our largest sin­gle food hand out will be this Tues­day, Aug. 10th. These 9 vil­lages are so spread out that we dis­trib­ute 12.7 TONS of corn and beans in one morn­ing at 2 main loca­tions over 30 min­utes dri­ve apart. 447 chil­dren and 211 grand­moth­ers who care for the chil­dren are served through this give out. This group is our most “vul­ner­a­ble” since the orphans are most­ly under 8 years old with many in the 3–5 age range. They received a food drop in late July, so this will be #2 for them.

WE CAN’T THANK YOU ALL ENOUGH FOR MAKING THESE GIFTS POSSIBLE SO THAT THESE CHILDREN CAN HAVE A FUTURE.

Mea­sur­ing the corn, while the croud from the sev­en Man­go Tree Vil­lages wait to hear their names called. 

Bean dis­tri­b­u­tion, with salt and soap being hand­ed out in the background. 

THREE NEW BABIES ADMITTED TO OUR FORMULA PROGRAM

this week with one of them look­ing like an ema­ci­at­ed female ver­sion of Dixon when he first came to us. I don’t have a pho­to of lit­tle Sara, as we were too busy try­ing to save her life. (she could bare­ly suck a bot­tle she was so weak when we got her yes­ter­day) Baby Sara was born Aug. 16 and nev­er tast­ed milk until yes­ter­day! How she sur­vived the three weeks with only water in a baby bot­tle, only God knows. She was noth­ing more than loose skin over bones due to her severe weight loss. Her moth­er is only 15 and has severe mas­ti­tis in both breasts. Her hus­band is also very young. They were accom­pa­nied by the girl’s moth­er, who final­ly got them to bring the baby to us for help, and hoped it wasn’t too late. Grand­ma seems quite sharp and learned quick­ly how to mix the baby for­mu­la. Seems the young cou­ple, who live in a small remote vil­lage about 6 miles away, didn’t know of our baby for­mu­la pro­gram, and thought the mother’s mas­ti­tis would go away on its own.

So it seems we have anoth­er lit­tle fight­er on our hands for sure! The fam­i­ly went home after moth­er and baby were treat­ed at the hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day. When they come in next Thurs­day for their for­mu­la, I’ll be able to snap a pho­to for you. Sara is quite cute for sure!

We’ve been told to expect com­pa­ny from Pem­ba Social Ser­vices this week, so keep us in prayer. All is ready, and we look for­ward to show­ing off our won­der­ful chil­dren and the great homes they live in, thanks to your generosity.

Bless­ings, Bush Bun­ny Brenda

Melis­sa Olmesdahl

And the Bala­ma Staff

From: “Brenda Lange” Subject: BLOG, August 31, 2013

SIX MONTH PERMIT IN OUR HANDS!

This is a GREAT accom­plish­ment after a 2 year wait and many hours of writ­ing a BOOK con­tain­ing the need­ed documents.

The State Office of Social Ser­vices has blessed us with a 6 month per­mit for our orphan pro­gram, thanks to all the improve­ments we made in the build­ing projects, as well as the increased children’s pro­grams we have added to meet the new requirements.

This is the first step to the per­ma­nent doc­u­ment that we seek. Cape­na, our office man­ag­er and doc­u­ment pro­duc­ing expert, is work­ing dili­gent­ly to com­plete the need­ed changes so we can apply for our FINAL LICENSING DOCUMENT.

So all is great, as we have till Feb­ru­ary, 2014, to final­ize everything.

THREE SOULS ENTER GOD’S FAMILY….

after a bold gospel pre­sen­ta­tion at our Thurs­day food give out by Melis­sa Olmes­dahl, our new Youth Leader. One per­son who came for­ward was a BIG SURPRISE, as this teenage boy has been extreme­ly “rebel­lious” in the past. Melis­sa was float­ing on the clouds the rest of the day, since this group has not shown much inter­est in know­ing Jesus in the past few weeks.

I know every­one is off for a 4 day week­end, so I plan to keep this short. I hope all of you have a GREAT WEEKEND of FUN and hope­ful­ly splash around in a pool some­where to keep cool. Win­ter will be upon you before you know it.

All our kids are out hav­ing a great time play­ing on this beau­ti­ful sun shiny day. Our 10 teenage boys are just 1 hour away from their first bas­ket­ball match against one of our town’s youth teams. They are a bit ner­vous about it as they feel much more com­fort­able with soc­cer. So I’ll soon see how much the Bunny’s train­ing drills have helped (or not).

So like most “proud Moms”, the Bun­ny has to go cheer them on!

Aguas Vivas (Living Waters) boys are in BLUE uniforms. First half our boys did GREAT and were winning, but they didn’t have the stamina to last the 2nd half and lost 32 to 20. It was a great game and it taught the boys how important conditioning is if they want to win. BBB

Love and Hugs to all of you. Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma Team