From: “Brenda Lange” Date: August 24, 2013

THE FIRST AND THE LATEST

EVA, 13, seen in the back­ground of this pho­to, is the first child ever accept­ed into our Bala­ma feed­ing pro­gram (2001).
ORTENCIA, 18 months, and just learn­ing to walk, is our youngest addi­tion who came to us in 2012. Below, ORTENCIA, in her ear­ly days with us. She is held by her house mother.

ORTENCIA, 18 months, and just learning to walk, is our youngest addition who came to us in 2012.

Eva’s moth­er came to Bala­ma to vis­it her moth­er, Elisa, in 2003. Eva was almost 2 years old, and hav­ing up to 6 grand mal seizures a day due to brain dam­age received dur­ing her dif­fi­cult birth. Her Mom had tak­en her to numer­ous witch doc­tors to try and “cure” her, but noth­ing worked. While vis­it­ing Bala­ma, Eva’s moth­er died from drink­ing bad water, leav­ing Elisa with a BIG prob­lem as Eva was hard to care for. She’d heard about “this for­eign woman” who was doing amaz­ing things to help peo­ple get healthy, so she brought Eva to me.

Brenda tends to the wounds on Eva’s hands

When I first met Eva, she was actu­al­ly EATING the skin off the backs of her hands between her grand mal seizures. Our Pas­tors told Grand­ma Elisa that JESUS is the heal­er, not Bren­da. She accept­ed Jesus as her Lord and allowed us to pray for Eva. We real­ized that evil spir­its were a part of the prob­lem due to the witch doc­tor involve­ment. After prayer, her seizures decreased to 2–3/day. I con­tact­ed an MD friend of mine, Regi­na, in the USA, and she orga­nized med­ica­tions that would stop the seizures, and actu­al­ly brought them over her­self! Dur­ing her 3 week stay, Regi­na reg­u­lat­ed Eva on the med­ica­tion, and all her seizures stopped. We con­tin­ued to pray for Eva’s com­plete heal­ing, know­ing that long term med­ica­tion use may not be pos­si­ble since this med­i­cine didn’t exist in Moz. at that time.

Six months lat­er, Grand­ma Elisa didn’t show up for her week­ly food gift and the med­ica­tion Eva was depen­dent on. My staff asked all around, but no one knew where Elisa lived. With­out her med­i­cine, Eva’s seizures would return. TEN DAYS lat­er, Elisa limps into our mis­sion, lean­ing on a stick, because she had bad­ly cut her foot with her hoe while prepar­ing to plant her corn field. I was relieved to see her and imme­di­ate­ly asked how Eva was doing. Grand­ma respond­ed that Eva was total­ly fine, and she had NO SEIZURES dur­ing the 10 days she was off her med­i­cine! WE JUMPED FOR JOY, know­ing that Eva had received a mir­a­cle heal­ing! From that day for­ward, we nev­er gave her anoth­er of those pills, and she has not had a seizure since! I was told that she would prob­a­bly nev­er be able to walk, talk, or func­tion like a nor­mal child due to her deficiency.

NOT OUR EVA! She leads in the children’s choir, SINGS, jumps, runs, and DANCES to praise music, and speaks to me in 3 lan­guages! (Makua, Por­tuguese, and knows some Eng­lish) NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH JESUS!

ORTENCIA is a bun­dle of joy, brought to us by her elder­ly grand­fa­ther from way, way out in the bush. After his daugh­ter had died in child­birth, the grand­par­ents were hap­pi­ly rais­ing Orten­cia. But when grand­ma passed away, grand­pa was at a loss, as he was the last liv­ing fam­i­ly mem­ber. With help from his neigh­bors, he took great care of Orten­cia, but knew he need­ed to find some­one to raise her, as he real­ized he would not be able to care for her till she is grown. She’s a lov­ing, cud­dly, lit­tle girl, who loves her fos­ter moth­er, and is the youngest of our res­i­dent orphans. Now that she’s begin­ning to walk, look out world! Her she comes!

INSPECTORS HAVEN’T COME YET

We thank you for your prayers for favor with the inspec­tors. Their delay has giv­en us time to bet­ter orga­nize some of the new­ly required doc­u­men­ta­tion they require. Keep your prayers com­ing, as this team will show up some­time soon.

YOUTH NIGHT A SUPER FUN TIME

Melis­sa and 4 of our Youth Pas­tors hold “Youth Night” every Fri­day at 6pm to give Bala­ma kids an alter­na­tive to walk­ing the streets with noth­ing to do. Between 50 to 80 teens show up week­ly to start the night with games, among their favourite being sit down Vol­ley­ball (with a beach ball) and “hot pota­to” with bean bags. Eric installed 4 LED lights in the church before he left for South Africa, mak­ing it a great place to hold a Youth Night which ends with a great Bible les­son and refresh­ments. Not all who attend have accept­ed Christ, but they are lis­ten­ing seri­ous­ly to the week­ly les­son. Since most come back each week, we know they are more than just curi­ous. Keep pray­ing for our youth, as they are the up and com­ing GOD’S ARMY that will lead us dur­ing these End Times. A TEENAGER ON FIRE FOR GOD IS A POWERFUL EVANGELIST!

THANK YOU for all you are doing through prayer and giv­ing so that these awe­some kids can learn about our won­der­ful Jesus!

BLESSINGS,

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Melis­sa Olms­dahl And the Bala­ma Staff

From: “Brenda Lange” Subject: Blog correction Date: August 18, 2013

Yesterday photo of Dixon, not Zito

There was a mix-up yes­ter­day, and the lit­tle boy’s pho­to shown in my blog is DIXON, not Zito. I for­got to cap­tion the pho­to, but as you can see, our “boy won­der”, who at 4 months of age weighed LESS than his birth weight and near death, is now WALKING inde­pen­dent­ly. At 22lbs (10 kg), Dixon is grow­ing stronger dai­ly. He’s still way behind the growth curve for a 2 year old, but he loves to eat and is doing his best to catch up with those his age.

I am post­ing the pho­to of Dixon again, in case you might have missed it yesterday.

Dixon, our “boy wonder” at 22 pounds, and growing.

Bless­ings, BBB

From: “Brenda Lange” Subject: BLOG Aug. 17, 2013

DISTRICT BASKETBALL COURT GETS A WORK OUT

The local Admin­is­tra­tor and I made the first run at the new bas­ket­ball goal as I pre­sent­ed the rebuilt half court with 2 new goals to the County.

Our bud­get would not allow us to com­plete the court, as rebuild­ing half the court cost $4,500, using 170 bags of cement. Cement and all col­ors of paints are in short sup­ply in north­ern Moz. right now due to the tremen­dous amount of new con­struc­tion going on in Pem­ba because of the nat­ur­al gas boom. The new road that will run through Bala­ma (some­day) is being built across the bush to the west of us and is eat­ing cement by the truck load.

GOOD SAMARATAN TAKEN TO A NEW LEVEL

A delayed ship­ment of med­ica­tions caused many Dis­trict Hos­pi­tals in our Province to oper­ate for the last 3 weeks with lim­it­ed life-sav­ing treat­ments for malar­ia or advanced infec­tions need­ing Injectable Peni­cillin. ZITO, in Nama­ra, devel­oped a staff infec­tion after a boil left an open wound over his spine. Thanks to a quick think­ing nurse who knew of a place we could get Peni­cillin, Cape­na was giv­en per­mis­sion to obtain Zito’s med­ica­tions at a remote clin­ic about 16 miles (30 km) into the bush. Zito has received his much need­ed injec­tions since Mon­day and is doing very well now.

Zito is feel­ing much bet­ter thanks to a quick think­ing nurse.

EGIDIO, one of the dorm boys, stuck some­thing in his hand on Tues­day caus­ing an infec­tion that also need­ed Injectable Peni­cillin. God gave us favor, as we once again drove to this remote clin­ic and were giv­en the last 4 vials they had. Now NO ONE in Bala­ma Dis­trict had any Peni­cillin, but God made a way! Cape­na was in Pem­ba yes­ter­day, when the MEDICATIONS ARRIVED at the state hos­pi­tal. The Pem­ba hos­pi­tal staff saw Cape­na at Social Ser­vices (next door) and imme­di­ate­ly asked him to truck the sup­plies to Bala­ma. HE HAPPILY COMPLIED. The drugs are now safe­ly in the phar­ma­cy and avail­able for imme­di­ate use. GOD SUPPLIES ALL OUR NEEDS ACCORDING TO HIS RICHES IN GLORY!

GOD’S SUN IS A FREE GIFT

For 30 days now, we have been unable to buy bot­tled propane for our cook stove. This caused us to go into “God’s mode”, which means we turned to God’s SUN for help. Heat­ing bath water by using solar show­er bags or thin met­al pots paint­ed black is very easy (if you use met­al pots, the water MUST TOUCH THE LID or the water won’t heat). Mak­ing SUN TEA is as sim­ple as putting a tea bag in a clean jar and plac­ing it in the sunshine.

Why waste cook­ing fuel when the need­ed ener­gy is FREE!

God’s Favor is with us as 1 truck of propane came in last week, and Cape­na hap­pened to see it when it entered Pem­ba. He fol­lowed it to the company’s load­ing dock and was able to buy 1 bot­tle direct­ly off the truck. The entire truck load was gone in a mat­ter of min­utes! His “crafti­ness” was a huge bless­ing to us. STAY ALERT! AS YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN GOD MAY SEND A BLESSING ACROSS YOUR PATH.

BUSH BUNNY SNAKE STORY!!!!

A true “bush per­son” is like the old cow­boys who read the ground instead of a news­pa­per. If you want to stay alive you have to know what “crit­ter” is slith­er­ing or walk­ing around in your area. As I walked to Eric’s house, my mind was on many things, when my eyes spot­ted a super FRESH snake trail that crossed his dri­ve­way. I froze. Scanned the area, and spot­ted the 1.2 meter (4 foot) spit­ting cobra lying about 30 feet (10 m) away under a man­go tree. (Immo­bil­i­ty is a defense mech­a­nism as it makes them hard­er to see.) I remained frozen but called for our guard, Rachide. The snake didn’t move. Rachide brought his 12 ft. (4 meter) bam­boo snake killing pole, but the tree’s branch­es were too low to use it. A spit­ting cobra can spit it’s poi­son into your eyes eas­i­ly from a 10 ft. (3 meter ) dis­tance. He said ROCKS and put his back-up plan into action. Call­ing for the man who makes our children’s cloth­ing, both men picked up 3 hand size rocks. They eased up to with­in 12 feet (4 m) of the snake, and on the count of 3, they did jus­tice to the best pitch­ers on any base­ball team, hit­ting the snake with 6 pow­er­ful­ly thrown rocks. Every rock hit the snake, caus­ing it to launch itself straight UP into the air as if strik­ing at an invis­i­ble ene­my. As the wound­ed snake flopped out from under the tree, Rachide fin­ished it off with his long bam­boo rod.

Moral of the sto­ry: Always, always be on the alert for “signs of your ene­mies”, (spir­i­tu­al and phys­i­cal), as they are usu­al­ly lurk­ing near­by, ready to strike if giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty. ASK in the name of JESUS and you shall RECEIVE HIS unfail­ing protection.
BLESSINGS FROM THE BALAMA TEAM BUSH BUNNY BRENDA MELISSA OLMSDAHL AND THE BALAMA STAFF

FROM BRENDA LANGE aka. “The Bush Bunny” Date: August 14, 2013

Melis­sa Olms­dahl is the newest mem­ber of our Moz. staff. She comes to us from George, South Africa, where she was the Youth Leader for that town’s CMA church. (Chris­t­ian Motor­cy­cle Association)

Melis­sa is a true bless­ing to our kids and to our staff. She picked up Linda’s respon­si­bil­i­ties of cook­ing, as well as the Women’s Bible Study and Prayer Walks and much, much more. She’s a nat­ur­al with the children.

Melis­sa doesn’t sit still, and I great­ly appre­ci­ate her cheer­ful atti­tude, even when the going gets tough. Her vocab­u­lary is grow­ing dai­ly, as is her cul­tur­al understanding.

So enjoy her let­ter and photos.

Bless­ings, Bush Bun­ny Brenda

Foot­prints under the man­go tree
Hi everyone,

If you go to our recre­ation cen­tre, you will find thou­sands of lit­tle foot prints all over the show. When I look at these prints, dur­ing a qui­et time, I always smile as I think of the kid’s joy­ful play in this area. The kids can be so sil­ly, it’s so cute. There are so many activ­i­ties that we have run­ning up at the cen­tre. We do sports pro­grams for the big­ger kids, dur­ing which, the lit­tle munchkins will often come and mis­chie­vous­ly snatch the bas­ket ball away. I’ll admit, most of the time I will hand the ball over to them, I can’t help myself some­times Its get­ting it back that’s the chal­lenge, some of these lit­tle guys know how to run, good golly!

We have the bas­ket ball court and the soc­cer field up there, and at 8am and 3pm every day, our youth direc­tor, Berti­no, runs the sports pro­gram. He is real­ly reli­able. When­ev­er I get a chance, I go up and play with them. I’m not the best ath­lete, but sur­pris­ing­ly, the boys let me in their games. It makes me feel real­ly special.

I real­ly love those boys! They have all crept into my heart. They are the teenage orphans that are part of our orphan­age. They are real teenagers, take chances, get into trou­ble, but they all are so special.

There are eight of them, they are all super dif­fer­ent, but each of them have a spe­cial some­thing love­ly. They all help out with our Sun­day school pro­grams each week. They help with the lessons, and with con­trol­ling the kid­dies. This week that passed they did a pup­pet show to tell the sto­ry of Jesus and Zac­cha­es in the tree. The lit­tle kids real­ly love the pup­pets; they real­ly get involved in what the “pup­pets” are saying.

Our Sun­day school is always packed on a Sun­day morn­ing. Actu­al­ly our church­es are filled with most­ly chil­dren. But a wise man once taught me that the kids are Jesus’s lit­tle evan­ge­lists. A child on fire is the best cat­a­lyst. If you could only hear the vibra­tion in that lit­tle room when these kids sing, when they scream hal­lelu­jah! It’s intense­ly mov­ing. Now imag­ine with me, all these chil­dren scat­ter­ing after Sun­day school, as lit­tle feet do, and go and play out­side their huts, out­side their friend’s huts, singing the prais­es to Jesus that they learned, all over the village…

These lit­tle foot prints in the sand are the foot prints of our lit­tle evan­ge­lists. When­ev­er I see these lit­tle foot prints, I feel the face of God smil­ing down, as a proud father, recount­ing the steps of His lit­tle chil­dren… Thanks you Jesus for these lit­tle babes.

So anoth­er one of the things I get to do, is take part in Pre School, which we have every Mon­day Tues­day and Wednes­day. It is so much fun. The teach­ers teach them num­bers, and Por­tuguese words, as they only speak the trib­al lan­guage, Macua. I actu­al­ly ben­e­fit from these Por­tuguese lessons. Who knew that I would have to go back to Pre School to learn stuff.

I real­ly admire the teach­ers we have, they real­ly do an awe­some job with the kids. They might not real­ize it, but God is using them to enrich these babies lives.

I have start­ed teach­ing them Eng­lish words as well. Only three a day, I real­ly love to watch their lit­tle brains soak up all they can. I have been teach­ing them body parts, and they real­ly get a kick out of watch­ing me use my body to show them the parts. I real­ly enjoy spend­ing time with them. And of course, play time under the man­go tree is very action packed. I’ve been tak­en down and tick­led, had ten lit­tle girls play with my hair, at the same time… and played horsy. As I said, it’s a dream come true.

Last­ley, I want to say good­bye to my spe­cial friend Lin­da, she left us last week Sat­ur­day. Her time here in Bala­ma came to an end, and she has gone home to be with her many, many grand­chil­dren. Enjoy them Lin­da, your amaz­ing love will be missed around here. Thank you for being such an amaz­ing ves­sel for Jesus to work through. Love you so much, you are amazing!

It has been so good to share again. Love you all so much Be super blessed, and may the Lord Jesus real­ly touch you deeply each and everyday

xox­ox­oxo

From; Bush Bunny Brenda Lange August 3, 2013

BUNNY AND STAFF HOPPING CAUSE INSPECTORS COMING THIS WEEK!

A week ago we received a sur­prise inspec­tion from the State office of Social Ser­vices. They grace­ful­ly brought us a 20 PAGE DOCUMENT con­tain­ing this year’s new rules. They gave us warn­ing that a NATIONAL INSPECTION TEAM from Maputo would be at our door on Tues­day, Aug. 6th. We were in com­pli­ance with most of the rules, Praise the Lord!, BUT… did have to have to hang pic­tures in all the hous­es, buy more edu­ca­tion­al toys and a put in a sand box in both hous­es for the lit­tle chil­dren, put in a library in both Eng­lish and Por­tuguese for our High School kids, and add a SECOND moth­er to each home. So it’s been a busy week, but we are basi­cal­ly ready for their vis­it. Please keep us in prayer for FAVOR that they will be very hap­py with our program.

BUNNY PLAYS BASKETBALL

And has the sore mus­cle to prove it! Our teenage boys need­ed some couch­ing point­ers, as Melis­sa is learn­ing the game her­self. Most of our boys have no idea how to real­ly play the game as a team. Ever see 10 teens going in 10 direc­tions with no coor­di­na­tion what­so­ev­er? That is what I saw, so Coach Bun­ny, who once was an “A” string bas­ket­ball play­er, stepped in teach­ing pass­ing, drib­bling, and lay up drills. This Bun­ny hasn’t touched a bas­ket­ball in 38 years, so was amazed at how my brain remem­bered the moves but the body strug­gled to com­ply. Ugh! Bunny’s mus­cles weren’t ready for a 45 minute coach­ing ses­sion com­plete with demon­stra­tions! But the boys got a real thrill out of it, and learned a lot. I was amazed to see how fast they picked up the need­ed skills. I do plan more of it in the future, but plan to work out more slow­ly the next time.

Goats are doing fine. We have 102 at lat­est count as a few of the males went to mar­ket. The chil­dren are all healthy, and hav­ing a blast with their new sand­box­es, toys, and books. The new Mopone church is get­ting on its feet, after the vil­lage saw the Jesus film. About 45 peo­ple showed up last Sun­day for a church meet­ing. Mpaca vil­lage has had a church for over 4 years, so their response to the Jesus Film has been small so far.

Please remem­ber to keep us in prayer on MONDAY NIGHT for the inspec­tion, as that will be our TUESDAY MORNING here in Bala­ma. We are 7 hours ahead of CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME in the USA.

NOTE ABOUT ERIC IN South Africa Eric left a few days ear­ly due to a fam­i­ly emer­gency. His broth­er, who has suf­fered for some time with a type of blood can­cer, had tak­en ill and was in ICU on life sup­port. Eric faced a 5 day dri­ve to get there, but made it in time to say his good­byes before His “born again” broth­er went to meet Jesus.

The beau­ti­ful card shown above is from the artist’s eye of Eric Dry.
Eric is doing well, and was able to help me resolve a trac­tor prob­lem by phone yes­ter­day. Our trac­tor sucked air into the fuel line, pos­ing a major prob­lem since I didn’t know how to bleed the lines and get it run­ning again. Eric patient­ly walked me through it on the phone, and with­in 35 min­utes, we had the trac­tor work­ing again. Please keep Eric and his fam­i­ly in prayer for God’s peace and heal­ing as they deal with the loss of his brother.

I love and appre­ci­ate ALL OF YOU, and please know that your prayers DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE in what goes on over here. Thanks for all you do so that our chil­dren may have a hap­py life full of love, and a good education.

P.S. Lin­da Stan­ley will be fly­ing to South Africa (RSA) on Sat­ur­day, Aug. 10th, to be with Eric a few days before she flies on to the USA the fol­low­ing Tues­day night. Lin­da tells us that God has lift­ed her call­ing to Bala­ma, so she does not plan to return to us. We are VERY grate­ful for her serv­ing heart and all she has taught our mis­sion­ary team and the chil­dren in the 3 years she’s been with us in Bala­ma. We will miss her more than words can describe.

Lin­da Stan­ley and one of the chil­dren. She express­es the lov­ing heart of Jesus, as she speaks “Com­fort”, to each one of us in this photo.

BLESSINGS IN CHRIST, Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange and the Bala­ma staff Lin­da Stan­ley Melis­sa Olmsdahl

From: Linda Ferguson, for” Bush Bunny Brenda” Date :, July 27, 2013

Hello to all of the faithful supporters of Orphans Unlimited, Inc.

This email blog is com­ing to you from Lin­da Fer­gu­son in our Texas office. I am the per­son who’s name appears at the very bot­tom of your week­ly Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Blog.

Bren­da is in Pem­ba today and did­n’t write a Blog entry before she left the Mis­sion Head­quar­ters in Bala­ma. Because of the jam packed sched­ules of the staff, Bren­da was the only one avail­able to deliv­er the team from Michi­gan back to the air­port for their flight home.

The Go Pro­jec­t’s team of Sal­ly Dyke­ma and Dale Mein­derts­ma have been busy help­ing bring in the har­vest, both of corn and of souls. We will have details of their adven­tures soon.

But while “The cat is away.…. this mouse” thought you might enjoy see­ing some pho­tos that rep­re­sent a typ­i­cal, pow­er packed, “day in the life”.. of The Bush Bunny.

Brenda Caring for a babe in mother’s arms- a daily sight.

These starving children were rescued from sure death by their Grandmother, who walked many miles,not knowing if she would find help.

Wor­ship ser­vice looks like lots of fun. The pup­pets are a favorite of both chil­dren and adults.

The wheelchair and the crutches were such a happy surprise. As you can see by the beautiful smiles.

Brenda shows us a stick with cord wrapped around it and beetles in bright colors attached. This tool of the witch doctor was given to her by the woman who was saved and baptized. The former witch doctor hut was burned as a testimony to a life changed by the grace of God.

We couldn’t end the day without checking in on the goats. Sure enough, there’s Brenda and one of the goat team busy worming a reluctant volunteer.

From: Brenda Sue Lang, The Bush Bunny Subject: BBBlog, July 21, 2013

JESUS FILM IMPACTS OVER 1000 “UNREACHED” IN MAPONE VILLAGE

Our Orphan Dra­ma Team at their best, just before the Jesus Film is shown. The boys did a great job and had the audi­ence total­ly captivated.

Our orphan dra­ma team engaged the large crowd with 2 very pow­er­ful pro­grams while our Mis­sion­ary Team set up the film equip­ment just before dark last night at Mapone’s soc­cer field. Many hid in the shad­ows to watch, too afraid to be seen in the crowd by their neigh­bors. Today, Sun­day, 80+ adults and 95 chil­dren came to the church meet­ing to find out more about Jesus. FOUR peo­ple prayed to receive Jesus as they met under a large Man­go tree that had been des­ig­nat­ed “the church” for this vil­lage. A total of 32 new Chris­t­ian adults will now cut fence posts and bam­boos so they can build a prop­er meet­ing place. Hav­ing 180 peo­ple show up for our first post Jesus Film meet­ing makes this vil­lage a record set­ter. It’s the best response we’ve seen so far. The fields are RIPE and we are ready to bring in the har­vest! These new believ­ers begged Pas­tor Alber­to to start a Bible School in their vil­lage. We’ll be orga­niz­ing that to begin 2 weeks from now. Evan­ge­lism is only the first step. DISCIPLESHIP through our Inter­na­tion­al Vic­to­ry Bible School cur­ricu­lum is the way to “train them up in the way they should go”.

Our team is off to the 5000+ pop­u­la­tion of the Mpaca vil­lage for tonight’s show­ing of the Jesus Film. More on that show­ing next week.

DALE’S OBJECT LESSONS IMPACT NAMARA AND PEQUARIA CHURCHES

Dale Mein­derts­ma of Michi­gan is vis­it­ing for his 3rd year in a row, spe­cial­iz­ing in “object lessons” that teach valu­able Bible Lessons to both adults and chil­dren. His 2 audi­ences were total­ly engaged this morn­ing as he used a blind fold­ed child to show how we are lost and in dan­ger with­out Jesus. But WITH Jesus in our hearts, He guides us through life, keep­ing us safe, even when dan­ger is right in front of us. Dale’s sponge dripped water, a per­fect exam­ple of how our words drip out of our mouths, and once gone, can’t be tak­en back for they are “lost” for­ev­er as they hit the dirt and soak into the ground. Bri­dle thy mouth or face the con­se­quences if our words harm oth­ers for you can’t get them back, no mat­ter how hard you try.

BABY RESCUE AT PEQUARIA CHURCH

A moth­er came forth when Dale prayed for the sick, who has a new born but no breast milk. We orga­nized a baby “RESCUE KIT”. A baby bot­tle, can of for­mu­la, and fil­tered water. Nel­son, my 16 year old nurs­ing trainee, got his first chance to teach a new moth­er how to boil water, clean the bot­tle, and take prop­er care of a baby on for­mu­la. The baby is very weak, so our prayer is that the baby will sur­vive it’s rough start in life.

PREGNANT MOTHER IN TROUBLE

Just as every­one returned from church, I received a call from the hos­pi­tal beg­ging our help for a preg­nant moth­er in trou­ble. Being “on call” with 1 of our Land Cruis­er pick-ups as an Ambu­lance is one of the ways we help out when lives are at stake. Our dri­ver, Jan­i­to, rushed out to the clin­ic in Impire at noon to fetch a preg­nant woman hav­ing a seizure. He just came back to say they request­ed him to take her on to the Region­al Hos­pi­tal in Mon­tepuez, 30 miles (60 km) away where C‑sections are pos­si­ble. I had antic­i­pat­ed this, and orga­nized Manuel, our main dri­ver to han­dle this fast trip so that Jan­i­to could car­ry the Jesus Film equip­ment out to Mpaca tonight.

My offi­cial title here is “THE COORDINATOR”. It’s a gift from God, and He helps me do it well. With HIM BY MY SIDE, many lives are touched in every­thing we do. There is no bet­ter place to be than in God’s will for your life. For it is in that place, that HE will show you that you can do more than you ever dreamed you could. NO ONE could have con­vinced me when God called me in 1988, just how much HE would have us accom­plish in these last 23 years. AMAZING is all I can say when I look back at how many lives He’s touched through us and the vis­i­tors he’s sent us.

SALLY PREACHES THE PRODIGAL SON IN ROVUMA TODAY

Sal­ly Dyke­ma of Michi­gan is also here for her 3rd “tour” to preach and love on our kids. Sally’s USA church found­ed Rovuma’s church 5 years ago, so she was received with much singing and danc­ing today by the mem­bers. Sal­ly told us at lunch that even ERIC got in on the danc­ing with the men in the church. Linda’s cam­era bat­tery died, or we would have had that rare hap­pen­ing on film!

CORN IS IN THE BARN!

Dale and our team set­ting up tarps as the rain driz­zled down.

On a cold and rainy Fri­day this week, our 60 man team worked hard and fast to sack and stack the last 305 sacks of super dry corn that will see our orphans through the rainy sea­son (Jan. to May). I’m very proud of our team of Mis­sion­ar­ies (Emma and Melis­sa) as well as our 60 man staff and crew who moved 103 tons of corn in 5 days. It was nev­er more true, when I say that “many hands make the work light”. Our corn barn is now “full to the brim” as we were bare­ly able to close the doors once it was stacked in 7 “pil­lars” reach­ing 13 ft. (3.9 m) in height. The first dis­tri­b­u­tion to 447 hun­gry orphans and the 211 wid­ows who care for them will be Tues­day this com­ing week. This area had a poor corn har­vest due to crop fail­ures from either too much rain or not enough, depend­ing on which of the 9 vil­lages the kids live in. We THANK ALL OF YOU who have gen­er­ous­ly giv­en so that these chil­dren may grow up healthy and do well in school. As every­one knows “hun­gry bel­lies have no ears”.

TIDBITS:

DANIELLE VAN ZYL is back in RSA to get her res­i­den­cy doc­u­ments. Melis­sa Olms­dahl flew in Wed. with Sal­ly and Dale. Melis­sa is from the Chris­t­ian Motor­cy­cle Asso­ci­a­tion church in George, RSA and applies for res­i­den­cy tomor­row, give a year of her life to help us out! Wel­come aboard, Melis­sa! Bik­er Woman!

BLESSINGS FROM THE BALAMA TEAM,

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange

Eric Dry (The Bush Bear)

Lin­da Stan­ley, (Angel)

Melis­sa Olms­dahl (Bik­er Woman!)

Emma Clif­ford, Rough Tough Texan

From: “Brenda Lange” Subject: Blog, July 7

MOPONE VILLAGE A SERIOUS SPIRITUAL CHALLENGE

The remote vil­lage of Mopone is only 14km (8.4 miles) from our base, but it’s like anoth­er world. No mar­ket exists, which sig­nals a VERY poor area. The road to get there took 4 wheel dri­ve due to deep sand and sev­er­al washed out trenched areas. Not a fun dri­ve in the day­light, much less in the dark when we show the Jesus Film in 2 weeks. 

Over 120 peo­ple came to hear the sto­ry of “HOW MAN CAN DEMOLISH THE SIN GAP AND MEET JESUS.” As usu­al when we begin a spir­i­tu­al work in a vil­lage, the crowd is full of doubters and scoffers. Such was the case today, but most did at least lis­ten to the sto­ry (com­plete with pic­tures of how NO ONE can earn their way into heav­en through good works). 

One of the X‑Witch Doc­tors who burned her witch hut 3 weeks ago, is a strong Granny fig­ure, high­ly respect­ed in this vil­lage. She gave a pow­er­ful heal­ing tes­ti­mo­ny telling how her med­i­cine couldn’t cure ail­ments she’d had for years, but since she met Jesus, HE CURED HER! I could see the women in the crowd start­ing to “perk up” and take notice, while the men con­tin­ued to stand off at a dis­tance and talk among themselves. 

We prayed for the sick and 9 MOTHER’S with young chil­dren asked to receive Jesus. Many told us to keep our Jesus, they just want­ed to be healed. 

We prayed for them all, but explained that it is by FAITH they receive the Master’s heal­ing. The doubters stomped out when they didn’t receive an instant heal­ing. But those 9 moth­ers stood fast in the face of many doubters and left with big smiles on their faces. So keep us in prayer as we con­tin­ue to “break new ground” for Jesus. There are now 29 BELIEVERS in Mopone, and we are sure the Lord will reap a big har­vest once His sto­ry is told via the Jesus Film. 

Mopone will be a real chal­lenge for sure. But as we always say, NOTHING IS TOO DIFFICULT FOR JESUS! 

Bless­ings, Bush Bun­ny Bren­da in Bala­ma, Mozambique

From: “Brenda Lange” Subject: Blog, July 6

HEY YALL!

This week has been a whirl­wind of activ­i­ty that has kept us hop­ping from pre-dawn till dusk. 

HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL COURT GETTING A FACE LIFT FOR TEN DAYS

our 26 man con­struc­tion team chipped away with ham­mers and chis­els at HALF the school’s 70 YEAR OLD BASKEBALL COURT, remov­ing the top 2 inch­es of con­crete. Hard, gru­elling work for sure. The new cement sur­fac­ing began yes­ter­day, with our team lay­ing 6 ft. X 15 ft. (2m X 4m) sec­tions BY HAND with the cement being HAND MIXED in small quan­ti­ties to keep it fresh and wet. We only have funds to com­plete HALF THE COURT and the 2 goal posts (total cost of just over $3,500). The oth­er half will have to wait for anoth­er day, as our team has to get back to build­ing the final orphan com­plex we start­ed in April. We hope to have the Half Court Sur­face com­plet­ed by July 12th. MY SPECIAL THANKS TO ERIC DRY for cus­tom build­ing the met­al goal post sup­ports and weld­ing them into place. We hope the con­crete and met­al goals will be tough enough to han­dle the intense usage, as over 500 kids work out on this court weekly. 

THE LASTEST STYLE IN BACKPACKS

First let me say that this is NOT, I repeat NOT, one of our goats! OUR goats ride in style in the back of a pick-up truck when being moved for any rea­son. But Eric thought all of you would get a gig­gle out of this unique trans­porta­tion method invent­ed by a local African.

We call it the “GOAT BAAACKPACK”. 

BUSH BUNNY TO VISIT NEWEST BUSH CHURCH TOMORROW

I’ll be head­ing out to Mopone at 7a.m. Sun­day to meet our newest Believ­ers and pre­pare them for the Jesus Film show­ing com­ing up June 20th. This vil­lage of 5,000 has NEVER SEEN A FILM OF ANY KIND, so this is a real­ly big thing to all of them. I’ve always want­ed to a be a pio­neer, and Jesus gave me the desire of my heart. Tak­ing HIS MESSAGE of love and sal­va­tion to these remote areas is the icing on the cake! MICHIGAN’S “GO” TEAM COMING JULY 17 Dale Mein­derts­ma and Sal­ly Dyke­ma, both expe­ri­enced short term mis­sion­ar­ies, are return­ing for the THIRD TIME for anoth­er evan­ge­lis­tic vis­it to enhance the train­ing of our Pas­tors as well as the new con­verts at Mopone vil­lage. Both of them are a “bar­rel of laughs”, and we look for­ward to their 10 day visit. 

AWANA TEAM COMING

Our team painter and I spent over 3 hours at our mis­sion station’s bas­ket­ball court today mark­ing off the “games pat­tern” for the AWANA TEAM that is com­ing July 31st. Lar­ry Friend, the Inter­na­tion­al Direc­tor of AWANA, is com­ing per­son­al­ly to train up 10 of our Youth Lead­ers. Scrip­ture mem­o­ry for chil­dren is the object of the pro­grams with a bar­rel of FUN thrown in via the AWANA games on the bas­ket­ball court. The HUGE, 37 ft. square game pat­tern is paint­ed in FOUR COLORS so that teams of kids can com­pete against each oth­er in many types of games. This will give us a way to attract the 6 to 12 year olds who are a bit small for shoot­ing bas­kets into the reg­u­la­tion hoops. Our Sports Evan­ge­lism pro­gram is grow­ing rapid­ly with Emma Clifford’s per­sis­tence. Her Dad is a High School Bas­ket­ball coach in the USA, and Emma is a 6 FOOT NATURAL! Every­where we go, we hear kids yelling “EMMA!” They love her and now call ALL OF US, EMMA! Until next week!

Bless­ings and Hugs, Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma Team
Eric Dry
Lin­da Stanley
Emma Clifford
Danielle Van Zyl