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Author Archives: Kim Hartman

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 23, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 23, 2023
 
 
PREPARING FOR MAJOR FOOD CHANGE
 
On Sep­tem­ber 28th our teams will dis­trib­ute a bag of rice to each Granny or Aunt who hosts orphans and receives their food at our Bala­ma Mis­sion base. Our 3 months of corn sup­ply is now fin­ished. We were unable to store corn for the entire year due to a lack of avail­abil­i­ty of the preser­v­a­tive that is nec­es­sary for long-term stor­age. 
 

50 lb or 25 kg sacks of corn flour for our 7 orphan homes
 
Noth­ing changes for our 7 children’s homes, as the res­i­dent orphans will still receive corn flour week­ly. This corn flour is being bought in a town 30 miles/60 km away that has a pro­fes­sion­al mill for bag­ging corn flour for sale to the local stores. We are very grate­ful that this mill exists so that our 55 res­i­dent orphans and the wid­ows who care for them, will be able to con­tin­ue using the menus that encour­age max­i­mum growth for our chil­dren.

CHANGE IS NECESSARY FOR ALL OF US, AS WE MARCH TOWARDS OUR LORD’S RETURN. 
 

BEHIND THE SCENES OF OUR VILLAGE FOOD DISTRIBUTIONS
 
Our food dis­tri­b­u­tion teams give out 24+ TONS of food in each food give-out loca­tion in the “time of hunger”. The orphans and wid­ows from 22 vil­lages meet in 6 dif­fer­ent loca­tions in the  Bala­ma County/District to receive our assis­tance.

The time of hunger extends from August to Novem­ber each year. In the past I have shown you many dis­tri­b­u­tion pho­tos, so now I will share with you what it takes to make those dis­tri­b­u­tions hap­pen.
 
THE DAY BEFORE THE DISTRIBUTION, OUR TEAMS LOAD THE TRUCKS with 4 to 5 tons of food sup­plies need­ed to feed whichev­er group of orphans that will receive it the next day.  This year we are serv­ing 1,145 orphans and wid­ows in Bala­ma. They are divid­ed into 6 loca­tion groups through­out Bala­ma County/District.
 

Load­ing the trucks is the first step in food give out prepa­ra­tion 
 
ONCE LOADED, the trucks are tarped and parked in the shade at our office for safe keep­ing until the next day. That after­noon at 2 pm, my guard buys the team fresh­ly baked bread rolls, leav­ing them with me to pre­pare the next a.m.
 
ON EACH DISTRIBUTION DAY my work begins at 2:30 a.m. (Bush Bun­nies must be ear­ly birds!) At 2:30 a.m. I make fresh peanut but­ter sand­wich­es for our dis­tri­b­u­tion teams who leave at 4 a.m. with the loaded trucks. There is no food in these remote loca­tions.

The teams are usu­al­ly out until 10 a.m. each dis­tri­b­u­tion day, so a hearty break­fast is a must! Once the teams pull out at 4 a.m., I only have 30 min­utes to pre­pare for the con­struc­tion team’s arrival at 4:30 a.m.

With the whole team out of town for the dis­tri­b­u­tion, all oth­er work falls to me, and 2 oth­er staff who stay behind to help out.

FYI:  Sun up is 5:15 a.m., so we do all our prepa­ra­tion work in the dark with flashlights/torches, or the head­lights of the vehi­cles.
 

Granny and orphaned grand­son work­ing togeth­er to get their food to the oth­er orphans liv­ing with them
 
 

God’s lit­tle ones, hap­py to have food to eat
 

Those smiles make all the work worth it
 

That lit­tle smile says it all
 
IT IS HARD WORK, BUT WELL WORTH IT WHEN YOU SEE THE CHILDREN’S FACES AT THE DISTRIBUTION! TOGETHER WE ARE TRULY MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES OF THESE 1,145 CHILDREN AND THE WIDOWS WHO CARE FOR THEM. THANK YOU FOR YOUR FAITHFUL LOVE FOR THEM!
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 16, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 16, 2023
 
 
RICE AND BEANS, A GREAT TREAT!
 
This week found our food dis­tri­b­u­tion team in 3 dif­fer­ent vil­lage areas giv­ing out TONS of dried rice and beans, along with soap, and salt to the many orphans we serve. Rice can­not be grown in many parts of our Dis­trict, so it is a real treat for these chil­dren.

The pho­tos will give you a bet­ter insight into what hap­pens, than I can describe in words. 


Devo­tions with orphans before the food give-out
 

Orphans wait­ing with their Aunt to receive their beans and rice
 

Orphans help­ing their Granny who lost her fin­gers from Lep­rosy
 

A super strong Granny as that sack of rice weighs 50 kg or 110 lbs. Glad she did­n’t live too far away!
 
The food give-outs con­tin­ue next week, as we com­plete our Sep­tem­ber “help­ing hand” to the orphans and wid­ows liv­ing in remote areas. Our objec­tive is to assist them to grow their own food with the seeds that our team will give out in Novem­ber which is the begin­ning of our rainy/food grow­ing sea­son.
 

RESCUING BABIES IN CRITICAL NEED
 
Infants in severe need of help are not always orphans. The infant shown in the pho­to was sent to our milk for­mu­la pro­gram because the moth­er is ill and has no breast­milk. This tiny lit­tle boy is 
2 months old and very ema­ci­at­ed. The mother’s ill­ness had the moth­er bedrid­den, and sad­ly the fam­i­ly delayed get­ting him the care he so des­per­ate­ly need­ed.


A real­ly hun­gry 2‑month-old baby boy who is very under­weight (2.7 kg‑6 lb), but has a rav­ish­ing appetite
 
When Children’s Direc­tor Anna gave him his first bot­tle, he lit­er­al­ly inhaled it, and wouldn’t let go of the bot­tle when it was emp­ty! I’ve nev­er seen a 2‑month-old grasp some­thing so hard! Starv­ing infants are a sad sight that breaks my heart, but this is a big part of the rea­son Jesus sent us to this area. Help­ing the help­less find the love of Jesus!
 

HANGING OUT IN THE AFTERNOON SHADE
 
When the days wash­ing and clean­ing is done, the Fos­ter Moth­ers enjoy some time to relax in the hot after­noons and play with the tod­dlers. Sit­ting under the mas­sive Man­go Tree at House #7 is a great way to cool off! 


Fos­ter Moth­ers and tod­dlers relax­ing under the big Man­go Tree at House # 7
 
I love vis­it­ing in the mid-after­noon, as it helps me to get to know the moth­ers a bit bet­ter than when they are super busy in the morn­ings. The tod­dlers are always up to some­thing new and are a joy to play with.
 

7‑month-old Orlen­cia in front with 6‑month-old Madeli­na behind her
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 9, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 9, 2023
 
PUZZLES AND ENGLISH, A GREAT MIX!
 
This world map puz­zle fas­ci­nat­ed our school age girls, grades 4 to 7. Not only does it help to increase their abstract think­ing, but when the girls fin­ished it, our teacher, Ser­gio, used it to teach the Eng­lish names of the ani­mals on the puz­zle.


Sat­ur­day class mix­es it up with boys play­ing Rum­mikub and girls putting a puz­zle togeth­er
 
The boys were more inter­est­ed in using their Math time to have fun play­ing Rum­mikub. This Sat­ur­day pro­gram is meant to make math and Eng­lish fun, and Ser­gio was amazed at how much fun they all had.

Now on to more dif­fi­cult puz­zles in the next round!
 

Teacher Ser­gio and class after puz­zle is fin­ished 
 

GOING THE EXTRA MILE
 
Res­cu­ing aban­doned babies always sparks a search for the fam­i­ly.  This lit­tle girl was aban­doned after her Wednes­day night birth. A hos­pi­tal nurse alert­ed Social Ser­vices to the aban­don­ment, and we were asked to receive her the next morn­ing when she was less than a day old. In the mean­while, the inves­ti­ga­tion went on in earnest to find a fam­i­ly mem­ber. 
 

Dulce, Social Ser­vices, with tiny infant girl we host­ed for 5 days
 
At 1.8 kg/4 lbs. this lit­tle one was slight­ly pre­ma­ture and very frag­ile, but could she eat! She con­sumed only an ounce (30 ml) at a time, but did it every 2 to 3 hours. It was great to see her with such a good appetite. Keep­ing her body tem­per­a­ture at nor­mal was a bit more chal­leng­ing, but by wrap­ping her in a warm flan­nel blan­ket and doing fre­quent tem­per­a­ture checks over the first 3 days, she final­ly sta­bi­lized.

With­in 1 day, a tip was giv­en that led Social Ser­vices to the grand­moth­er, who lives in a city 60km/30 miles away. The Grand­moth­er eager­ly trav­eled to Bala­ma to claim the baby. With paper­work delays, it was Mon­day morn­ing before the Grand­moth­er and her 5‑day-old grand­child could leave our facil­i­ty for the Grandmother’s home. FYI, the Grand­moth­er lives near the Region­al Hos­pi­tal in this city. This makes me very hap­py, as it means the need­ed med­ical care is on hand if she gets ill.

Serv­ing as an emer­gency res­cue cen­ter is part of what God wants us to do. It was a lot of hard work to sta­bi­lize this lit­tle one, but thanks to my NICU knowl­edge from the USA, we man­aged with what we had on hand to use.
 
THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONSTANT PRAYERS THAT KEEP US COVERED WHEN UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCES ARISE.
 

THE ROOF IS COMPLETE!
 

3‑bedroom Tod­dler house with roof com­plet­ed
 
After 3 days of hard work and 150 tin sheets lat­er, the roof for the 3 bed­room tod­dler house is now com­plete. There is much cement work still to be done, plus mak­ing and mount­ing the many win­dows and 3 doors. Know that our brick team is going at it at top speed.
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF
 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 2, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 2, 2023
 
 
REPAIRING WATER WELLS KEEPS VILLAGES HEALTHY
 
Yes, we are still repairing/maintaining water wells in the vil­lages of Bala­ma and Melu­co Dis­tricts as need­ed. We have nev­er stopped doing this project, as no clean water means death to many and thus more orphans. Due to lim­it­ed space in my blog, I haven’t report­ed each time we repaired a well. I will do a bet­ter job in the future, as Water Well Main­te­nance will always be an inte­gral part of our pro­gram as long as we have the parts need­ed. Manel and his team repaired the water well at the Man­go Tree church on Fri­day after the main pump parts wore out over the last 2 years use.


The chil­dren liv­ing near the Man­go Tree Church are thrilled that they have clean water again
https://youtube.com/shorts/3eT1eKFZrPU
 

CRECENCIO FINDS HIS BALANCE!

Cre­cen­cio, 20 months old, is final­ly walk­ing inde­pen­dent­ly after sev­er­al set­backs caused by a heavy infes­ta­tion of intesti­nal worms and hid­den malar­ia. This lit­tle man has strug­gled to catch up with his larg­er twin sis­ter, Cre­cen­cia, who runs and plays effort­less­ly with the oth­er tod­dlers. Thank you for your prayers for Cre­cen­cio. 
 

Cre­cen­cio walk­ing inde­pen­dent­ly after sev­er­al set­backs
https://youtube.com/shorts/SDxmcbirLG0
 
My respect has deep­ened for the Fos­ter Moth­ers as they spent many an hour doing phys­i­cal ther­a­py exer­cis­es with Cre­cen­cio to help him gain leg strength. His intesti­nal worms blocked him from absorb­ing the high pro­tein meals we pro­vid­ed for him. He had been dewormed when he came to live with us, but it seems the one treat­ment wasn’t enough. Our Doc­tor of Nutri­tion at the hos­pi­tal ordered a 2nd dose giv­en, which cleared up his prob­lem. Once he over­came that and the hid­den malar­ia, he began to gain weight and strength. We are all very proud of his progress, and PTL that he is final­ly healthy!
 

ROOFING 50% COMPLETED, WITH TIN SHEETS GOING ON NEXT WEEK
 
A build­ing that is 22 feet wide x 65 feet (7 meters X 20 meters) long makes for a BIG ROOF! Our 6‑man car­pen­try group teamed up with our brick lay­ers this week to put in the 5 con­crete pil­lars that anchor the 6‑foot veran­da roof against high winds. The tin sheets will be nailed on this com­ing Mon­day and Tues­day, leav­ing only the final brick work to be done.


Car­pen­ters and Brick Lay­ers team up to put in 5 con­crete pil­lars to anchor the roof
 
I am very pleased at how fast our team have been able to con­struct this 3‑bedroom home for our tod­dlers. Our goal of mov­ing in by Novem­ber, looks more and more like a real­i­ty for sure! All 25 of our infants and tod­dlers are grow­ing fast, mak­ing this new home a very wel­comed exten­sion to our 2‑bedroom Ostrich House.
 

THE SEPTEMBER HEAT IS HERE
 
That is the only time our weath­er match­es that of the north­ern Hemi­sphere. So this month we will “sweat it out” with our USA friends who have been suf­fer­ing super-hot weath­er for the last 3 months.
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: August 26, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: August 26, 2023
 
 
HIDDEN MALARIA DETECTED IN 2 OF OUR INFANTS
 

Baby Madeli­na with Fos­ter Moth­er Felic­i­na
 

Almei­da and Fos­ter Moth­er Angel­i­ca
 
Babies Madeli­na, 5 months, and Almei­da, 9 months, were both tak­en to the hos­pi­tal for test­ing after their fos­ter moth­ers report­ed weak­ness in both infants. Hid­den malar­ia is when a per­son is found to have a low count of malar­ia lar­vae from a sim­ple fin­ger stick blood smear that is viewed under a micro­scope. No out­ward malar­ia signs such as fever, lack of appetite, or irri­tabil­i­ty are evi­dent. Hemo­glo­bin lev­els were nor­mal in both babies, PTL, so no hos­pi­tal­iza­tion was need­ed.  Only the nor­mal malar­ia treat­ment over 3 days, vit­a­mins, and a high pro­tein diet were need­ed.

Both are recov­er­ing well, but this sit­u­a­tion clear­ly shows us how vig­i­lant we must be with these infants. This is the 3rd such case we have dealt with in the last 4 months, so it does keep all of us “on our toes”. Catch­ing it quick­ly is vital before the malar­ia lar­vae increase in num­ber and begin destroy­ing the infants blood sup­ply, thus caus­ing life threat­en­ing ane­mia. Your prayers for our con­tin­ued dis­cern­ment of this dead­ly dis­ease are much appre­ci­at­ed.
 

AND THE ROOF GOES ON!
 
Thurs­day found our 6 car­pen­ters and 13 brick lay­er teams work­ing togeth­er to load the 8 heavy wood­en truss­es onto our 6‑ton truck, 4 truss­es at a time. We had to work quick­ly in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing (4:30 to 6 a.m.) to get the truss­es onto the brick walls before nor­mal traf­fic begins at 6 a.m. This home is on a very busy dirt road, but PTL that it is school hol­i­days which means the traf­fic is great­ly reduced. School class­es begin at 6:30 a.m. for many, so this road is full of chil­dren walk­ing to school by 6 a.m. on a nor­mal school day.

Our tim­ing was great as the last truss went up as the first car drove by our truck. The videos show both the out­side and inside views of what it takes to get a truss onto the roof. Being able to dri­ve the truck very close to the back of the house allowed the men to lift from the back of the flatbed truck. This made the job much eas­i­er than when we must lift from ground lev­el. Roof­ing will take 7 to 10 days, and I will show you the fin­ished prod­uct in next week’s blog.
 

Roof­ing truss­es going up at dawn on new three-bed­room house for tod­dlers
https://youtube.com/shorts/am_2Pp90i68
 

View inside the room putting up the truss­es
https://youtube.com/shorts/dcp1k4w8L8A
 

OUR OLDEST HOME BITES THE DUST
 
Tak­ing down a large mud home may look sim­ple, but not when it was built in 2005! Mud homes don’t usu­al­ly last more than 10 years due to crack­ing and rain dam­age, but this old home had 
10-inch-thick mud brick walls mak­ing it very stur­dy. 
 

Eigh­teen-year-old dorm as it looked Thurs­day morn­ing
 
Our brick lay­er team strug­gled for 5 hours on Thurs­day to break it down to ground lev­el as the roof was attached to the walls, mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult. When our team built this home 18 years ago, we gave no thought to how dif­fi­cult our very well con­struct­ed home would be to destroy! 
 

Tak­ing down the old dorm with 10-inch-thick mud brick walls
https://youtube.com/shorts/oOKqZZbprS0
 
The video clear­ly shows what it’s like when those mud walls come tum­bling down.

WHY DID IT NEED TO COME DOWN?  First, the roof beams had rot­ted, mak­ing it very dan­ger­ous for any­one to stay in the house. The wid­ow liv­ing there was moved to anoth­er home.  Sec­ond, it was next to our Vic­to­ry House of chil­dren, mak­ing it dan­ger­ous if high winds ripped off the roof. The only solu­tion was to destroy it. 
 

After 5 hours of hard work, the job is almost com­plete
 
WE THANK ALL OF YOU FOR YOUR LOVING KINDNESS TOWARDS OUR CHILDREN EACH MONTH.  YOUR PRAYERS AND LOVE GIFTS KEEP US MOVING FORWARD TO MAKE A BETTER LIFE FOR THOSE CHILDREN GOD PLACES INTO OUR CARE.
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF
 
 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: August 19, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: August 19, 2023
 
BABY JUMAIDA FINALLY HOME!
 

Baby Jumai­da and Fos­ter Moth­er Esti­va­nia much hap­pi­er now that they are home
 
At Noon on Mon­day, August 14, the hos­pi­tal released this sweet 7‑week-old infant girl, but the thrush in her mouth con­tin­ues to be a prob­lem. We are chang­ing treat­ments in hopes that mak­ing her mouth less acidic with a super dilut­ed bicar­bon­ate of soda will kill it out. Oth­er­wise, she seems fine as she now weighs 4.1 kg/9 lbs. which is amaz­ing! (Her admis­sion weight was 3.5kg/7.7 lbs.) An infant that gains weight in hos­pi­tal while ill is not some­thing I have seen before. Keep pray­ing for her immune sys­tem to strength­en, as that will take care of the thrush prob­lem and give her a safe­ty shield.
 

AUGUST FOOD DISTRIBUTIONS NOW COMPLETED
 
This week found our food dis­tri­b­u­tion teams in 3 loca­tions giv­ing out the last of the corn that these orphans will receive this year.
 

Orphans real­ly hap­py with their food and soap gifts
 

No mat­ter how young, these chil­dren know the val­ue of this sack of corn and are mak­ing sure no one takes it while Granny is fetch­ing their beans
 
The Sep­tem­ber dis­tri­b­u­tion will be rice, along with the much need­ed beans, soap, and salt. It’s a dif­fer­ent world for all of us, as we switch gears at the end of August from corn to rice. With world­wide food short­ages, I am thrilled that we can pro­vide our fam­i­ly of orphans with good, nutri­tious food, even if it is not exact­ly what they are use to.
 

Typ­i­cal scene with the orphans help­ing their Aunt who divides corn while her own infant sleeps
https://youtube.com/shorts/1AiFlkYMKDc
 

Granny divides the corn sack so her orphaned grand­sons can help car­ry the load back to their mud hut
https://youtube.com/shorts/LFJqsiVh78k
 

THREE BEDROOM HOUSE NOW AT ROOFING LEVEL
 
The emp­ty lot I showed you a few months ago now holds a 3 bed­room house with walls up to 3 meters/9.75 feet! 
 

Walls almost com­plet­ed on 3 bed­room home for tod­dlers
 
These bed­rooms are 6 X 6 meters/19.5 ft square, so there is plen­ty of room for our ever-grow­ing lit­tle ones. The roof­ing will begin next Wednes­day if all goes as sched­uled. Doing our best to get it fin­ished as soon as pos­si­ble, as our lit­tle ones are fast out grow­ing their junior beds!
 
WE APPRECIATE ALL OF YOUR PRAYERS AND LOVE GIFTS, FOR OUR STAFF AND THE BUSH BUNNY COULDN’T DO THIS JOB WITHOUT YOU!
 
BLESSINGS AND MUCH THANKS!
 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: August 12, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: August 12, 2023
 
JUMAIDA RECOVERING AFTER MINOR SURGERY
 

Baby Jumai­da just after minor surgery
 
Sat­ur­day night, baby Jumai­da didn’t sleep and cried most of the night due to the pain from the abscess in her shoul­der as it began to “ripen”. The head nurse of the emer­gency room, who is a very fine man, agreed to open the abscess as it was now ready. Once opened, as is usu­al, all pain stopped, and Jumai­da fell asleep instant­ly. Poor thing was total­ly exhaust­ed.

She is just 7 weeks old, but thank­ful­ly, is now on the road to recov­ery. The infec­tion she has is slow­ly being wiped out by the IV antibi­otics that she is receiv­ing. She will remain in the hos­pi­tal until the doc­tors think the infec­tion has been cleared from her blood. This “hand me down sick­ness” from her moth­er has giv­en this sweet baby a rough start in life. 
 
THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS ASKING FOR A COMPLETE AND RAPID RECOVERY FOR THIS LITTLE ONE.
 
 
FOOD GIVE OUTS BEGIN IN THE REMOTE VILLAGES
 

Our very strong men load­ing our truck with these 132 lb. (60 kg.) bags of beans for vil­lage dis­tri­b­u­tion
 
Mon­day found our team load­ing the 6‑ton and 7‑ton trucks with TONS of corn, beans, plus soap and salt for the orphans and wid­ows liv­ing in the Mavala area. This pro­gram was repeat­ed on Thurs­day in Tuaune (Ti-whan­ny) vil­lage, and Fri­day in Kwe Kwe vil­lage.

The corn har­vest was lim­it­ed this year, so we pur­chased addi­tion­al tons of the very nutri­tious, local­ly grown rice to make up the dif­fer­ence. After the August give-out, the orphans will receive bags of nutri­tious rice instead of corn. Rice is con­sid­ered a treat in this cul­ture, so this will bring smiles to many faces.


Super bal­anc­ing act does not go unno­ticed in our first give-out Tues­day
 
Enjoy the pho­tos, as it clear­ly shows how grate­ful the orphans and their grannies are to receive our help­ing hand.
 

Granny spilled her beans and is mak­ing sure that all of it gets back in her bag. Food is super pre­cious to these peo­ple as they are the poor­est of the poor
 

Orphans help­ing grand­ma divide up the food they wil take home
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: August 5, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: August 5, 2023
 
BABY JUMAIDA IN HOSPITAL WITH SERIOUS INFECTION
 

Baby Jumai­da in the hos­pi­tal
 
Baby Jumai­da, now 6 weeks old, has had a very rough start to life. First, com­ing from a men­tal­ly chal­lenged moth­er who reject­ed her and would have killed her if the grand­moth­er had not whisked her away and tak­en her to Social Ser­vices for help. Sec­ond­ly, suf­fer­ing through a week with the elder­ly grand­moth­er who tried, but was not able to care for her. Then final­ly com­ing to live with us when just 10 days old.

When Jumai­da was received, she had small sores all around her scalp, but an oral antibi­ot­ic and good hygiene cleared it up with a 7‑day treat­ment. Just after her 30th day of life, Jumai­da devel­oped a new abscess on the back of her head that did not respond to 2 dif­fer­ent kinds of oral antibi­otics. When she spiked a high fever on Tues­day, August 1st, fol­lowed by a hard swelling at the base of her neck, the Bala­ma Doc­tor put her into the hos­pi­tal for IV antibi­ot­ic treat­ment. She is show­ing a slow response to treat­ments so far.

PLEASE PRAY FOR JUMAIDA, as she needs a mir­a­cle to pull out of this. Remem­ber that she had no Colostrum milk from her moth­er, and that has great­ly decreased her resis­tance to dis­ease. Will update next week, as her sto­ry pro­gress­es.
 

FOUR DAY SEMINAR ON CHILD CARE…
 

Child Care Class Atten­dees
 
…has kept us hop­ping this week! With our staff and 7 prin­ci­pal moth­ers in the con­fer­ence, it has been a whirl­wind of activ­i­ty this week for me to keep our orphan­age oper­at­ing smooth­ly. The mate­ri­als used to teach our prin­ci­pal moth­ers (flip charts, exer­cise books, etc.) will be left behind by Guil­herme and Ali­fo, the 2 Social Ser­vice Instruc­tors who gave the course. We will then hold small group teach­ing pro­grams for the oth­er moth­ers who had to stay at home to care for our 25 infants and 30 oth­er chil­dren in res­i­dence. With so many new moth­ers, this Child Care Sem­i­nar was a must to assure the best care is giv­en to all our chil­dren.
 

Child Care Sem­i­nar was a great suc­cess!
 

BABY ORLENCIA, 5 MONTHS, NOW SITTING!
 

Orlen­cia with Fos­ter Moth­er Gil­da sit­ting close by
 
Orlen­cia is the 2nd youngest infant in our care. (Jumai­da at 6 weeks is our youngest.) I was total­ly sur­prised last week when I vis­it­ed the 2 infant homes at noon to find Orlen­cia SITTING UP INDEPENDENTLY out­side on her play mat. Those big eyes are beyond words, as she tries to take in all the new sights around her.
 
YOUR LOVE AND PRAYERS ARE SO MUCH APPRECIATED! THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS LIFE-SAVING PROGRAM A HUGE SUCCESS!
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: July 29, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: July 29, 2023
 
 
MADELINA RELEASED FROM HOSPITAL!
 
God answered your prayers for Madelina’s health just 1 DAY after you prayed for her.  She is healthy, and eat­ing well after return­ing to her home with us over the week­end.  There is no sign of the malar­ia, no vom­it­ing, or oth­er symp­toms that she expe­ri­enced on her 7th day of hos­pi­tal treat­ment.  We are VERY HAPPY to have her healthy and at home!
 

Baby Madeli­na and Fos­ter Moth­er Felic­i­na hap­py to be home again!
 

KIDS AND BALLS, A PERFECT COMBO!
 
Last week, I made a quick sup­ply run to Pem­ba. While there, I found won­der­ful small soc­cer balls (very tough) that were per­fect for our tod­dlers. Load­ing up the cart with 8 minia­ture soc­cer balls brought inquis­i­tive looks from oth­er shop­pers who passed my cart. They prob­a­bly thought I was nuts over soc­cer balls, not real­iz­ing I have 25 lit­tle ones who ADORE any kind of ball. 
Juma loves play­ing soc­cer, even if his house­mates haven’t quite caught on yet
https://youtube.com/shorts/IFoRhC-tOjM
 
I also found spe­cial balls with bells on the inside, which became an imme­di­ate hit since they make noise!
 

Cre­cen­cia try­ing to fig­ure out the ball with the bell in it
 

BUSH BUNNY HAIR CHALLENGE 
 
Find­ing a per­son who can cut woman’s hair in our area is a BIGGER CHALLENGE than imag­ined as the local Catholic Nuns and I found out this year. Sis­ter Lisha always cut our hair, but when she left last Sep­tem­ber, it put all of us in a quandary. I had no choice but to let my hair grow long in the back. I could cut the sides and front myself to an accept­able lev­el, but not the back. 
 

One year of hair growth on Bush Bun­ny Bren­da.
 
FINALLY, 11 MONTHS LATER, I no longer need­ed dog tags!  One of the local Sis­ters met anoth­er Sis­ter at a con­fer­ence who lives just 2.5 hours away  on the road to Pem­ba! After con­tact­ing her, I could final­ly get my hair cut! It is amaz­ing that what most con­sid­er a “lit­tle thing” in life can bring such JOY once all is back to “nor­mal”. 
 

Bush Bun­ny with her nor­mal cut thanks to Sis­ter Tere­sa.
 

A very hap­py Bush Bun­ny with a great hair­cut!
 
THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND LOVE GIFTS THAT MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR OUR PROGRAMS TO CONTINUE SAVING GOD’S CHILDREN.
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF
 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: JULY 22, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: July 22, 2023
 
 
FAMILY EVICTS NEW CONVERT
  
Nel­son, 15, received Jesus in one of our Namuno Coun­ty church­es 2 weeks ago. When his fam­i­ly found out, they told him to fetch his clothes and leave. He was now dead to them. Nel­son went to the only per­son whom he knew would give him refuge, our Pas­tor Alber­to, who imme­di­ate­ly noti­fied me of the sit­u­a­tion.

Nel­son has stood firm in his sal­va­tion, PTL, and for that we all have a great respect for his courage and love of the Lord Jesus. Most young men of his age would have wavered and pos­si­bly renounced Jesus in order to avoid rejec­tion from their fam­i­ly.
 

Nel­son, 15, with our Namuno Pas­tors. Nel­son is 4th from the left in front row.
 
Our State Pas­tor inves­ti­gat­ed the sit­u­a­tion, and it was decid­ed that the young man should live with our Pas­tor, as there was tru­ly no where else for him to go. Accept­ing Jesus requires sac­ri­fice in many cul­tures. This is not the first time I have seen this hap­pen, and sad­ly it won’t be the last as we move clos­er to our Lord’s return.
 

BABY MADELINA NOT RESPONDING WELL TO IV MEDICATIONS FOR MALARIA
 
Baby Madeli­na, 8 MONTHS OLD, has been in the Bala­ma hos­pi­tal since July 14, after she devel­oped RESISTANT MALARIA that requires IV med­ica­tions to destroy it. After 2 days on the nor­mal Coartem treat­ment at our mis­sion home, Madeli­na sud­den­ly spiked a high fever, became super irri­ta­ble, and was vom­it­ing any­thing she con­sumed. 
 

Baby Madeli­na still fight­ing to recov­er from resis­tant malar­ia
 
Those are the signs of Resis­tant Malar­ia, mean­ing the dis­ease is stronger than the nor­mal med­ical treat­ment. The nor­mal IV treat­ment is 5 to 7 days, but as of yes­ter­day (day 7), Madeli­na was still cry­ing a lot, and vom­it­ing what she ate. These are not good signs, and I am not sure what the Doc­tor will try next.

PLEASE KEEP MADELINA IN YOUR PRYAERS AS THIS HAS BECOME A SERIOUS SITUATION.
 

BBC AND VILLAGE PASTORS SEEING A GREAT HARVEST OF SOULS FOR JESUS!
 
With the nor­mal food har­vest and our food buy­ing behind us, the BBC Teams are now back to their reg­u­lar program.
Awe­some action shot of the Bawana games Note the crowd of chil­dren watch­ing the games


Awe­some action shot of the Bawana games. Note the crowd of chil­dren watch­ing the games
https://youtu.be/wwXq-jBokgw

The most pop­u­lar game of all is the tug o war!


The most pop­u­lar game of all is tug-o-war!
https://youtu.be/cco6nVmhHiU
 
This last quar­ter (April, May, June) nor­mal­ly sees a low­er num­ber of peo­ple com­ing to the evan­ge­lis­tic pro­grams, but not so this year! The fol­low­ing num­bers are adults, teens, and chil­dren com­bined with the largest group being the chil­dren.
 
APRIL SALVATIONS:  2,142 PEOPLE out of 30,000+ atten­dees
MAY SALVATIONS:   2,225 PEOPLE out of 32,000+ atten­dees
JUNE SALVATIONS:   1,386 PEOPLE out of 21,000+ atten­dees  (June is har­vest month, when every­one is har­vest­ing their fields.)

A group of young­sters pray­ing to receive Jesus


A group of young­sters pray­ing to receive Jesus!
https://youtu.be/9F_FY2N7D6E
 
GOD IS MOVING IN A POWERFUL WAY IN THE BALAMA AREA!
Keep your prayers com­ing for this SOUL HARVEST to con­tin­ue!
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF