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Author Archives: Kim Hartman

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 3, 2022

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 3, 2022
 
ANCHA AND FRANCIANO IN HOSPITAL
 
Wednes­day morn­ing is food dis­tri­b­u­tion day for our 7 orphan homes, but we were met with an ear­ly morn­ing sur­prise when 6 month old Baby Ancha wouldn’t stop cry­ing, and Baby Fran­ciano was look­ing weak.  Both were rushed to the hos­pi­tal, and as sus­pect­ed, Ancha’s malar­ia had rebound­ed.  Since she is just under 5kg/11 lbs, she was unable to take the fol­low up med­ica­tions after her first malar­ia case. This made her vul­ner­a­ble for a 2nd case after 2 weeks time.  An infant MUST BE over 5kg to take an oral malar­ia med­ica­tion or it will dam­age their liv­er.  Fran­ciano was dehy­drat­ed as he had sores in his mouth, and had a diar­rhea stool at the hos­pi­tal.  IV’s were start­ed on both and appro­pri­ate med­i­cines giv­en. Ancha must stay at least 5 days for IV med­ica­tions since that is the required stay for this malar­ia treat­ment.
Thank­ful­ly, Franciano’s lab tests returned neg­a­tive for any infec­tion, so he was rehy­drat­ed with an IV solu­tion and released lat­er that after­noon.  Both are recu­per­at­ing well, and we THANK YOU for con­tin­u­ing to hold them up in prayer.  Both these lit­tle ones are still in the “dan­ger” zone as they are very under­weight for their age.
 
 

Ancha look­ing bright eyed after 2 days of malar­ia treat­ments
 
 

Fran­ciano home from the hos­pi­tal
 
 
MORE INFANTS NEEDING FORMULA
 
We have admit­ted 1 sin­gle birth and a set of twins into the Infant For­mu­la Pro­gram this week. Our Infant For­mu­la Pro­gram has 34 mal­nour­ished vil­lage infants at this time, so the local Doc­tor in charge of the Bala­ma Nutri­tion­al Pro­gram came to see them at our mis­sion this Thurs­day. Three were tak­en to the hos­pi­tal by the Dr. for fur­ther med­ica­tions, as they were sick, but NONE need­ed hos­pi­tal­iza­tion. The remain­der were deemed in improv­ing con­di­tion and allowed to go back to their vil­lage homes.  PTL!
Please keep all these pre­cious lit­tle ones in your prayers.
 
 

Chil­dren’s Direc­tor teach­ing new moth­er with no breast milk how to bot­tle feed
 
 
EVANGELISTIC TEAMS CAN RESUME TEACHING VILLAGE CHILDREN!
 
JUMPING FOR JOY!, the VILLAGE PASTORS AND THE BBC BICYCLE TEAMS will begin cir­cu­lat­ing in the vil­lages next week if all goes as planned.
 

Hap­py Pas­tors as they can now con­tin­ue their bawana games Bible teach­ing to 100’s of vil­lage chil­dren
 
 
BBC MOTORBIKE TEAMS will make a slow­er start as NO GASOLINE is avail­able in the Bala­ma pumps.  The price has jumped to $5.90 per gal­lon due to the short­age. The BBC’s nor­mal dai­ly con­sump­tion is 4 liters/bike/day. Using 4 bikes over a 5 day pro­gram = 80 liters or 20 gallons/week.    Know that we are pray­ing for a solu­tion as the pumps in the next town over (Mon­tepuez) have a lim­it­ed sup­ply of gaso­line. Many pump own­ers are not allow­ing cus­tomers to buy in bulk.  It is a 60 mile/120 km round trip dri­ve to Mon­tepuez. 
 
GOD CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS, so join with us in find­ing some­one who will SPONSOR THE PRICE OF THE FUEL, AND FOR A FUEL STATION THAT WILL ALLOW US TO FILL AT LEAST EIGHT, 5 GALLON CONTAINERS at one time. (2 weeks fuel for the team).  The PERFECT SOLUTION would be if our Bala­ma fuel sta­tion received fuel, but as of now, there is no fuel at the Nacala Port where the fuel is off loaded.  UGH!
 
THANKS FOR ALL YOU DO BY KEEPING OUR CHILDREN AND PASTORS IN YOUR PRAYERS!
 BLESSINGS FROM BALAMA,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: AUGUST 20, 2022

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: AUGUST 20, 2022
 
BABY ANCHA RELEASED FROM HOSPITAL
 

Baby Anch now with her Fos­ter Moth­er, Ceclia, at House #7.
 
FINALLY, 5 month old BABY ANCHA enters her new home and meets her new fos­ter moth­er, Cecelia. ANCHA is still very tiny (4 kg) and frag­ile, but is gain­ing weight with fre­quent feed­ings. Tak­en by Social Ser­vices from a men­tal­ly ill moth­er who wasn’t feed­ing her, Ancha has suf­fered tremen­dous­ly in the first 5.5 months of her life.  She was removed 2 weeks ago from her home when she pre­sent­ed at our milk pro­gram with a HIGH FEVER because she had Malar­ia which caused severe Ane­mia (Hbg of 6.6), AND she was in seri­ous res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­tress. 
 We plan to start her on rice cere­al in a few days, hop­ing to advance her to the super for­ti­fied Hypo Cere­al in the next 2 weeks.  The Hypo Cere­al is vit­a­min and pro­tein for­ti­fied, and for­mu­lat­ed espe­cial­ly for mal­nour­ished infants and chil­dren in Africa. 
Ancha must be watched close­ly, for ANY infec­tion could send her plum­met­ing back into a life threat­en­ing sit­u­a­tion.
This is what I mean when I say that we care for HIGH RISK BABIES that no one else wants to care for.
Since she is way behind the nor­mal weight for a 5 month old baby, she has a lot of catch­ing up to do.
PLEASE KEEP BABY ANCHA IN YOUR PRAYERS.
 
TODDLER MOVES UP
 
Fati­ma, now 2 years old, has grad­u­at­ed to a “Junior Bed” and sleeps in a room with 2 Fos­ter Moth­ers car­ing for old­er babies Gil­da and Juma. 
 

L to R. Fati­ma, Gil­da, and Juma.
 
BABY ELSA BACK IN THE HOSPITAL WITH MALARIA
 

Baby Elsa in hos­pi­tal with Fos­ter Moth­er Lucin­da.
 
This lit­tle one pre­sent­ed on Wednes­day this week with a high fever, res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­tress, and diar­rhea.  She is in sta­ble con­di­tion with IV med­ica­tions being giv­en for malar­ia and her res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tion.  PLEASE KEEP HER IN PRAYER, AS SHE NEEDED A BLOOD TRANSFUSION, due to the malar­ia drop­ping her blood count to 7.6.  She looks bet­ter today, but has a ways to go to be back on top of all these ill­ness­es.
 
BABY SUZANNA NOW WALKING
 

 Susan­na shows us how well she walks.     
https://youtube.com/shorts/1aH3UixuyrU
 
SUZANNA is the last of the orig­i­nal 13 crit­i­cal infants we received in Feb­ru­ary and March, 2021.  Suzan­na has now joined the offi­cial Dirty Dozen who are all walk­ing, mak­ing it a Baker’s Dozen (13).  Our tod­dlers with their new found free­dom keeps them play­ing in the sand­box­es as well as the dirt!  Next year sev­er­al of them will be old enough to join our Lit­tle Dis­ci­ples learn­ing pro­gram for 3 to 5 year olds.  How time flies for these lit­tle ones are grow­ing up quick­ly.
 
 
BUNNY IS OFF TO SOUTH AFRICA FOR 3 DAYS NEXT WEEK
 
NO BLOG will be post­ed next week as I will fly to RSA on Wednes­day and return Fri­day, arriv­ing in Bala­ma only on Sat­ur­day.  It’s time to fetch a new sup­ply of the pre­cious HYPO CEREAL which we are almost out of.  With many, many mal­nour­ished babies in our pro­gram since last Novem­ber (when our sup­ply truck deliv­ered the Hypo), we are unable to con­tin­ue dis­trib­ut­ing this won­der­ful life sav­ing high pro­tein cere­al unless I go fetch more.  Babies lives lit­er­al­ly depend on it.
It will be a fast trip, but there is much to do in Bala­ma with food dis­tri­b­u­tions begin­ning in Sep­tem­ber, and de Bun­ny can’t be gone for long.  With only 2 flights/week, (Wednes­day and Fri­day), I don’t have an option but do it all in one day!  JOY!
 
BLESSINGS FROM BALAMA,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: AUGUST 13, 2022

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: AUGUST 13, 2022
 
 CERTIFICATE OF RECOGNITION RECEIVED
 

Cer­tifi­cate of Recog­ni­tion giv­en by Bala­ma Admin­is­tra­tor to our church
 
The Bala­ma Admin­is­tra­tor hon­ored us with a Cer­tifi­cate of Recog­ni­tion for all that our pro­gram (Igre­ja Aguas Vivas/Living Waters Church) has con­tributed to assist Balama’s chil­dren and wid­ows over the last 21 years.  It is a great hon­or to receive such recog­ni­tion as it is not giv­en light­ly.  NONE OF WHAT WE ACCOMPLISHED would have been pos­si­ble with­out our “behind the scenes” part­ners (you)!  It is an hon­or to serve the Lord in help­ing young­sters have hope of a bet­ter life when they have lost all that real­ly mat­ters to them, their par­ents. 
 
BABY ANCHA NEEDS PRAYER
 

Baby Ancha
 
This lit­tle 5 month old girl has had a tough start in life, as her mother’s men­tal ill­ness kept her from being prop­er­ly cared for.  Only 3.6kg/8 lbs when we received her last week, Ancha has fought off malar­ia, diar­rhea, and an upper res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tion.  But in her fight to sur­vive, her first trans­fu­sion made no improve­ment in her blood count when her 2nd set of lab tests were received.  A SECOND TRANSFUSION was giv­en on Tues­day of this week with bet­ter results (Hbg 8).   On Fri­day, Ancha once again had a fever, vom­it­ing, and diar­rhea.  The hos­pi­tal had only a small amount of a very strong antibi­ot­ic that she need­ed, so our Pastor/Driver Manuel left at 4 a.m. this morn­ing to pick up more of that med­i­cine from a phar­ma­cy in Pem­ba.  PTL that they had it in stock!
 
UPDATE: Ancha is show­ing improve­ment after two dos­es of strong antibi­otics
 
PLEASE PRAY FOR BABY ANCHA’S FULL RECOVERY.  SHE NEEDS A MIRACLE TO PULL HER OUT OF THIS.
 
TODDLER CHABANY DEVISES A CAR…
 

Chevany’s new car
 
From an old cook­ing pan of all things!  This just goes to show us that when a boy wants a car, he will make a plan!  Love his inge­nu­ity!
 
BLESSINGS FROM BALAMA,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: NOVEMBER 4, 2022

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: NOVEMBER 4, 2022
 
2 REVERENDS RETURN TO BALAMA
 
Rev­erends Gito and Ramadan returned to Bala­ma late Mon­day after­noon after an adven­tur­ous trip to Tete City, then on to Malawi for their ordi­na­tion. The trip was suc­cess­ful, but not with­out chal­lenges.  


L. to R. Rev­erend Gito, Bish­op Zali­ra, and Rev­erend Ramadan.
 
A Cholera out­break made cross­ing the bor­der a bit chal­leng­ing due to restric­tions that helps pre­vent the dis­ease from spread­ing. We are very proud of both our men, as they are hard work­ing evangelist/church planters with lots more work to do for the Lord.

More on the work ahead of them after I debrief them this week­end, and we set up a plan of evan­ge­lis­tic action.
 

BOTH MOTHERS CAME THROUGH SURGERY WITHOUT COMPLICATIONS
 
Thanks to your prayers, both Fos­ter Moth­ers Berti­na and Feleci­na had no com­pli­ca­tions from their surg­eries. 


            Fos­ter Moth­er Berti­na                        Granny Felic­i­na
 
Bertina’s chal­leng­ing tumor turned out to be a SIMPLE TUMOR, with­out com­pli­ca­tions.  PRAYERS ANSWERED, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!  She has been released to her home, and will return in 7 days for suture removal. Feleci­na is still in hos­pi­tal, as her hip tumor was quite large and involved. I don’t have many details on that, but will update once I know more.
 

TINY 2 DAY OLD NEEDS YOUR PRAYERS
 

Tiny 2 day old baby girl Esper­an­ca needs your prayers.
 
Two day old Esper­an­ca (HOPE) was brought to us on Mon­day by her Aunt Ernesti­na for milk assis­tance. A neigh­bor had suck­led the child from birth, as the moth­er died short­ly after Esper­an­ca was born. Esper­an­ca nev­er received the mother’s colostrum milk, so her immu­ni­ty is com­pro­mised. Our staff was THRILLED to see Esper­an­ca at our Thurs­day infant for­mu­la weigh in.  She had gained 50 gms since Mon­day, and was look­ing more active. Please prayer for her immune sys­tem to strength­en rapid­ly.
 
MOVING 40 TONS OF CORN IS A BIG JOB
 

Mov­ing 40 tons of corn to keep it cool­er.
 
With 20 strong men, who made it look easy to lift 132 lb./60kg bags of corn, we did our year­ly shift­ing to get the corn low­er to the ground, thus keep­ing it cool­er. The 4 stacks of corn were reduced from 15 rows to 10 rows in height, with the extra corn being stacked in the free area avail­able after 2 months of food dis­tri­b­u­tions.

The front stacks are easy, as the men removed the top sacks and made a new stack next to it. The 2 back stacks required some jug­gling to keep the men safe while toss­ing the sacks from the back stack to the front stacks for eas­i­er trans­port.  The pho­to shows the men mov­ing sacks from one stack to anoth­er. It was a relief when it was all done, as no stack shift­ed or fell, nor was any­one injured. That’s a great day in my book!
 
WE ARE MARCHING ON FOR JESUS BECAUSE YOU CARE.
 BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: NOVEMBER 4, 2022

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: NOVEMBER 4, 2022
 
2 REVERENDS RETURN TO BALAMA
 
Rev­erends Gito and Ramadan returned to Bala­ma late Mon­day after­noon after an adven­tur­ous trip to Tete City, then on to Malawi for their ordi­na­tion. The trip was suc­cess­ful, but not with­out chal­lenges.  


L. to R. Rev­erend Gito, Bish­op Zali­ra, and Rev­erend Ramadan.
 
A Cholera out­break made cross­ing the bor­der a bit chal­leng­ing due to restric­tions that helps pre­vent the dis­ease from spread­ing.  We are very proud of both our men, as they are hard-work­ing evangelist/church planters with lots more work to do for the Lord.

More on the work ahead of them after I debrief them this week­end, and we set up a plan of evan­ge­lis­tic action.
 

BOTH MOTHERS CAME THROUGH SURGERY WITHOUT COMPLICATIONS
 
Thanks to your prayers, both Fos­ter Moth­ers Berti­na and Feleci­na had no com­pli­ca­tions from their surg­eries. 


            Fos­ter Moth­er Berti­na                        Granny Felic­i­na
 
Bertina’s chal­leng­ing tumor turned out to be a SIMPLE TUMOR, with­out com­pli­ca­tions.  PRAYERS ANSWERED, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!  She has been released to her home, and will return in 7 days for suture removal. Feleci­na is still in hos­pi­tal, as her hip tumor was quite large and involved.  I don’t have many details on that, but will update once I know more.
 

TINY 2‑DAY-OLD NEEDS YOUR PRAYERS
 

Tiny 2‑day-old baby girl Esper­an­ca needs your prayers.
 
Two-day-old Esper­an­ca (HOPE) was brought to us on Mon­day by her Aunt Ernesti­na for milk assis­tance. A neigh­bor had suck­led the child from birth, as the moth­er died short­ly after Esper­an­ca was born. Esper­an­ca nev­er received the mother’s colostrum milk, so her immu­ni­ty is com­pro­mised.  Our staff was THRILLED to see Esper­an­ca at our Thurs­day infant for­mu­la weigh in.  She had gained 50 gms since Mon­day, and was look­ing more active. Please prayer for her immune sys­tem to strength­en rapid­ly.
 

MOVING 40 TONS OF CORN IS A BIG JOB
 
With 20 strong men, who made it look easy to lift 132 lb./60kg bags of corn, we did our year­ly shift­ing to get the corn low­er to the ground, thus keep­ing it cool­er. The 4 stacks of corn were reduced from 15 rows to 10 rows in height, with the extra corn being stacked in the free area avail­able after 2 months of food dis­tri­b­u­tions.


Mov­ing 40 tons of corn to keep it cool­er.
 
The front stacks are easy, as the men removed the top sacks and made a new stack next to it.   The 2 back stacks required some jug­gling to keep the men safe while toss­ing the sacks from the back stack to the front stacks for eas­i­er trans­port. The pho­to shows the men mov­ing sacks from one stack to anoth­er. It was a relief when it was all done, as no stack shift­ed or fell, nor was any­one injured. That’s a great day in my book!
 
WE ARE MARCHING ON FOR JESUS BECAUSE YOU CARE.

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: AUGUST 6, 2022

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: AUGUST 6, 2022

NEGLECTED BABY ANCHA JOINS THE FAMILY
 

Baby Ancha when 1st admit­ted to milk pro­gram in mid April
 
Ancha’s moth­er ran out of breast milk when Baby Ancha (born March 6) was 5 weeks old.  Social Ser­vices request­ed that we admit her to our Infant For­mu­la Pro­gram, which we did in mid-April.
Baby Ancha only comes in every 2 weeks due to liv­ing in a vil­lage 17 miles from Bala­ma.  She con­cerned us with her slow weight gain as she weighed only 4.1kg/9 lbs. at her weigh-in two weeks ago.

This week (at 5 months old) she weighed  3.6 kgs/7.9 lbs, which is a loss of .5 kg/1.1 lbs, so it was time for intense action.  Our staff imme­di­ate­ly called me to bet­ter access the sit­u­a­tion.  The now ane­mic infant had a fever and was very, very weak.  I rushed her to the Bala­ma hos­pi­tal where she was admit­ted imme­di­ate­ly as her Rapid Malar­ia Test turned POSITIVE with­in sec­onds.

She was so dehy­drat­ed that flu­ids had to be giv­en before fur­ther lab test­ing could be done.  Lab tests lat­er that day revealed that Ancha need­ed blood (Hgb only 6.6, nor­mal is 12), had seri­ous diar­rhea,
and a res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tion as well.

Social ser­vices inves­ti­gat­ed, and a trip to the fam­i­ly revealed the moth­er has men­tal prob­lems.  My staff and I agreed to take over the care of the infant, and the moth­er was removed from parental care due to seri­ous neglect and inabil­i­ty to prop­er­ly care for an infant. PLEASE PRAY FOR ANCHA AS SHE IS IN A FRAGILE STATE, BUT SLIGHTLY STRONGER AFTER HER EMERGENCY TRANSFUSION. 
 
This lit­tle girl is tru­ly a sur­vivor with lots of fight. Just try to remove her bot­tle before she is full, and she instant­ly lets you know that was NOT a good move! I’ll keep you informed as to how she pro­gress­es.
 

7TH OF APRIL GROUP LOOKING STRONGER
 

9 Orphans show off the food and nice clothes your Love Gifts pro­vide
 
The nine orphans liv­ing with 3 Aunts in a vil­lage called 7th of April are all healthy and going to school THANKS TO YOUR HELP! The 3 feed sacks con­tain 2 weeks of corn flour and beans, plus salt, and the chil­dren are hold­ing the bars of soap need­ed to keep their new clothes nice and clean. Your love gifts also pro­vide them with school mate­ri­als so the old­er chil­dren can go to school.

Their vil­lage sits at the foot of a moun­tain about 1 hour dri­ve from Bala­ma by motor­bike.  Two of our Bush Bik­ers for Christ lead­ers take these gifts to them every 2 weeks on their motor­bikes as the road is a bit rough on pick-ups.
 
THANK YOU FOR PROVIDING FOOD, CLOTHING, AND EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR THESE CHILDREN.
 
BUSH BIKERS FOR CHRIST UPDATE
 
Our Office Admin­is­tra­tor, Cape­na, and I met with gov­ern­ment offi­cials on Tues­day of this week to ask per­mis­sion for our BBC Teams to return to the vil­lages with the BAWANA Pro­gram of games and Bible Sto­ries.  At the moment we are wait­ing to meet with oth­er offi­cials as this requires 3 dif­fer­ent agen­cies to give their per­mis­sion.  I will keep you informed as those meet­ings are delayed due to 1 offi­cial being in meet­ings in the cap­i­tal city, Pem­ba.  PATIENCE is the name of the game. 
 
PRAY FOR FAVOR AS WE CONTINUE THIS JOURNEY THIS COMING WEEK.
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: JULY 30, 2022

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: JULY 30, 2022
 
WHAT CAME IN NOW GOES OUT
 
Our barns are FULL!!!
 

308 TONS OF CORN!
 

108 TONS OF BEANS!
 

Last but not least. 90 TONS OF RICE IN THE HULL!
 
The food has already start­ed going out to those orphans and wid­ows in the Bala­ma area as they have only small farms which can­not sus­tain them for over a month. Our staff dis­trib­utes food each Wednes­day to our Children’s Homes at our mis­sion, and each Thurs­day to the wid­ows and orphans liv­ing near us. 

AGAIN THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO TO MAKE OUR “JOSEPH PROJECT” pos­si­ble.  In the Bible, God told Joseph to store up food for the next 7 “good years”, because a famine was com­ing that would last anoth­er 7 years. Each year we store up for the “time of hunger” that we know is com­ing from Octo­ber to Decem­ber. This is the peak of the dry sea­son when noth­ing will grow, and many wid­ows run out of even their star­va­tion food (casa­va root). The Joseph Project pro­vides those wid­ows and orphans with life sus­tain­ing food so they won’t starve before the rains begin in late Decem­ber and food can be grown again.

LISTENING TO THE LORD is what makes our pro­gram such a big help to all.  But it takes YOU lis­ten­ing to the LORD also, for this pro­gram “takes all of us” to make it a huge suc­cess. THANK YOU LORD FOR LISTENING EARS!
 
GOD’S ANGELS PROTECT EVA FROM NEAR DEATH DISASTER
 

Sweet Eva ® and her Grand­moth­er Elisa. Eva is hap­py to be almost healed after being hit by a bad dri­ver on a motor­cy­cle.
 
Eva was one of the first orphans we began to help in 2002 when I first start­ed the Joseph Pro­gram.  Her Grand­moth­er Elisa had to raise Eva after her moth­er died of dysen­tery while vis­it­ing from anoth­er area.  Eva was born with Cere­bral Pal­sy, but is remark­able in that she talks, sings, walks, runs, jumps, and helps her Grand­moth­er with house­hold chores.  Eva was doing one of those “chores” when a motor­cy­clist using bad judge­ment hit her as she returned from the local mar­ket with toma­toes for their evening meal. 

Eva was walk­ing where she was sup­posed to be on the shoul­der of the road, when a motor­cy­clist passed on the WRONG SIDE of the road, cross­ing the yel­low stripe, and strik­ing her as she left the mar­ket.  FIFTEEN STITCHES LATER ON THE BACK OF HER HEAD, HER LEFT ARM, AND LEG, PLUS A HUGE SKIN ABRASION ON HER BACK where she slid on the tar road, Eva was released from the Emer­gency Room and sent home. I change her dress­ings dai­ly to pro­tect her stitch­es and treat her “road burn”.  Most peo­ple hit by a speed­ing motor­bike are not so for­tu­nate as our EVA, for many are killed upon impact. 

THANK YOU JESUS FOR GUARDIAN ANGELS AROUND OUR CHILDREN!
 

REMOTE VILLAGE EAGER TO KNOW JESUS!
 

 
Our Pas­toral Team of 14 Pas­tors and 2 assis­tants came to our month­ly meet­ing yes­ter­day with some fab­u­lous sto­ries of vil­lagers eager to know JESUS!  Pas­tor Gito request­ed help in a new area he was serv­ing called “Mumbe” (Mum-bee) where the adults and chil­dren have request­ed he tell them all about Jesus.  All the Pas­tors report­ed a steady influx of new peo­ple into their church­es.
SALVATIONS IN JULY:  ADULTS-58, TEENAGERS-75, CHILDREN-420!

The chil­dren are beg­ging for our Bush Bik­ers for Christ (BBC) to come have “Sun­day School” with them.  PRAY, for we hope to get per­mis­sion to restart this fan­tas­tic evan­ge­lis­tic out­reach again in August.  We hope to talk with gov­ern­ment offi­cials this com­ing week to get their deci­sion on this.  Before the Covid out­break which shut down this pro­gram, our teams were reach­ing over 21,000 chil­dren in many vil­lages EACH WEEK with the love of JESUS!
 
WITH GOD, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE, so please join with us in ask­ing God to reopen this door.
 BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: JULY 23, 2022

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: JULY 23, 2022
 
RICE PORRIDGE ANYONE?
 
With 90 TONS now fill­ing 2 barns, our kids can have rice any­time they want it.  We buy our rice in the hull, straight from the field, as wee­vils don’t mess with it.  God’s shell keeps those tasty lit­tle ker­nels nice and safe until we desire to dehull it for eat­ing.  Our group of wid­ows liv­ing in our homes as well as some of the women from our church dehull rice BY HAND for the chil­dren once each month, giv­ing them the fresh­est, vit­a­min rich rice avail­able any­where.  Just ask any vis­i­tor who has eat­en it how tasty and fill­ing it is! 
 

Bring­ing in 90 tons of rice took three days as we could only han­dle 600 sacks a day
 
Note that 90 TONS is twice what we usu­al­ly buy, but we decid­ed this was best for 2 rea­sons. 
     1.   Our main rice grow­ers lacked rain at the prop­er time this year, leav­ing them with NO har­vest.  THANKFULLY, the small farm­ers in oth­er areas of this coun­ty were able to bring in a few sacks each to fill our need.  FYI:  Rice in the hull will keep up to 2 years if kept dry.
     2.   With uncer­tain weath­er pat­terns for 2023’s rainy sea­son, this could eas­i­ly affect corn grow­ers in 2023 as well.  Thus, best to have a food reserve we can count on.
 
 
BEE HOME DISCOVERED
 
Rice stack­ing inter­rupt­ed until we chased off a large hon­ey­bee fam­i­ly. Unknown to all of us, a fam­i­ly of bees built a four-bed­room home in the 4X4 build­ing beams in the sec­ond rice ware­house.
 

4 Bed­room home of local hon­ey bees
 
 OUR THANKS TO OUR BUSINESS CONTRIBUTOR WHO MADE RICE BUYING POSSIBLE.  YOUR LOVE GIFT WILL FEED HUNDREDS OF CHILDREN OVER THE NEXT YEAR.
 
 
WINTER COLD CONTINUES BUT…
 
Noth­ing seems to stomp out the malar­ia mos­qui­to! Malar­ia mos­qui­tos are less active dur­ing this cold time but are nev­er stopped com­plete­ly.  In cold weath­er we know some of the chil­dren will suf­fer Upper Res­pi­ra­to­ry Infec­tions (colds, sinus infec­tion), but this win­ter has been excep­tion­al­ly tough on all of us.  
 

Edward, 9 years old has malar­ia and Baby Fran­ciano has a sinus infec­tion but still smil­ing
 
I hear many of our donors are laugh­ing because our “win­ter” means night tem­per­a­tures of 50F/13C, but our chil­dren are use to 10 months of VERY HOT weath­er.  A 40-degree F/25C DROP IN TEMPERATURE is super cold to them, espe­cial­ly because many only have light cot­ton cloth­ing.  
 
THANKS TO YOUR GENEROUS LOVE GIFTS, we can afford the cold weath­er cloth­ing to pro­tect them, as well as the med­i­cines that help our chil­dren recov­er quick­ly when they do get sick.
 
 
UGLY BUT VERY HELPFUL
 
IGUANAS are not known for their beau­ty, but they sure love eggs and things that slith­er along the ground.  This curi­ous crit­ter keeps our snake pop­u­la­tion to a min­i­mum as it scours our woods for tasty morsels of snake eggs, or new­ly hatched snakes.  This guy has been around for sev­er­al years and makes an appear­ance out of his intense curios­i­ty every now and then.  Not vio­lent, but that tail can be lethal, so that even our guard dogs know to “bark, but don’t approach”.
 

Our guard lizard (3 foot igua­na) decid­ed to check out my guard dog
 
After tak­ing the pho­to, I told him it was time to “dis­ap­pear “again, and he casu­al­ly walked back to the woods as I walked a few feet behind him to make sure he got there unin­ter­rupt­ed by my guards.  The locals fear any­thing that gets that big, but I am doing my best to edu­cate all our kids and staff on how ben­e­fi­cial even ugly crea­tures can be.
 
 
WHAT CAME IN, MUST GO OUT
 
With food buy­ing over, it is time to vis­it vil­lages and update our orphan lists in August.  Due to the late har­vest of corn, last year’s orphan group has food that they raised them­selves.   Our team will begin dis­trib­ut­ing food in Sep­tem­ber.
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: JULY 16, 2022

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: JULY 16, 2022
 
CORN BARN IS FULL TO THE BRIM!
 
All 5,200 sacks (312 TONS) were weighed and stacked in our corn barn over 7 days by our VERY POWERFUL 106-man team.  
 

Our weigh­ing sta­tion at sun­rise. 600 sacks weigh­ing 132 lbs/60 kgs went over that scale each day for 7 work­ing days
 
Start­ing dai­ly in the dark using our pick up lights at 4:30 a.m., we usu­al­ly fin­ished our 600-sack dai­ly quo­ta by 11 a.m. and were ready to hit the show­ers.  Corn is very dusty, and the strong sun­rise winds that hit dai­ly picked up the loose dirt to add to the dusti­ness.
 
 

Cow­boy Jamie has faith­ful­ly hand sewn sacks for us since we began buy­ing in 2005
 
 

The tall stong men push the last of the “lad­der” goes upon the 5200 sacks
 
 

And the last sack goes up!  HALLELUJAH!!!
 
NEXT WEEK we move on to buy­ing 90 tons of local RICE straight from the fields.  The 90 sacks of PEANUTS IN THE SHELL weigh­ing 40Kg/88lbs PER SACK will also be received, wrap­ping up our 2022 food buy­ing.  HALLELUJAH!
 
WE ARE MOST GRATEFUL TO OUR FOOD DONORS AND OUR STAFF FOR MAKING THIS ALL POSSIBLE.
 
EVEN WITH ALL THE WORK THERE IS STILL TIME FOR WEEKEND FUN
 

Jess and I had fun dis­trib­ut­ing bal­loons to the chil­dren and squeaky tous for our tod­dlers dur­ing our week­end break from corn buy­ing
 
 
JESS RETURNS TO SOUTH AFRICA
 

Jes­si­ca Christie with her beau­ti­ful smile and trusty side­kick, her cam­era
 
Jess, a true shut­ter bug, did her best to cap­ture every aspect of our pro­gram dur­ing the 14 days she stayed at our base.  She is dear­ly loved by our chil­dren, as she brought fris­bees and jump ropes for the chil­dren to play with.  She was a super bless­ing to me by light­en­ing my work load around the mis­sion sta­tion.  Jess has returned to her home to begin the tedious edit­ing process of all the footage she took.  Our goal is to come up with infor­ma­tive videos and pho­tos for Social Media and our web­site.  I will let you know when she begins post­ing, but please be patient as it is not a sim­ple process and will take some time.
 
TOGETHER WE ARE SAVING LIVES AND GIVING VULNERABLE CHILDREN A CHANCE AT A FUTURE.
 
THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND LOVE GIFTS THAT MAKE ALL THIS POSSIBLE.
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: JULY 9, 2022

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: JULY 9, 2022
 
CORN, CORN, AND MORE CORN!
 
The major­i­ty of our staff’s whole week has cen­tered around the corn buy­ing with the pho­tos pret­ty much telling the sto­ry. The remain­der of the corn will be weighed and stored this com­ing week, com­plet­ing this mon­u­men­tal task, so we can move on to buy­ing rice. With more and more baby orphans show­ing up here week­ly, our plan to fill the barns to capac­i­ty is more impor­tant than ever.
 

Corn Moun­tain will feed over 1,500 Orphans and Wid­ows for next 12 months​
 
Yes­ter­day we thought our work was done when an ane­mic, orphaned, 7‑month-old baby girl was brought to us by the grand­moth­er at 1pm. We gave them baby for­mu­la and Hypo baby food, teach­ing them how to prop­er­ly feed this lit­tle one. They will now be attend­ed each week at our Bala­ma pro­gram, along with the 32 oth­er orphaned infants receiv­ing week­ly assis­tance. (no pho­to to respect fam­i­ly wish­es).
 

2,500 sacks of corn went through our scale this week​.
 

78 TONS stacked for dis­tri­b­u­tion from August to November​.
 
YOUR LOVE GIFTS ARE INVALUABLE AS LIFE IS NOT POSSIBLE FOR THESE INNOCENT LITTLE ONES TOTALLY DEPENDENT ON INFANT FORMULA THAT HAS RISEN FROM $5 TO $6/CAN.
 
 
BITTER COLD SWEEPS BALAMA AREA
 
With tem­per­a­tures down in the low 50’s°F/15°C at dawn, and high winds con­stant­ly pick­ing up and throw­ing dirt across people’s yards, few ven­ture out­side until the sun comes out to warm the air. The nor­mal temps are always in the 90’s°F/33°C for 10 months of the year, so this big drop in tem­per­a­ture makes it very cold for all of us. THE WARM SWEAT SUITS YOUR LOVE GIFTS pro­vid­ed to our chil­dren are keep­ing them warm and healthy. THANK YOU FOR THIS PRECIOUS GIFT!
 

Our lit­tle ones bun­dled up against the cold.​
 
Now back to the barns on Mon­day to fin­ish the corn.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS FOR OUR SAFETY.
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF