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Author Archives: Kim Hartman

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: OCTOBER 14, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: OCTOBER 14, 2023
 
 
BBC MOTORBIKE TEAM GIVES A HELPING HAND
 
Granny Rud­die (Roo-dy) and her 2 orphaned grand­sons, ages 6 and 7, live in a remote vil­lage that is a 1‑hour motor­bike ride from our mis­sion. No oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers exist, and Granny Rud­die is not strong in her legs (the rea­son she is sit­ting in the pho­to).

The BBC rou­tine­ly takes food to her and 2 oth­er orphan fam­i­lies in this vil­lage. When the BBC team saw the con­di­tion of Granny Ruddie’s roof, Car­l­i­tos took pho­tos to include in his request for funds to repair it. 
 

Granny and 2 orphaned grand­sons in front of their mud hut
 
Only the BBC goes to this area via their motor­bikes, so that team of 4 men will repair the roof. They have orga­nized to buy the need­ed grass and bam­boo mate­ri­als from local vil­lagers in that area. Total cost to buy the mate­ri­als is only $90/R1,620. So lit­tle can do so much to help oth­ers in need.
 
THANK YOU, FOR YOUR LOVE GIFTS WILL MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR US TO HELP THOSE WHO TRULY NEED IT.
 

WEDNESDAY WAS VOTING DAY!
 
The ever-grow­ing Bala­ma town will be des­ig­nat­ed a “city” in Jan­u­ary, 2024, so the local res­i­dents will deter­mine who will be May­or of Bala­ma.  Since our fos­ter moth­ers are essen­tial work­ers, they can­not leave their chil­dren unless some­one takes their place.  Sev­er­al staff and reserve moth­ers stepped in for a few hours while the moth­ers were tak­en by our 3 dri­vers to vote in their des­ig­nat­ed loca­tions.  Pho­to ID’s are required for all vot­ers, so our Dri­vers checked that every­one had theirs before leav­ing our mis­sion base. Once the first group of moth­ers were back, then those who stayed behind went to vote. 

My appre­ci­a­tion goes out to our 3 dri­vers who shuf­fled the moth­ers back and forth to the vot­ing cen­ters.  A perk for the Dri­vers is that they were assigned to take moth­ers to the vot­ing loca­tion where they were sup­posed to vote. All our staff were able to vote, so it went well. Since our 19 tod­dlers in Hous­es 6 and 7 know our staff and the reserve moth­ers, they stayed calm and played as usu­al, PTL! Not an easy thing to accom­plish with that many lit­tle ones! 
 
Fea­tured in the pho­to is Fati­ma, Assis­tant Children’s Direc­tor, hold­ing Madeli­na, and Reserve Moth­er Mari­amo hold­ing wide eyed Orlen­cia.
  

Sub­sti­tute moth­ers step in to love on our babies while the Fos­ter Moth­ers went to vote
 
Every­one dress­es up to go vote! It is a big thing to vote here, as that priv­i­lege has only been avail­able to the pub­lic for about 20 years. It will be a week or 2 before the paper bal­lots are tal­lied and the results are known.
 

DINO TAKES A DIVE
 
Tues­day, while play­ing ball in his phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion class, dorm stu­dent Dino slipped while try­ing to block a ball, injur­ing his left wrist. The school took him to the hos­pi­tal for treat­ment, which is just a short dis­tance from where the acci­dent hap­pened. Turns out it is a bad sprain of his wrist, so the hos­pi­tal staff splint­ed it for com­fort and pro­tec­tion for 15 days. No more soc­cer for a few weeks, but Dino still man­aged a smile when I took his pho­to.
 

Dino gives me a grin, even though he has to sit on the side­lines for a few weeks
 
PLEASE KEEP US IN YOUR PRAYERS AS WE KEEP YOU AND ISRAEL IN OURS.
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: OCTOBER 7, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: OCTOBER 7, 2023
 
 
JUMAIDA MAKES MIRACULOUS RECOVERY!
 
Thank you so much for your prayers! Jumai­da total­ly turned the cor­ner with all symp­toms gone on Sun­day, Oct. 1st. She was allowed to come home and is now eat­ing well with no gas­tric upset. I was amazed that she only lost 100 gm after 5 days of IV flu­ids and very lit­tle by mouth.
GOD IS GREAT! HIS MERCIES ARE NEW EVERY MORNING!
 

A very hap­py Jumai­da after her bout with severe gas­troen­teri­tis
 

SURPRISE VISITORS ON MONDAY AFTERNOON
 
Due to missed com­mu­ni­ca­tions, an inspec­tion team from Social Ser­vices in Pem­ba sur­prised us at 12:30pm on Mon­day. Seems they sent a notice that we nev­er received. This team first vis­it­ed our Children’s Learn­ing Cen­ter where our 4th and 5th graders were study­ing Por­tuguese with teacher Pedro. 
 

Cape­na (far L) explains the pur­pose of our after school pro­gram
 
Then it was off to vis­it 2 of our children’s homes. This team has been here before, and tru­ly enjoys meet­ing with our Fos­ter Moth­ers and the younger chil­dren as you can tell from the pho­to.
 

Pem­ba vis­i­tors with our fam­i­ly at House #6
 
REPAIRING WATER WELLS IN MELUCO DISTRICT
 
Our water well team was request­ed by Melu­co offi­cials to help them repair 15 water wells in as many vil­lages. Our truck was about to make its month­ly sup­ply trip to the Meluco’s orphans. Our dri­ver Manuel who is also head of the water well repair team, just added the water well parts he thought they might need. Man­u­al and assis­tant Mon­sur, along with their “guide”, a Melu­co offi­cial wear­ing a Cow­boy hat, man­aged to repair 5 water wells in 6 hours the day they arrived. The oth­er wells will be ser­viced lat­er this month, as they require addi­tion­al parts that our team didn’t have with them.
 

Melu­co offi­cial puts fin­ish­ing touch­es on a vil­lage well that they just repaired
https://youtube.com/shorts/ZnL9axeM0HU
 
 

Vil­lage kids gath­er round the well, as clean water keeps them healthy
 
THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTE TO THIS FUND SO THAT THESE VILLAGES CAN HAVE CLEAN WATER.
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 30, 2023

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 30, 2023
 
 
BABY ANCHA WITH POST MALARIA BLAHS DUE TO ANEMIA
 
After com­plet­ing the 3‑day course of malar­ia med­ica­tions last week, Baby Ancha’s strength didn’t spring back as is usu­al with tod­dlers. Instead, she remains tired, lacks an appetite, and is run­ning a low-grade fever in the late after­noons.

We took her to the hos­pi­tal for a post malar­ia lab test which came back neg­a­tive. That tells us that her symp­toms are com­ing from her low blood count. Malaria’s biggest tool for killing lit­tle ones is the post malar­ia ane­mia it can cause. Ancha is receiv­ing the max­i­mum pro­tein and vit­a­min sup­ple­ments that are avail­able, so now we must wait. 
 

18-month-old Ancha is not a hap­py camper. Ane­mia is slow to cor­rect itself.
 
Thir­ty days is a nor­mal recov­ery time for this type of ane­mia when tak­ing sup­ple­ments. Please keep her in your prayers.

 
BABY JUMAIDA GIVES US A SCARE
 
It is always a time to cel­e­brate when our very vul­ner­a­ble infants make it to the 5 kg./11 lb. mark! That means they are usu­al­ly strong enough to han­dle being out of their mos­qui­to net and thus out­side with her fos­ter fam­i­ly. 
 

Jumai­da dear­ly loves being out­side under the huge man­go tree at House # 7.
 
Thurs­day, 2 pm, Jumai­da pre­sent­ed with a lit­tle diar­rhea. She was giv­en the nor­mal oral treat­ment and seemed to be fine since she was tak­ing a bot­tle.  At 6 pm, I received a pan­icked call from Head House Moth­er Gil­da. Jumai­da had just filled her dia­per and tak­en a turn for the worse.  “Come quick­ly!” Gil­da said.

Rac­ing to House # 7, I knew Jumai­da need­ed IV flu­ids and med­ica­tions imme­di­ate­ly as she was almost non-respon­sive. Thank­ful­ly, the Emer­gency Room Direc­tor was work­ing, as he is excel­lent with start­ing infant IV’s. With IV flu­ids, elec­trolytes, and IV treat­ment for the diar­rhea, he had Jumai­da awake with­in 45 min­utes of our arrival! Thank you, JESUS!  What a relief it was to see her look­ing around as if ask­ing, “Where am I?” 
 

PRAYERS REALLY DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
 
There is no doubt in my mind that God’s Angels were watch­ing over our lit­tle Jumai­da, mak­ing sure that she was well tak­en care of. Dysen­tery is so easy to con­tract. As adults, we deal with the incon­ve­nience, take the med­i­cine to stop it, and don’t think much about it. To a 3‑month-old infant, 1 micro­scop­ic bac­te­ria from a sucked fin­ger is all it takes to start the process.

Jumai­da is an over­com­er, as this is her 2nd ill­ness need­ing hos­pi­tal­iza­tion.  She is one tough lit­tle girl for sure! PLEASE KEEP JUMAIDA IN YOUR PRAYERS, and I will keep you updat­ed.
 

WIDOWS AND THEIR FAMILIES POUND THE RICE FOR ORPHAN GIVE-OUT
 

Our church wid­ows work­ing hard so oth­ers can eat.
https://youtube.com/shorts/db5Jpyxcq7I
 

These young ladies make rhyth­mic pound­ing of rice look so easy!
https://youtube.com/shorts/e0BmL6vwKQ8
 
These pre­cious wid­ows and their grand­kids from our church worked very hard for 4 straight hours to de-hull 10 sacks of rice for the elder­ly orphan care­tak­ers whose “pil­lar­ing” days are over.  Pil­lar­ing is hard work, as those poles weigh around 10 kg./22 lbs. each! That’s why the video of the lit­tle girls shows them using short poles that aren’t so heavy. TO PILLAR or pound the rice, is to remove its hull so the seed (rice as you know it), can be cooked and eat­en. This week we had our first rice give-out. It went fair­ly smooth­ly even though we had to make many changes in our dis­tri­b­u­tion meth­ods.
 
LIFE IS ALWAYS CHANGING. ONLY THOSE WHO FLEX WITH IT WILL SURVIVE.
 
NOTE TO “LOVE GIFT” GIVERS: The August finan­cial report blessed me to tears!  
 
THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR CONTINING TO GIVE SO THAT OUR LITTLE ONES CAN HAVE A JESUS FUTURE.
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

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