It’s been an INTENSE 6 months of work to pre­pare the new hous­ing com­plex­es for our res­i­dent orphans. The girls’ old home had to be torn down, debris removed, and a whole new com­plex built from con­crete brick.  That start­ed at the end of June and is now COMPLETE! Hal­lalu­jah, PTL!  We have a few spots to touch up with paint on Mon­day but we plan to move our 6 girls and their fos­ter par­ents into this new com­plex on Wednes­day.  Noth­ing like a new home for Christmas!

The Teenage Boys’ Dorm still needs many inner walls paint­ed, doors mount­ed, and win­dows screens ham­mered into place. We plan to move them in the first week of Jan­u­ary, as the dai­ly rains (1–2 inch­es per day) have great­ly hin­dered the work­ers. Start­ing at 5 am, we make the most of the few hours we have before the rains hit.  Our con­struc­tion teams have worked SOAKED to make things hap­pen in this last week. I real­ly appre­ci­ate their ded­i­ca­tion as they know the dead­line is upon all of us and the job MUST BE DONE on time.

Eric did a mar­vel­lous job of installing the solar light­ing sys­tems and the kitchen sinks in BOTH the girls and boys homes. Our kids now have the most mod­ern homes in all of Bala­ma Coun­ty. The health inspec­tors who came this week were speech­less! The only crit­i­cism they could think of was to put in SOAP DISHES ON THE BATHROOM WALLS!  We all got a laugh out of that one!

We do still have one orphan com­plex to build next year, as we were phys­i­cal­ly over­whelmed with the mas­sive work­load it took to build the first 2 com­plex­es in order to meet all of the new reg­u­la­tions. Fos­ter moth­er Assia and the 8 boys and girls who live there are patient­ly wait­ing for us to rebuild their home in 2013.  This con­struc­tion will begin as soon as the rainy sea­son ends in April. In the mean­time, we are con­sid­er­ing build­ing an ARK for rainy sea­son sur­vival. (Just joking!)

THANK YOU TO ALL WHO GAVE TOWARDS THIS PROJECT SO OUR KIDS COULD CONTINUE LIVING WITH US! Six-year-old Dol­lar, our newest res­i­dent, approached me on his 2nd day in our care and asked: “May I stay here for­ev­er?” Abused and aban­doned, he knew LOVE as soon as he received it!

If we had not been able to build these hous­es, these chil­dren would have been removed from our care. YOUR LOVE GIFTS ARE GIVING MANY KIDS A FUTURE THEY NEVER DREAMED POSSIBLE.

The Bun­ny is hop­ping a plane to vis­it many of you! If you need fur­ther details, con­tact me or our office:

linda@orphansunlimited.org

TEXAS

 

Sun­day, Jan. 27th, 9 am,  LEHRER MEMORIAL CHURCH, Gar­wood, TX

 

Sun­day, Feb. 3rd, 10 am, EMMANUEL FELLOWSHIP , Gon­za­les, TX

 

Sun­day, Feb. 3rd, 6 pm,  COLUMBUS BAPTIST CHURCH, Colum­bus, TX

 

Tues­day, Feb. 5, 10 am, ROCK ISLAND EVANGELICAL CHURCH, Rock Island, TX

 

Wednes­day Feb. 6th, Pri­vate pre­sen­ta­tion, San Antonio,TX

 

Thurs­day Feb. 7th, CONCORDIA SCHOOL OF NURSING, Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­si­ty, Austin, TX

 

Fri­day, Feb. 8th (meet­ing pend­ing in San Mar­cos, TX) place and time to be announced

 

Sun­day, Feb. 10th, 10 am,  NORTHPOINT CHURCH, New Braun­fels, TX

 

Sun­day, Feb. 10th, 6 pm, FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, Sequin, TX

 

KANSAS, LOUISIANA, FLORIDA, OKLAHOMA, OHIO

 

Tues­day Feb. 12th to 15th, pri­vate pre­sen­ta­tions, Wichi­ta, Kansas

 

Sun­day Feb. 17th,  HINESTON TABERNACLE (am ser­vice), Hine­ston, LA

 

Fri­day, Feb. 22nd, CHRISTIAN SCHOOL, Jack­sonville, Florida

 

Sun­day, Feb. 24th, JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA CHURCH  (details to be announced in January)

 

Feb. 26th-28th, VICTORY CHRISTIAN CENTER, Tul­sa, OK, Wed. night service

 

Sun­day, March 3rd, FAITH COMMUNITY CHAPEL, Leesville, OH

 

Mon­day March 4th, 8:15 am, INDIAN SPRINGS CHRISTIAN SCHOOL

 

Tues­day March 5th, Leesville Woman’s Meeting

 

Wednes­day March 6th, 7 pm, Leesville Children’s meeting

 

Sun­day March 10th, 10:30 am, OASIS ASSEMBLY OF GOD, Nor­walk, OH

 

ALASKA

 

Tues­day March 12th to Mon­day, March 18th in Cor­do­va, Alaska.

 

Sun­day March 17th, morn­ing ser­vice, LITTLE CHAPEL, Cor­do­va, Alaska

 

TEXAS

 

Sun­day, March 31st, 10 am, ALL AROUND COWBOY CHURCH, Sealy, TX

 

April 2nd, fly out to Mozambique!

 

Due to the heavy rains this week, trav­el to our bush church­es is not pos­si­ble. Eric Dry is in South Africa, as his 4th grand­child will be born via C‑section this Wed., Dec. 19th. He’s a very proud grand­pa and has the pho­tos to prove it!  Before he left, he brought me his portable hard dri­ve with all his pho­tos on it to put in our safe. 85,000+ pho­tos to be exact!  Most are the min­istry, but he does have many files of his grandkids.

The blog will con­tin­ue week­ly dur­ing our wet Christ­mas sea­son. Leona Phillips, Eliz­a­beth Rum­ball (Aus­tralian vis­i­tor), and I are busy plan­ning the orphans’ Christ­mas par­ty. We are pray­ing for a dry day for the par­ty, or we’ll have only water sports for activities!

MERRY CHRISTMAS from all of us! I look for­ward to see­ing many of you very soon. Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma gang.