IT ISN’T OVER YET!

First, I real­ly appre­ci­ate all of you who prayed that we would be kept safe. But this isn’t over yet, so please keep the prayer chains going.

The storm is now south of Bala­ma, BUT will still cause much rain in the Bala­ma area through this Thursday. 

And some of the weath­er fore­cast mod­els are con­cerned it could regen­er­ate! That means the storm cell would go back out to sea, regain strength, then hit us a 2nd time!

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions are com­plete­ly down in Melu­co where the Cyclone did the most dam­age. Dur­ing the 1st day of the storm, our orphan man­ag­er, Syl­vai (pro­nounced Sil-vi), in Melu­co texted us the updates, not­ed below. Then the cyclone stalled just north of Melu­co, bat­ter­ing it with esti­mat­ed 60 mph (100 km) winds and heavy rains for 2 days. Here in Bala­ma we have received heavy rains for 4 days, and it is still rain­ing as I write this.

Here’s what I do know:

1. ALL THE CHILDREN AND WIDOWS ARE SAFE! The only report of injury we received was our Melu­co manager’s 13 year old son, who was hit by a fly­ing tree branch. It cut his leg, need­ing 5 stiches.

2. The Melu­co FOOD WAREHOUSE with the May food was DESTROYED. This is a major loss, as June begins the “buy­ing sea­son” for the 2019 corn and beans.

3. Our Melu­co CHURCH, food dis­tri­b­u­tion area, and guard house were all DESTROYED.  

4. The Melu­co Pas­tor’s home, the 1 orphan home we have in Melu­co, and our Man­ager’s home were left stand­ing! PTL FOR THAT!

The ROOF of Syl­vai’s house was LIFTED by the strong winds, but then crashed back down onto the strong fence posts hold­ing his walls.  THIS IS A MIRACLE!!! It cracked the mud on his walls, but his house held together.

These homes stood when many oth­ers fell, because we made the walls of “pao-peeky” (pow-peek-ee). (Dig­ging deep post holes for 16 foot wood­en posts, that are then woven togeth­er with bam­boo and plas­tered with mud.)  Stronger than mud brick, they stood the test of rag­ing winds!

5. The orphan’s food in Meluco’s destroyed ware­house is wet, but still usable if dried, pound­ed into flour, and eat­en imme­di­ate­ly. Sylvia plans to dis­trib­ute it to the orphans and wid­ows as soon as the storm passes.

6. WHEN THIS FOOD IS GONE,  the major chal­lenges begin.

7. Sat­ur­day, April 27, Syl­vai texted that the tem­po­rary bridge to Melu­co was washed away AGAIN because of the swollen riv­er from all the rains. If you remem­ber, this bridge col­lapsed in March from a flash flood. It had been replaced with a tem­po­rary dirt/culvert bridge which worked well for small vehicles. 

8. REBUILDING the ware­house is essen­tial BEFORE June food buy­ing begins. BUT the bridge must be fixed ASAP for that to hap­pen. WE only have 30 days, and our hands are tied at the moment.

9. BEANS IN THE FIELDS of Bala­ma are very wet and in dan­ger of rot­ting. Har­vest time is a VERY BAD TIME to get 4 days of non-stop rain­fall, and more com­ing lat­er this week.

10.  The big unknown right now is:  WILL THERE BE CROPS TO BUY in Bala­ma or Meluco?

MELUCO’S CORN that we depend on for those 515 orphans is most like­ly destroyed. Wait­ing on info which will take 7–10 days to obtain.

BALAMA’S CROPS: we will begin con­tact­ing the Farm­ers’ Co-op Lead­ers this week in the major vil­lages to find out ifthey were able to save their crops.

The Lord gave me sev­er­al scrip­tures to encour­age me to not become dis­cour­aged.  He will make a way where there seems to be no way.

I will inform you of the needs lat­er this week.  I’m work­ing on the costs of putting the Melu­co mis­sion sta­tion back together.

Bless­ings, 

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange

Note from staff in the US: Here are news source images we imag­ine are sim­i­lar to what Bren­da has been see­ing. Mas­sive flood­ing and destruc­tion. And fore­cast­ers are call­ing for increased flood­ing in the days to come. Weath­er reports say the area has received 300mm (near­ly 12 inch­es) of rain since land­fall, and could receive anoth­er 200mm (8 inch­es) in the next few days. That is over half the expect­ed ANNUAL rain­fall in the region in the span of one week cou­pled with addi­tion­al flood­ing from runoff. We are grate­ful for your prayers and support.