BACK TO SCHOOL FOR VILLAGE ORPHANS Baby Ambro­sio, who lives with us, has 5 broth­ers and sis­ters being cared for by their Aunt (far left in pho­to below). The Aunt is bare­ly an adult, but 3 years ago she and her hus­band took on the chal­lenge of rais­ing these 5 orphans with the help of our food and school assis­tance programs.

Ambro­sio’s sis­ters and broth­ers receive school mate­ri­als. Aunt at far left.

Baby Ambro­sio, then 5 months old, was too much for the Aunt to han­dle, so he came into our care after his mother’s death. We often take an orphaned infant if the remain­ing fam­i­ly can’t man­age the entire fam­i­ly of orphans. Ambro­sio will be 4 years old in April, and will enter our Lit­tle Dis­ci­ples pro­gram next week. He will begin learn­ing prop­er Por­tuguese through songs, games, and class­room activ­i­ties. This pre­pares all of our lit­tle ones over a 2 year peri­od for entry into the first grade.

Ambro­sio is 3 years, 10 months and starts pre-school next week.

A few days ago, the Aunt brought his 5 broth­ers and sis­ters to us for uni­form mea­sure­ments and school sup­plies. The youngest will be in the first grade, and the old­est is in the 5th grade. All 5 received the appro­pri­ate school sup­plies for their grade, and were then tak­en to the mar­ket to buy school shoes. Their uni­forms will be made and giv­en to them by the end of Feb­ru­ary. Sup­port­ing all the orphans of an orphaned fam­i­ly is our goal, espe­cial­ly the old­er sib­lings of the infants we are car­ing for. YOUR LOVE GIFTS AT WORK! THANK YOU FOR MAKING ALL THIS POSSIBLE. BLESSINGS,  BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE  AND THE BALAMA STAFF