RAINY SEASON COMPLICATES CONSTRUCTION, BUT GREAT FOR CROPS

This week has us all “walk­ing like ducks” as we wear our rub­ber boots to wade through mud­dy water pud­dles. Rainy Sea­son “nor­mal” for end of Jan­u­ary and all of Feb. weath­er. We receive any­where from 0.5 to 1 inch (12 to 25 mm) of rain per day. With our dirt roads, that means not even the mighty Toy­ota 4X4 Land Cruis­er we have can ven­ture out for sev­er­al hours after a rain. The Land Cruis­er is the work horse for our project, as it can car­ry up to 750Kg or (1,650 lbs.) for short dis­tances. We are for­tu­nate on our 40 acres (16 hectares) of land, that our roads are well packed with good ditch­es, and con­tain lots of sand, mak­ing our roads durable if we just let them dry a bit after each rain.  Many years ago, a South African Road Engi­neer gave me the “key” to keep­ing a dirt road func­tion­al in the rainy sea­son. His secret:  A dirt road is only as good as it’s ditch­es.  Keep the water con­trolled in the ditch­es, and your road will not wash away in heavy rains. IT WORKS, and we main­tain our ditch­es con­stant­ly dur­ing the rainy months.

SMALL PROJECTS KEEP OUR TEAMS BUSY

11 Dorm Boys in Front of New Bedrooms

Our 11 teenagers are back, and the “new­ly com­plet­ed” 2 bed­room exten­sion our brick­lay­ers built for them dur­ing their 8 week school hol­i­day, is now open. But that means we need more bathing areas and toi­lets, as our 2 new bed­rooms can hold an addi­tion­al 8 boys. (16 boys total in dorm)

2 Bunk Beds Sleep 4 Stu­dents per Room

With rainy sea­son in full down pour, we do things in reverse, as it is not safe to dig a 16 foot (4 meter) deep hole in the ground for the toilets.

FIRST, you build the roof, so the ground will stay dry, THEN YOU DIGthe hole.

So this morn­ing, our car­pen­ters are busy extend­ing the old roof over the bath­room area, while our brick lay­ers are busy mak­ing bricks for Orphan House #7.

Car­pen­ters Extend­ing Old Bath­rooms Roof, Mak­ing Way for the New Facility

The roads are way too wet to con­tin­ue House #7 until March, as our trucks can­not haul build­ing mate­ri­als to that area until it dries up a bit.

BUSH BUNNY TIDBITS:

Baby Angeli­na Eat­ing Well and Get­ting Stronger After Her Hos­pi­tal Time

Both Babies Angeli­na and Neli­ta  are healthy, but in iso­la­tion from the oth­er small chil­dren in our homes, to give their immune sys­tems a chance to rebuild as they regain their strength and weight. 

Baby Neli­ta Get­ting Out­door Time While Big­ger Kids at Bawana Games

ZITO:  

Zito Ready for School to Begin

After con­sults with 4 Dr.’s in Moz.,  and an expert on Pseudomonas in 

RSA, the final con­sen­sus is that fur­ther surgery/IV antibi­otics will not resolve his infec­tion.  WHY?  It has entered his Bone Mar­row, where even IV drugs can­not reach it.  That is why we can con­trol it, but not stop it. It is now labeled “chron­ic”, as his body has become accus­tom to it. NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD

Have we giv­en up on Zito’s heal­ing? NO WAY!!!

We will con­tin­ue our dai­ly prayer, COMMANDING THE INFECTION TO DIE IN JESUS’ NAME, as well as symp­to­matic care to con­trol his infec­tion as best we can with what we have on hand. GOD IS THE GREAT PHYSICIAN.  I have per­son­al­ly seen Him raise the dead twice, and do many heal­ing mir­a­cles. Zito’s faith as well as ours is flow­ingSTRONG. 

PLEASE BE IN AGREEMENT WITH US IN COMMANDING THIS INFECTION TO DIE AND LEAVE HIS BODY.

ZITO IS HAPPY THAT NO FURTHER SURGERY IS NEEDED, (after 3 surg­eries last year), and is NOT depressed by the words of the Doc­tors.   He is stronger phys­i­cal­ly than he has ever been thanks to a high pro­tein diet, vit­a­mins, and con­stant care.  His “chron­ic infec­tion” doesn’t cause him to feel bad, nor does he have fever or pain.  Like most kids, he is liv­ing in the NOW, and look­ing for­ward to begin­ning 7th grade next week. He will live well with us, and con­tin­ue his school­ing like all the oth­er chil­dren in our care. 

Thank very much for your past and future prayers for Zito.

Bless­ings, 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF Please don’t for­get to check out and share our OU Video.https://youtu.be/M0XCggD68d8