| IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BEANS! |
| Our Bean Barn is now full, holding a whopping 110 TONS of beans! The following photos and videos will better explain what a MASSIVE program this really is. |
 5 a.m. start each day. The churches brought beans the night before to avoid delays in delivery. |
Starting before dawn on May 20th, we spent the day weighing over 900 sacks. Each sack averages 132 lbs./60 kgs. A total of 1,800 sacks were weighed over 3 days. A heavy-duty agriculture scale can weigh 3 sacks at time. We cut the time in half by using 2 scales with 2 teams of men moving the 1,800 sacks in a fast and efficient manner. |
| Weighing the beans. |
 What these black eyed peas look like in Mozambique. |
After 3 days of weighing the beans, the beans are carried out to our “bean chutes” where we check them for quality and prepare them for long term storage. These 110 tons will last our 1,500 orphans until the next year’s harvest is gathered in April. |
| We call this organized chaos! After going through the quality control check, the beans are now in a new sack which is quickly sewn shut by our “sewing team of 6 men”. |
 Stacking tons of beans that will be given to hungry orphans. |
It’s a 50 yard/meter walk to the Bean Barn from where the sacks are sewing area. Each bag is carried on the heads of our local workers and then neatly stacked in the Bean Barn. |
 Last sack going onto the stack. 110 tons in all. |
As I write this, it is Friday afternoon, and a very tired team of 93 men have gone home to rest. They worked all week to complete the task by today, and I am very proud of all of them. They did it efficiently and without accident, which is a miracle considering we had bags going in multiple directions at some points in the process. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS FOR OUR SAFETY DURING THIS WEEK. THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT ANGELS WERE ON GUARD KEEPING EVERYONE SAFE. NOTE ABOUT THE CHILDREN:The 62 children/teenagers in our care are all fine. The 6 to 18 year old children are now back in school after a 14-day break.WE THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR DAILY PRAYERS, AND YOUR LOVE GIFTS THAT KEEP THEM ALL FED AND CLOTHED THROUGHOUT THE YEAR. Blessings from a happy Bush Bunny with a Barn full of Beans that will feed over 1,500 orphans in the coming months! Brenda Lange And the Balama Staff |