MELUCO ORPHANS THRIVING, THANKS TO YOUR LOVE GIFTS Melu­co District/County is in the mid­dle of Cabo Del­ga­do Province, sit­ting just out­side the large Reserve in North­ern Mozam­bique. YOUR LOVE GIFTS sup­port 315 orphans and the 59 wid­ows who care for them.

Load­ing corn for Melu­co orphans.

Some of those wid­ows depend on the orphans they care for, as they suf­fer from lep­rosy and blind­ness. It is tru­ly a work that relieves suf­fer­ing, for MELUCO means the ROCK, and the soil is not strong in many areas of the Dis­trict. This makes food grow­ing very dif­fi­cult, thus our assis­tance is need­ed to keep these orphans from suf­fer­ing mal­nu­tri­tion. Your Love Gifts also pro­vide school mate­ri­als, so these chil­dren are receiv­ing an education.

Our school age chil­dren with their con­fer­ence teachers.

THE WOMEN AT THE WELL With the dry sea­son at its peak, our water well near our church, is see­ing a lot of activ­i­ty these days. Just as the women did dur­ing Jesus’ time on earth, these local women in the pho­to pump their buck­ets full of water, then car­ry it on their heads to their homes.

Women at the well just after dawn.

This is the nor­mal way of get­ting water in all rur­al areas of Mozam­bique. Thanks to your gen­eros­i­ty in the past, we were able to drill 2 wells on our 40 acre/16 hectare mis­sion sta­tion, plus 2 oth­er wells that serve our orphan homes. These 4 wells pro­vide clean water for 1000’s of peo­ple. CLEAN WATER MEANS A HEALTHIER LIFE FOR ALL WHO USE THESE WELLS. Hand dug wells are not safe for drink­ing water as they are open to all kinds of con­t­a­m­i­nates, and lead to bac­te­r­i­al infec­tions such as dysen­tery and cholera.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SEMINAR FOR OUR CHILDREN  The local offi­cer against domes­tic vio­lence along with 2 Social Ser­vices rep­re­sen­ta­tives met with our chil­dren at 6 a.m. this morn­ing, as our days become very hot and humid after 8 a.m. They asked to see the chil­dren play Bawana Games on our soc­cer field, so 3 dif­fer­ent games were shown, with the tug-o-war being everyone’s favorite. Then it was off to the class­room for a 45-minute inter­ac­tive chat about domes­tic vio­lence, and ear­ly mar­riage of minors, which is against the law here.

Fun with the sack race!

Teens play­ing 3 way tug-o-war.

It was all very infor­ma­tive and fun in the way it was pre­sent­ed by the police offi­cer who heads up the Domes­tic Vio­lence Divi­sion. This type of les­son is very help­ful to our chil­dren, as about half of our school age chil­dren are teenagers, and need to be well pre­pared for their upcom­ing adult years.

Offi­cer explain­ing under age mar­riage using 2 of our teens for her object lesson.

RAISING CHILDREN GOD’S WAY HAS MANY FACETS, and we thank you for help­ing us to help them. BLESSINGS, BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE AND THE BALAMA STAFF