2 BABIES IN HOSPITAL—MALARIA THE CULPRIT Esteva­sia (a new admit to our fam­i­ly) went straight into hos­pi­tal after her fee­ble Granny released her into our care late last week.Only 4.3 kgs/9.5 lbs. at 5 months, this tiny orphan was def­i­nite­ly NOT receiv­ing the care she need­ed from her Granny.

Baby Esteva­sia the day before she was released from hospital.

She test­ed pos­i­tive for malar­ia and had a hemo­glo­bin of only SIX when admit­ted. (Nor­mal is 10–12. Below 8 is life threat­en­ing). A donor was locat­ed imme­di­ate­ly, as thank­ful­ly she is O+, and a trans­fu­sion was giv­en with­in 3 hours of her admis­sion. With new blood in her sys­tem, she perked up, began eat­ing bet­ter, and was released into our care on Thurs­day, Oct. 18th!  BABY JORGE is once again in the hos­pi­tal as he spiked a fever and test­ed pos­i­tive for malar­ia on Tues­day this week. This tiny 3.7kg/8 lb. new­born has had a real­ly rough start to his short 2 months of life. He is also on the verge of need­ing a trans­fu­sion, as his hemo­glo­bin is sit­ting at 8.4. Since he is below 5kgs/11 lbs., he must auto­mat­i­cal­ly receive a 7‑day IV treat­ment of meds that will kill out his malaria.

Tiny Jorge with Fos­ter Moth­er Franquina.

YOUR PRAYERS ARE MUCH NEEDED FOR THESE 2 FRAGILE LITTLE ONES AS WELL AS THE MANY OTHERS IN OUR CARE.  Malar­ia is ram­pant in our area at this time as we expe­ri­enced a heavy rain on Wednes­day this week. Octo­ber is sup­posed to be hot and DRY. This is the first time a heavy rain has hit Bala­ma in Octo­ber, and it caught ALL OF US by surprise.This gul­ly wash­er hung around for 12 hours, flood­ing many homes, as no one had ditch­es in place to con­trol the rag­ing waters that washed through our area. The ditch­es at our children’s homes and our mis­sion sta­tion are left in place year-round, so none of our facil­i­ties were harmed, PTL!  NEXT FOOD GIVE-OUT DUE BY END OF OCTOBER  The pho­to shows our entire team help­ing re-sack the rice on Mon­day this week. We get togeth­er 1 Mon­day each month to set up all the “half sacks” for the small fam­i­lies who receive them through­out Bala­ma Dis­trict. These guys are very fast, as they had 235 half sacks com­plet­ed and in the barn with­in 90 min­utes. Then off they went to their nor­mal con­struc­tion job

Our team of men mak­ing half sacks of rice from full sacks.

NOTE: I want to thank EACH OF YOU from the bot­tom of my heart for your LOVE GIFTS that keep this pro­gram viable. The work load keeps me too busy to write per­son­al let­ters to each of you. But know that I THANK THE LORD for every gift giv­en, and ask the Lord to bless you 100-fold for your love of His chil­dren. This Bun­ny will keep hop­ping down the bush trail, sav­ing the lit­tle ones the Lord sends our way, until that hop is no more.   TOGETHER, WE ARE SAVING LIVES AND GIVING CHILDREN A CHANCE AT A FUTURE WITH JESUS.  BLESSINGS,BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE AND THE BALAMA STAFF