SEMESSE BECOMES PEDRO Semesse’s name changed when his Father orga­nized his birth cer­tifi­cate this week. So note that Pedro and Semesse are the same baby. PEDRO DEVELOPES MALARIA Pedro, 7 months old, is very mal­nour­ished, which means his immune sys­tem is weak. He was released from the hos­pi­tal on Fri­day, with his malar­ia test show­ing no malar­ia. Then he began with a fever and vom­it­ing on Sat­ur­day morn­ing. Back to the emer­gency room we went, where tiny, under­weight Pedro at 6kg/13 lb. was read­mit­ted for dehy­dra­tion and IV malar­ia treat­ment. PTL that his malar­ia smear was clear by Tues­day, so we got to bring him home. Since any infant over 5kg/11 lbs can take oral med­ica­tion to snuff out the malar­ia, he was placed on the 3‑day oral treat­ment as a pre­ven­ta­tive after com­ing home.

Baby Pedro with Fos­ter Moth­er Fran­quina. Home from hos­pi­tal for 2nd time in 7 days.

Due to his frag­ile con­di­tion, Pedro was placed into the arms of our best Fos­ter Moth­er for frag­ile infants. Please keep your prayers com­ing for lit­tle Pedro as he has a long way to go before he grows to the weight of an infant of his age. GOD’S LIGHT PUSHES BACK THE DARKNESS Bala­ma work moves with the day­light. Our devo­tions begin just before day­light at 4:45 so that our brick­lay­ers, car­pen­ters, and the 3 BBC teams in yel­low t‑shirts can all start their day at 5 a.m. with the Word of God in their hearts. Manel, the man speak­ing God’s word in the pho­to, is the only team mem­ber who has been with me from the begin­ning of this project in 1999. Manel was 18 when I hired him to car­ry 5‑gallon (20 liter) con­tain­ers of water from the only water well that Bala­ma had. I bought a bicy­cle that he used to car­ry 15 gallons/60 liters at a time from the well to my mud hut. We sent Manel to com­mer­cial dri­ving school. He advanced from cars to even­tu­al­ly become our main 7‑ton truck dri­ver. At the same time, he stud­ied God’s Word, showed integri­ty both at work and in his church.

Ear­ly morn­ing devo­tions at 4:45a.m.

A few years ago, he was named the Dis­trict Pas­tor for the Assem­bly of God church for Bala­ma District/county. Manel is a faith­ful ser­vant of the Lord Jesus Christ who is high­ly respect­ed by all of our staff, and those through­out Bala­ma Dis­trict who know him. Manel and our Pas­tors coor­di­nate so that we church plant in dif­fer­ent vil­lages, mak­ing sure that we don’t dupli­cate the oth­er church’s work. There is enough work for all of us in get­ting this Dis­trict of over 150,000 peo­ple to know and accept Jesus.

Dis­trict Pas­tor Manuel. In this cul­ture they are taught to not smile in pho­tos, or peo­ple would think they are not seri­ous about their work. He loves to laugh, so know he is a great guy.

My hat goes off to Manel, who is actu­al­ly dri­ving back to Bala­ma after tak­ing food to the 515 orphans and wid­ows whom we assist in Melu­co Dis­trict. I am very grate­ful that Manel has stayed with us for the last 26+ years. WE NEVER KNOW WHAT’S NEXT FOR US, SO YOUR PRAYERS KEEP US COVERED THROUGH ALL TYPES OF CHALLENGES.THANK YOU AND KNOW YOU ARE ALL VERY MUCH APPRECIATED! IT TAKES A VILLAGE! BLESSINGS, BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE AND THE BALAMA STAFF