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FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 5, 2020
 
LIFE SKILLS TRAINING BEGINS

With all the con­struc­tion delays caused by this virus, our staff decid­ed to go ahead with life skills train­ing for our 4 old­est teenage boys vs wait­ing for the con­struc­tion of an offi­cial “place” in which to teach them. All 4 of these young men are in their final 2 years of school, and need to know how to do basic skills that oth­er teens learn from their par­ents as they grow up.

DAY 1:  Our 4 teenagers paired up with a work­er to dig post holes for fenc­ing repairs. Hole dig­ging is a basic skill used in build­ing homes, out­door bath­rooms and kitchens.
 

Dig­ging post holes so our staff can repair dam­aged fenc­ing.​

DAY 2:  They worked side-by-side with expe­ri­enced BBC mem­bers con­struct­ing a local toilet/bathing area for an elder­ly cou­ple at their mud brick home near our base.

DAY 3:  Assist­ed in sifting/cleaning 19 sacks (1 ton) of corn for milling so our res­i­dent orphans have food next week. (Orphans Help­ing Orphans Pro­gram)  Then our staff taught them how to  pre­pare the corn bags for 3 major vil­lage food give-outs next week to vil­lage orphans. These young men learned how to roll a full sack of corn into an emp­ty sack until the 2 sacks con­tain equal amounts of corn. Seems basic, but they are all impor­tant life skills in this cul­ture.
 

Samuel try­ing to fig­ure out how to open a sack of corn.​
 

Our teenagers show­ing how to divide a sack of corn for dis­tri­b­u­tion to vil­lage orphans.
See video at this link:    https://youtu.be/NxB-tnWYoi0
 

Hold­er and Alferes proud­ly show off their com­plet­ed half sacks
 
DAY 4:   Obser­va­tion-only les­son – Use of a hydraulic jack for tire removal on a truck was taught by our mechan­ics instruc­tor, Sim­ba.  I was amazed at all the details an expe­ri­enced per­son takes for grant­ed when doing this. Sim­ba is very good at clear­ly explain­ing each step in detail. The stu­dents had ques­tions, which was good, for it meant they were tru­ly “engaged” in the les­son.
 

Observ­ing a tire removal after see­ing where to set the hydraulic Jack.

Prepar­ing our young men and women for life in the real world is an impor­tant task that many orphans nev­er receive when grow­ing up in a fos­ter home.
 
The girls are being taught child care, food prepa­ra­tion, and dai­ly home life skills by our fos­ter moth­ers as they grow up. All these lessons are essen­tial for the young women to become good wives and moth­ers. Our boys also learn the basic cook­ing and clean­ing skills around the home, but lacked the many skills need­ed to build a home or make a liv­ing when they leave our pro­gram. Our staff is ded­i­cat­ed to teach­ing our young men and women what the fos­ter moth­ers can’t teach them. 
 
And yes, if the girls want to learn car mechan­ics, com­put­ers, etc., they are encour­aged to do so. In this cul­ture, oth­er NGO pro­grams have tried to teach foot-ped­al sewing machine skills to girls, but they refused to learn it. Rea­son? The girls equate foot-ped­al sewing machines as ‘for men only’ as the mechan­i­cal skills to oper­ate such a machine is only known by men in this cul­ture.
So, we have a few cul­tur­al obsta­cles to con­sid­er when set­ting up our Life Skills class­es.


MIRACLES CONTINUE IN REMOTE AREAS
 
Our Nama­ra Pas­tor report­ed that a female Witch Doc­tor along with her hus­band and 5 chil­dren all came to Jesus last month! It’s a big thing when a Witch Doc­tor accepts Jesus as Lord and Sav­ior after serv­ing the dev­il for most of her life. It opens the door for those who used her ser­vices to find out who the REAL HEALER is. This fam­i­ly burned their witch hut, and the wife is now telling all her friends about Jesus! PTL!

No sur­prise in that our many Bala­ma house church­es con­tin­ue to reach out to their neigh­bor­hoods dur­ing these dif­fi­cult days.
    Sal­va­tions in August:
            Chil­dren: 73
            Teenagers: 30
            Adults: 22

I take my hat off to our remote Pas­tors, as they are doing a great job in preach­ing to small crowds in sev­er­al loca­tions each week.
If a big shade tree was good enough for Jesus, it is good enough for us.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND CONTINUED SUPPORT OF OUR CHILDREN.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF