TwitterFacebookLinkedInEmail

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog for February 1, 2025

BACK TO SCHOOL MEANS ANNUAL PHYSICALS

Tues­day this week found us round­ing up the chil­dren for their annu­al Doctor’s check-up. Thank good­ness the Doc­tor comes to us, as try­ing to trans­port 30 babies and 30 chil­dren to his office at the hos­pi­tal would have been a hec­tic chal­lenge for sure.

The annu­al exam includes an HIV test for the new infants in our care, and a rapid Malar­ia Test for all the chil­dren. Of course, I was ready with the giant-size Yoghurt Pops in plain view for all the 3 and up age group. It’s best to put a smile on their face, as it works as a dis­trac­tion, and takes the sting out of the fin­ger prick for the malar­ia rapid test. 

Fati­ma waits patient­ly for her malar­ia test to be taken.
Out of 30 chil­dren, only 2 shed tears, so the suck­ers worked! (Learned that trick from my own Pedi­a­tri­cian who ALWAYS had suck­ers after a vis­it, and you even got to choose the fla­vor!)

Every­one passed their phys­i­cals and only 1 of our high school girls was pos­i­tive for malar­ia, as she only start­ed feel­ing fever­ish a few hours before the Doc­tor arrived. Imme­di­ate treat­ment put her on the path to heal­ing, and she was fine the next morning.
ORPHAN SUCCESS STORY

Eliseu (El-ee-zay‑u) is a very mature and kind young man who grew up in our orphan pro­gram. His matu­ri­ty and acts of respon­si­bil­i­ty led me hire him as an appren­tice brick­lay­er on our con­struc­tion team after he grad­u­at­ed High School 2 years ago. With no con­struc­tion going on in the rainy sea­son, he become a val­ued day guard at my house on week­ends.

Eliseu fell in love 18 months ago, and mar­ried. Their 1st born son was a bit pre­ma­ture, as he only weighs 2.9 kgs/6.4 lbs. at 3 weeks of age. His moth­er had breast milk for the first 4 days, then it start­ed decreas­ing until it wasn’t ade­quate for the tiny infant. Since Eliseu con­sid­ers me his “moth­er”, he came to ask my help. I glad­ly gave him an infant milk kit, and all the instruc­tions they need­ed to bot­tle feed the infant. The infant is doing well after 5 days on our Infant Formula.

Eliseu and his pre­cious family.
YOUR LOVE GIFTS PROVIDE THE ORPHANS IN OUR PROGRAM WITH THE LOVE OF JESUS. THEY RECEIVE AN EDUCATION AND JOB TRAINING THAT LEADS THEM TO BECOMING INDEPENDENT ADULTS AND STARTING THEIR OWN FAMILY.  THANK YOU FOR BEING THE “VILLAGE” BEHIND THIS JESUS LOVING YOUNG MAN.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog for January 25, 2025

BBC BACK IN ACTION!

The rains slacked off enough for the BBC (Bush Bik­ers for Christ) to trav­el to the vil­lages on Jan­u­ary 20th. It was a hap­py bunch of bik­ers that took off that morn­ing to go tell the vil­lage chil­dren about Jesus. With many chil­dren work­ing with their par­ents at their farms, the turnouts are lighter than usu­al, but sav­ing even ONE child makes it all worth it.

BBC MOTORBIKE TEAM ready to roll out to the villages.
VICTORY HOUSE GETS AN ADD ON
Thanks to 2 donors, we were able to add two large bed­rooms, 3 bathing areas, and 3 toi­lets to the school children’s home called the Vic­to­ry House. The chil­dren call it the Rab­bit House, because the chil­dren who live there are hop­ping to and from school all the time. 

Our girls at the new addi­tion to Vic­to­ry House.
Our oth­er house for school-aged chil­dren (next door) is called the Gazelle House. The name tells every­one that these chil­dren are think­ing of ani­mals that run and jump as they do in their play time.

Fos­ter Moth­er Hele­na stays with the 4 youngest girls in room 1.
We have the four old­er girls in a bed­room by them­selves, and the Fos­ter Moth­er Hele­na is with the younger 4 girls in the sec­ond bed­room. There is still room for 3 more girls in this home as our 5‑year-olds will need those spaces in the 2026 school year.

The old­er girls stay in room #2.
IT’S BEEN A BUSY WEEK DODGING RAINS AND CARING FOR THE CHILDREN.

THANK YOU FOR MAKING ALL THIS POSSIBLE!

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog for January 18, 2025

WIDOWER’S MITE

Genono, the old­est mem­ber of our entire Bala­ma Dis­trict Church, was once a non-believ­er in Jesus. When my team and I went to Rovu­ma over 16 years ago to begin a church, Genono was CARRIED to our “preach­ing tree” by 2 men. His legs didn’t work, so he came to see if Jesus real­ly heals.After prayer, noth­ing hap­pened imme­di­ate­ly, but with­in 2 days Genono COULD WALK! He knew it was Jesus as he had been to the witch­doc­tors, and noth­ing hap­pened. He’s been a devot­ed believ­er in Jesus ever since. His mot­to now:  “I may be old, but I can still do some­thing for Jesus!”  

Genono sent 11 offer­ing bas­kets to our office last week via a fam­i­ly mem­ber. We give these well-made lit­tle bas­kets to our church­es who use them to take up the week­ly offering. 

Bas­kets made by Genono.
We blessed Genono with a jack­et, a new shirt, and pants which he des­per­ate­ly need­ed. He doesn’t have mon­ey, so he gives his time by mak­ing baskets.

Genono with new clothes on
Genono is a wid­ow­er who lives alone. He is blessed week­ly with food from our pantry, as he has no fam­i­ly to care for him. A vil­lage woman comes by dai­ly and cooks for him. Here there are no old-folks homes, so every­one chips in to care for the elder­ly who need assis­tance.

He is a bless­ing to all those who know him, and a great exam­ple of giv­ing the “widower’s mite”.
SUCCESS THROUGH HARD WORK

Widnes (Wit­ness) has been out of our orphan­age 12 years. When he grad­u­at­ed, tech­ni­cal schools were hard to get into as there were very few of them. Our car­pen­ters gave him an appren­tice posi­tion, and he stuck with it when sev­er­al oth­ers did not.

Wid­ness on right with assis­tant Zide hold­ing post.
Now Widnes works for our mis­sion, doing main­te­nance, mak­ing win­dows, doors, and fur­ni­ture for our children’s homes.Does he have a diplo­ma? NO. He has expe­ri­ence which has helped him rise to the posi­tion of 1st assis­tant to our head car­pen­ter at the mis­sion. He lacks self-con­fi­dence, so a lit­tle push was need­ed a few weeks ago to get him to take charge. Our car­pen­ter had to be absent for 3 days, so I insist­ed that Widnes take the lead.

The pho­to shows him in his first “solo” job as the head car­pen­ter for 3 days. It worked! He did very well at the jobs he was giv­en. Remem­ber, all our work is done with HAND TOOLS, so every­thing is time con­sum­ing.

THIS IS THE FRUIT OF LOVE GIFTS GIVEN MANY YEARS AGO. Rais­ing chil­dren takes time, but I believe many of the lit­tle ones in our care will also boast of a suc­cess­ful lifestyle once they grad­u­ate school.

We teach our chil­dren 2 things:
1. NEVER DESPISE SMALL BEGINNINGS. 
2. WITH GOD, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS THEM.


BUSH BUNNY TIDBITS:
1. With the rainy sea­son in progress, our children’s pro­grams are held as is pos­si­ble. All the chil­dren are doing well, as the school chil­dren wait for school to begin in 2 weeks.
2. The 2nd cyclone of the sea­son passed just south of us last Sunday/Monday, but only dropped some hard and fast rains on us. Thank­ful­ly, winds were min­i­mal, and no dam­age was done to our children’s homes or food barns.
3. WE GRATEFULLY APPRECIATE ALL YOUR PRAYERS FOR US!

BLESSINGS, 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog for January 11, 2025

FUN IN THE SUN

In the rainy sea­son we don’t have many sun­ny days, but when we do, our chil­dren run to the soc­cer field to play games. Last Sat­ur­day I spot­ted the chil­dren on just such a day hav­ing a blast at our soc­cer field. These videos show just how much fun they were having.
video
Our school chil­dren hav­ing “fun in the sun”!
video
Our 3 to 5 year olds learn­ing about exer­cise time.
LINING UP FOR NEW SCHOOL UNIFORMS

In Jan­u­ary each year, the chil­dren are mea­sured for new school uni­forms. Atu­many (Ah-too-mah-ny) is our expert uni­form mak­er, who makes bolts of mate­r­i­al into beau­ti­ful uni­forms for our chil­dren. He does it on a foot ped­al Singer Sewing machine. No elec­tric­i­ty needed! 

Very excit­ed school kids ready to be mea­sured for new uniforms!
All chil­dren receive white shirts/blouses. The Pri­ma­ry school wears maroon pants/skirts, with 7th grade wear­ing green, grades 8 to 10 wear­ing navy blue, and grades 11 and 12 wear­ing black. With the teenagers, this makes it easy to spot the lev­el of edu­ca­tion they are in.

School will soon begin in Feb­ru­ary, 2025 and thanks to YOUR GENEROUS LOVE GIFTS, these chil­dren will be out­fit­ted with prop­er uni­forms and school materials.

Chil­dren’s Direc­tor Anna and Sewing Mas­ter, Atu­many, mea­sur­ing shirt fab­ric for the school kids.
INFANT DIONESIO IN HOSPITAL WITH MALARIA

At 3 a.m. Tues­day morn­ing, my phone rang with Fos­ter Moth­er Gil­da telling me that baby Dione­sio had vom­it­ed with diar­rhea 3 times since 2 a.m.Wasting no time, I scram­bled into my clothes and raced down to the Lion House. This lit­tle tyke may be 6 months old, but he only weighs 5.7 kg/12.5 lbs! Diar­rhea and vom­it­ing caus­es dehy­dra­tion and weight loss at a fast rate, so I wast­ed no time in get­ting him to the hos­pi­tal.

An IV was begun, and the cor­rect med­ica­tions were giv­en along with IV Glu­cose. His dehy­dra­tion was already show­ing because his fontanel was sunken in on the top of his head. His lab tests showed him pos­i­tive for Malar­ia, which caus­es all these symp­toms. He was sta­bi­lized with­in hours, but had no appetite till the next day. He must receive treat­ment for 5 to 7 days, so your prayers for his quick and full recov­ery are much appreciated.

Baby Dione­sio on left is now in hos­pi­tal with malar­ia. Sis­ter Dina on right is healthy and doing fine.
WE’VE BEGUN A NEW YEAR WITH 60 CHILDREN IN OUR CARE!

Your heart to help has made this pos­si­ble and for that we are tru­ly grate­ful.

Keep pray­ing for all of us, as your prayers keep us safe, and able to be the hands and feet of Jesus where ever we go.

BLESSINGS, 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog for January 4, 2025

TWINS FOR THE HOLIDAYS!

Dina and Dion­i­sio, born July 7, 2024, joined our Infant For­mu­la Pro­gram in late Novem­ber after their moth­er died from unknown caus­es. Sad­ly, the twins weighed only 4.5kg/10lbs. each at 6 months of age! Seems the moth­er had lit­tle breast milk, and the fam­i­ly was a bit slow in real­iz­ing the infants need­ed help.

(L to R) Fos­ter Mom Marceli­na with Dione­sio, and Fos­ter Moth­er Razil­da with Dina, both 7 months old on Jan. 7th.
Our staff taught the Grand­moth­er and her 14-year-old daugh­ter how to care for the infants. How­ev­er, after 2 weeks of no progress, the Mal­nu­tri­tion Doc­tor at the hos­pi­tal agreed with me that the infants would per­ish if not giv­en prop­er care. Dina had to be admit­ted imme­di­ate­ly on Decem­ber 24th with Bronchial Pneu­mo­nia, and was placed into our care. The fam­i­ly insist­ed on tak­ing Dion­i­sio home with them, even though he had an Upper Res­pi­ra­to­ry Infec­tion for 2 weeks that was not improv­ing. Found out lat­er that the Granny wasn’t giv­ing the med­i­cine but once a day instead of twice a day as instruct­ed.

On Decem­ber 27th, we con­tact­ed the Uncle to see how Dion­i­sio was doing. He told us the infant was strug­gling. We asked him to bring him in imme­di­ate­ly (as he has a motor­bike), and they live in a vil­lage 15km/9 miles away. He stat­ed he would come very ear­ly the next day, as the Granny had tak­en the sick infant to their farm and wouldn’t be back till late after­noon.

FRUSTRATION doesn’t describe how my staff and I felt over this. Would we receive Dion­i­sio in time to save him?

Thank­ful­ly, at 6:15 on Decem­ber 28th we found out that Dion­i­sio wasn’t as bad as expect­ed. With some good nasal care and prop­er meds, he didn’t need hos­pi­tal­iza­tion, PTL! That very day, both babies were placed into our care with the family’s bless­ing; Dion­i­sio first, fol­lowed by his sister’s release from the hos­pi­tal a few hours lat­er. It was a busy Sat­ur­day for sure, but with GREAT RELIEF that both babies were now safe, and on the road to recov­ery.

THAT’S WHAT I CALL A GREAT ENDING TO A BUSY YEAR!

I know I have said this many times, but it is true that we can only res­cue orphaned babies as God pro­vides.

YOU are the “vil­lage” that God pro­vides, as it “takes a vil­lage” to pro­vide the front­line troops with what is need­ed.

THANK YOU FOR MAKING 2024 A YEAR THAT 15 INFANTS WERE RESCUED, WITH ONLY 1 LOSS (ARTUR) from com­pli­cat­ed malar­ia.

JESUS LOVES THE LITTLE CHILDREN, AND SENT ALL OF YOU TO MAKE SURE THEY HAVE A CHANCE AT LIFE.

BLESSINGS FOR 2025,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog for December 28, 2024

CHRISTMAS DAY A BIT DIFFERENT THIS YEAR
Chil­dren in our homes love to receive gifts as much as any oth­er child. This year it was cook­ies and yogurt suck­ers, as toys were a bit scarce due to a lack of sup­plies reach­ing our area. We explained this to the chil­dren, that it doesn’t mean NEVER, just not today. We will con­tin­ue to search for toys, giv­ing them out as soon as they arrive. Enjoy the pho­tos as we had lots of fun, espe­cial­ly with the lit­tle ones who expe­ri­enced Christ­mas for the first time as 18 month olds!
Handing out the goodies!
Hand­ing out the goodies!

Estale­sia goes wild when she sees us com­ing with treats.

Anony­mous donor gives our youngest 2 babies a tub with treats. Fos­ter Moth­er Tina with Gerilcia.

Ostrich House chil­dren. Some with smiles and oth­ers in shock, not real­iz­ing what is going on.
 NEW HOMES FOR CHRISTMAS! Two wid­ows and their chil­dren were blessed by a church in New Jer­sey with new homes as theirs was about to fall down. Two oth­er donors stepped for­ward and pro­vid­ed new clothes for both these fam­i­lies. The pho­tos show the new homes in the back­ground while the fam­i­lies proud­ly show off their new cloth­ing.

Around here, get­ting new clothes is real­ly excit­ing for the chil­dren, as it hap­pens so sel­dom. These 2 fam­i­lies are tru­ly grate­ful for all of these blessings.

Wid­ow receives new house and new clothes!

2nd wid­ow fam­i­ly gift­ed with new home and clothes.
This pro­gram will con­tin­ue in 2025 as soon as the rains stop so that con­struc­tion can begin. We hope to help many oth­er wid­ows with new homes as our con­struc­tion leader is now expe­ri­enced in how this can be done in sev­er­al vil­lages at the same time.

CHRIST’S LOVE IS TO BE SHARED ALL YEAR LONG. THANK YOU FOR ENCOURAGING US THROUGH YOUR LOVE GIFTS TO DO JUST THAT!OUR STAFF WILL KEEP MOVING FORWARD TO HELP THOSE IN GREATEST NEED, SHARING THE GOSPEL AS WE HELP OTHERS.

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND MANY BLESSINGS FOR 2025,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog for December 21, 2024

A HIVE OF ACTIVITY AFTER CYCLONE CHIDO
First, let me THANK YOU for all your prayers that kept us safe from the rav­aging winds that were to the East and South of our mis­sion. We suf­fered only minor dam­age to 3 build­ings, and NO ONE was hurt, PTL! Our goal now is to make sure that the orphans in the vil­lages have food, and to con­tin­ue help­ing oth­ers as need­ed.

The elec­tric lines were down west of us at our State Line, 75 miles (150 km) away. Our first hand of assis­tance was a small fuel gift that to made it pos­si­ble for the elec­tri­cians to get to the downed lines in order to fix it. No elec­tric­i­ty, no fuel pumps working.We were for­tu­nate as our elec­tric­i­ty was easy to fix, and we were only 48 hours with­out pow­er. Hard­er hit areas East of us were with­out elec­tric­i­ty for 4 days. 
BABY GERILCIA (Jer-ill-sia) RIDES OUT THE CYCLONE IN THE HOSPITAL
PTL that the Bala­ma Hos­pi­tal did not sus­tain any dam­age, and our 2 Fos­ter Moth­ers as well as Ger­il­cia, were released the day AFTER the cyclone.

Ger­il­cia is 7 months old, and bare­ly 2 pounds/1kg above her birth weight of 2.7kg/6 lbs! She was admit­ted last week with seri­ous malar­ia after her father gave her up to us. Her grand­moth­er loved her very much, and didn’t want to give her up, but she was unable to cope with her care. 

Baby girl Ger­il­cia sees her new home for first time.
The pho­to shows a hap­py Ger­il­cia a full half kg heav­ier (1 lb.) and look­ing real­ly good in com­par­i­son to how we received her last week. Fos­ter Moth­er Tina is now her new “mom”, and Ger­il­cia is already very attached to her. Ger­il­cia is one of 27 infants in dia­pers who are in our care at this time. Please keep all of them in your prayers. Thanks! 
FEEDING HUNGRY VILLAGE ORPHANS
Thurs­day found our staff hand­ing out food to the Vil­lage Orphans and their care­tak­ers. This is the last major food give out for 2024. I am very hap­py that these chil­dren will have full tum­mies over Christ­mas and the New Year. These chil­dren are out of school right now, so it was won­der­ful to see them com­ing to help car­ry their food gifts to their home villages.

Staff han­dling out food to each orphans family.

The orphans help­ing their Grannies and Aunts to pre­pare their food for travel.
THANK YOU FOR MAKING ALL THIS POSSIBLE WITH YOUR LOVE FOR THESE PRECIOUS CHILDREN.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL, AND GOD’S BLESSINGS AND TRAVEL MERCIES ON EACH OF YOU THIS HOLIDAY SEASON.ENJOY CELEBRATING JESUS AND LOVING ON YOUR FAMILY!

BLESSINGS,BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog Update, December 16, 2024

PRAISE FOR ANSWERED PRAYER 

We praise the Lord that Cyclone Chi­da dipped just enough to spare Bren­da and the mis­sion the high winds we feared. There was minor wind dam­age in two places, but the roofs remained intact and our peo­ple and food sup­plies are safe. Bren­da was able to get this video update out to us from the time around when the eye of the storm hit the area.Thank you for your prayers! 
video

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog, December 14, 2024

LITTLE DISCIPLES GOING STRONG 
Our 3 to 5 year old chil­dren are eager­ly learn­ing their songs, as well as their ABC’s and num­bers.

I man­aged to catch them in their open­ing song this week, so thought you might enjoy it as well.

See our lit­tle Dis­ci­ples exer­cis­ing their lungs at this link https://youtube.com/shorts/e1G1itYLMBE
This pro­gram con­tin­ues through­out the year, as our chil­dren tru­ly enjoy the games and learn­ing activ­i­ties.

SCHOOL IS OUT! 
Our 19 school age chil­dren are enjoy­ing a 2 month break (Dec. and Jan.) from their stud­ies, so all were able to attend the BAWANA GAMES and Devo­tions this week for the first time as a group.

School chil­dren enjoy devo­tions under a shade tree.
I didn’t want to dis­turb their devo­tion time, so took this pho­to from afar. All were enjoy­ing a cool morn­ing under the shade tree as they lis­tened to the day’s les­son told by Daude and Berti­no, our 2 Youth Pas­tors.

BUSH BUNNY TIDBITS
Infants con­tin­ue need­ing our help, both orphans and moth­ers with­out breast milk.

Pray for us as sup­plies are com­ing in slow­ly due to prob­lems at the bor­ders. This includes infant for­mu­la and liq­uid vit­a­mins for our wee wit­tle ones.

Thanks to all of you send­ing prayers and Love Gifts, our Chil­dren our well tak­en care of.  Receiv­ing a new infant next week, so more about that in the next blog. That brings us to 27 infants in diapers. 
Chil­dren’s Direc­tor Anna, teach­ing a moth­er how to bot­tle feed her lit­tle one.

GOD’S BLESSINGS TO ALL OF YOU AS THIS MONTH MARCHES ON TO THE RINGING OF THE CHRISTMAS BELLS!

HALLALUJAH TO THE KING!

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST FROM Bush Bunny Brenda, December 13, 2024

CATEGORY 3 TROPICAL CYCLONE (HURRICANE) CHIDO AIMED DIRECTLY AT BALAMA WITH LANDFALL IMMINENT

As we are prepar­ing Bren­da’s usu­al Sat­ur­day Blog, we must pause to ask for your urgent prayers for Bren­da and the orphans. Trop­i­cal Cyclone Chi­do (equiv­a­lent to a hur­ri­cane) is now a CATEGORY 3 STORM and just shift­ed on a path with an almost DIRECT HIT antic­i­pat­ed to Bren­da and the orphan­age. 

Sched­uled to make land­fall with­in the next day, Chi­do brings hur­ri­cane force winds and rains sim­i­lar to Cyclone Idai, anoth­er Cat­e­go­ry 3 which slammed into Bala­ma in March 2019 caus­ing wide­spread destruc­tion. So many were flood­ed out of their homes and even strand­ed in trees. https://orphansunlimited.org/bush-bunny-brenda-blog-special-march-20–2019/

Your prayers are needed.

Cyclone Chi­do has shift­ed south.
Remem­ber, hous­es in the area are made of mud and grass. Our Orphans Unlim­it­ed build­ings are made of con­crete, BUT OUR ROOFS are made of sheets of tin. Wind dam­age could be hor­ri­ble if the high winds rip off our roofs.

Heavy flood­ing with 4 to 10 inch­es of rain is expect­ed, with land­fall antic­i­pat­ed in the next 12–15 hours (US Sat­ur­day morn­ing) and winds of 115 miles per hour mov­ing inland.PLEASE PRAY OUR FOOD STORAGE AND HOMES CAN WITHSTAND THE WINDS! Bren­da is spend­ing her day today prepar­ing as they only received notice with­in the past 2 hours of the antic­i­pat­ed direct hit com­ing tomorrow.

Chi­do is now antic­i­pat­ed to make a direct hit to Pem­ba and then on inland to Balama.
WE COVET YOUR PRAYERS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF