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Bush Bunny Brenda Blog, December 7, 2024

TWO YOUNGEST INFANTS IN HOSPITAL

Severe­ly mal­nour­ished Esteva­sia, 7 months but only 12 lbs./5kgs, and 9 week old Domin­gas were both admit­ted on Mon­day, Decem­ber 2nd with severe diar­rhea and high fevers. Both were neg­a­tive for malar­ia, PTL, but the rea­son for such high fevers was unknown. They were both start­ed on very strong antibi­otics that killed out the diar­rhea and fever by Wednesday.

Big boy, Domin­gas, upon his admis­sion to hospital.
They were held in hos­pi­tal to com­plete their med­ica­tions with Domin­gas released on Fri­day, PTL. Since Domin­gas has been with us since day 2 of his life, he is healthy and tough for his 9 weeks of age. This tum­my bug didn’t affect him as harsh­ly as it did the weak­er Esteva­sia.

Tiny Esteva­sia is still in the hos­pi­tal, and it is a mir­a­cle she is still with us. That is one tough lit­tle girl!On Wednes­day, her IV site became red, so 2.5 hours lat­er, and with the help of 3 very good IV experts, a line was final­ly start­ed in her scalp. Her oth­er veins were just too frag­ile to hold an IV catheter.

PLEASE PRAY FOR ESTEVASIA, AS SHE IS SO FRAGILE AND WEAK. IT MAKES ME CRING TO SEE HER IN SUCH A VULNERABLE STATE.

Very sick lit­tle Esteva­sia upon her admis­sion Monday.
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE!

Our lit­tle boy Almei­da, liv­ing in the new tod­dler home at the Ostrich House, is now grow­ing up fast. He loves his stuffed bun­ny that was giv­en to him 2 months back. As you can see in the pho­to, he believes in lov­ing his bun­ny by car­ry­ing it every­where as he chews on its ear! 

Almei­da with his ever present bunny.

THE RAINY SEASON HAS BEGUN

Our ditch­es are dug, and our fields are plant­ed, for the rains are here, and the farm­ers are thrilled!

We were told to expect a drought, but doesn’t seem like it right now.

Pray for the har­vest of both SOULS AND FOOD CROPS!

Heav­en is wait­ing as we bring in the har­vest for our Lord Jesus! 

BLESSINGS TO YOU ALL, AS WE MARCH THROUGH DECEMBER.
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog, November 30, 2024

HAPPY THANKSGIVING WEEKEND TO YOU ALL!

I’m keep­ing this short this week­end, as we are still work­ing hard between rains to get the last load of corn over to the Melu­co orphans.

The Amer­i­can mis­sion­ar­ies liv­ing in this area invit­ed me to join them for Thanks­giv­ing Lunch on Thursday.I man­aged to block out 5 hours for great fel­low­ship and tasty food.  Meet­ing many ded­i­cat­ed peo­ple who are here to spread God’s Word was a real treat. This was the first Thanks­giv­ing “get togeth­er” that I have attend­ed in the 24 years I’ve been in north­ern Mozam­bique. Was very nice indeed!

WHY ONLY 5 HOURS?  Couldn’t be away from these cuties for very long, as they all want­ed to go with me!
4 of our babies in house #7 walking and talking... Grandma!!
4 of our babies in house #7 walk­ing and talk­ing… Grandma!!
MAY GOD’S GRACE BE UPON ALL OF YOU AS YOU SHARE YOUR LOVE, AND ENJOY FAMILY AND FRIENDS.FOR CLOSE FRIENDS AND FAMILY ARE TO BE HIGHLY VALUED AND NEVER TAKEN FOR GRANTED.

JESUS FIRST, THEN LOVE FOR FAMILY AND FRIENDS. THAT’S THE JESUS WAY!

 BLESSINGS, 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog, November 23, 2024

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.
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.
video
Fun with the sack race!
Teens playing 3 way tug-o-war.
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

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog, November 16, 2024

JESUS LOVES THE LITTLE BABIES

Over the last 2 weeks our staff received 4 calls from the local hos­pi­tal for milk assis­tance to infants who lost their moth­ers at birth. We glad­ly take the need­ed milk, baby bot­tle, and large bot­tled water to the fam­i­ly in need, teach­ing them how to mix the milk and care for the infant. They then join our week­ly weigh-in in of infants to receive milk for­mu­la for the infant. 

YOUR LOVE GIFTS PROVIDE WHAT IS NEEDED SO THAT THIS PROGRAM CAN SAVE BABIES IN BOTH BALAMA AND MELUCO DISTRICTS.

One of the tiny new­borns we assist­ed a fam­i­ly with this week

A real cutey that we assist­ed after his Mom died at the local hos­pi­tal. Our infant for­mu­la pro­gram saves at least 50 infants per year.
THEY FOUND A NEED AND FILLED IT!
I met these 2 young boys last week as they went door to door sell­ing their “bush brooms” for pen­nies. These young­sters found a need and met it, for every home uses these brooms dai­ly to sweep the ground out­side their homes. I salute their moti­va­tion, for instead of walk­ing the streets get­ting into trou­ble, they used their ener­gy to start their own lit­tle busi­ness. I eager­ly sup­port young­sters who take this road in life, so invit­ed them to bring their brooms to our office.

The 2 very young busi­ness­men with their bush brooms.
Not only did I buy the brooms they had that day, I placed an order for 20 more. With 7 homes need­ing brooms, this real­ly helped us out, too. They left with mon­ey in hand and a super smile on their faces! (FYI: they were fast, for they returned the next day with anoth­er load of brooms.)

NOTE: These brooms are made from a plant that grows wild in the fields around Bala­ma. It takes time and ener­gy to find them and strip off the leaves, mak­ing them into the prod­uct you see in the pho­to. We sup­port the locals by meet­ing our needs by buy­ing from the young and the elderly/handicapped alike.
WIDOW WITH 3 CHILDREN BLESSED WITH A NEW HOME

Wid­owed 2 years ago, this woman lost her mud hut in a freak rain­storm that hit in Octo­ber. Her hut had been bad­ly dam­aged in the pre­vi­ous rainy sea­son, and this out-of-sea­son rain storm fin­ished it off. Our Pas­tor Gito heads up our “HELP A WIDOW PROGRAM”, so he imme­di­ate­ly set to work get­ting church mem­bers to make bricks. He had less than 7 weeks to build a new mud hut before the rainy sea­son hits this area around the end of Novem­ber. As you can see, it is well on its way to being a strong home for this sin­gle-par­ent fam­i­ly who would oth­er­wise be homeless.

Wid­ow with 3 chil­dren work­ing along side the church mem­bers build­ing her new home.

This grate­ful fam­i­ly will have a safe, well con­struct­ed mud hut before the rains start in a few weeks.
THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU FOR MAKING IT POSSIBLE TO HELP THOSE IN DESPERATE NEED OF MUD HUT REPAIRS. 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog, November 9, 2024

1 WEEK INTERRUPTION IN BLOG

So sor­ry, but due to a very weak inter­net all this week, it is not pos­si­ble to send pho­tos of our lat­est accom­plish­ments. I was hap­py to be able to send you this note, as I have had no email for sev­er­al days.

All the babies and the school age chil­dren are doing well. It is finals week for all the chil­dren who have to take exams.

Please under­stand that this sit­u­a­tion is very frus­trat­ing to me, as no inter­net dur­ing much of our day makes my great smart phone, “JUST-a-phone”.

Join me in pray­ing for a bet­ter sit­u­a­tion next week so our inter­net can return to nor­mal, and I can share pho­tos of our beau­ti­ful fam­i­ly members.

BLESSINGS

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA TEAM

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog, November 2, 2024

BABY DOMINGOS, OUR YOUNGEST

Domin­gos is so cute and lov­able, I just love to hug him when I get the chance! So his Fos­ter Mom, Gil­da, and I took a pho­to with this lit­tle one who is grow­ing so fast. 

Fos­ter Moth­er Gil­da with me hold­ing Domin­gos. 2 months old and sooo loveable!
Upon admis­sion he was a tiny 2.6kgs/5.7lbs at 2 days of age. He’s now up to 5.1kgs/11.2lbs at 8 weeks of age. Domingo’s moth­er died in the Bala­ma hos­pi­tal after giv­ing birth to this lit­tle boy. He nev­er received the immune fight­ing Colostrum flu­ids from his moth­er.

With the great care that Gil­da gives Domin­gos, he has stayed healthy with only a stuffy nose dur­ing his 8 weeks with us. For that we Praise the Lord!

YOUR LOVE GIFTS PROVIDE FOR ALL THE INFANTS AND CHILDREN WE CARE FOR, MAKING THEIR LIVES THE BEST THEY CAN BE.


HELPING A WIDOW BY BUILDING HER A NEW MUD HUT

Our “HELP A WIDOW” CONSTRUCTION PROGRAM is mov­ing ahead at a fast pace, as the rainy sea­son could start in late Novem­ber. Spon­sored by a church in New Jer­sey, this pro­gram was designed for us to teach the locals how to build bet­ter homes, and help those wid­ows in need of a “make-over” home project.

Wid­ow with her 3 chil­dren. Get­ting a house “make-over”. (House in background).
The pho­tos show our lat­est home under con­struc­tion for this wid­ow with 3 chil­dren. She was liv­ing in a home that was lit­er­al­ly falling down around her. With­out our help, she would have been home­less when the rains start­ed, for her roof would have allowed the rains to hit the mud bricks, and MELTING the house to the ground. 

Wid­ow’s home before makeover began.
WE ARE VERY GRATEFUL FOR THIS PROJECT THAT ALLOWS US TO ASSIST WIDOWS AND TRAIN VILLAGE MEN TO BE BETTER HOME BUILDERS.
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog, October 26, 2024

BABY JORGE IS FINALLY HOME FROM HOSPITAL

Being 2 months old and hav­ing 2 hos­pi­tal stays on record, is not a great way to start a life. Suf­fer­ing from severe mal­nu­tri­tion and now recov­er­ing from malar­ia, this lit­tle boy has had a real­ly rough time of it. On top of that, he start­ed last night with a sinus infec­tion, which we are treat­ing at home, PTL!

This is what hap­pens when an infant doesn’t get his Mom’s colostrum dur­ing their first 3 days of birth, and is severe­ly mal­nour­ished on top of that. But his weight is now 4 kgs/8.8 lbs., so he is grow­ing despite his health set­backs, PTL!B

Hap­py Jorge with Fos­ter Moth­er Fraquina. No place like home!

BABY CLOTHING GIFT MAKES OUR DAY 

Thanks to a won­der­ful group effort, and a per­son­al hand deliv­ery to South Africa, our babies were blessed with 60 lbs./27kg of baby and tod­dler clothes!

Many of you have asked if they could send “clothing/blankets, etc.” but the cost of trans­port, import, etc. is astro­nom­i­cal! Much more than the val­ue of the clothes being sent.

Baby clothes galore!

But friends Dave and Steve, and Steve’s wife received dona­tions of baby cloth­ing so that Dave and Steve could hand car­ry the items to South Africa since they were fly­ing there any­way! What a super bless­ing! The suit­case just arrived after being trucked to us by friends who live near­by. Our babies will be sharply dressed in the com­ing months thanks to a lot of kind peo­ple.

NOTE: Our team is run­ning hard, as we start deliv­er­ing food to remote vil­lages next Mon­day.  

BLESSINGS,
AND MUCH THANKS FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND GIFTS!
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog, October 19, 2024

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

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog: October 12, 2024

GRANNY PUTS NEPHEWS TO WORK 

Once a month we need to dehull rice for our infants, as the Fos­ter Moms make their own rice cere­al for the babies in our care. This also gives the wid­ows a chance to make some pock­et mon­ey, as I pre­fer the funds to go to the wid­ows vs. a local mill.

Some of our wid­ows hard at work, dehulling rice. See them in action at our YouTube Chan­nel: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I7N_TT6C420
Emilio and Felez show off their perfect rhythm, dehulling rice for Granny. The boys work in perfect rhythm as they cut the dehulling time in half by working as a team.
Emilio and Felez show off their per­fect rhythm, dehulling rice for Granny. The boys work in per­fect rhythm as they cut the dehulling time in half by work­ing as a team. See them in action on YouTube at this link: https://youtube.com/shorts/lRQ7of2YWws?si=DFNu3m43hmc-r4Uo
One of our Grannies brought her 2 nephews this week and put them to work. She is up in age, and no longer has the strength to do the entire dehulling by her­self. I grabbed a video of the boys work­ing in per­fect rhythm as they cut the dehulling time in half by work­ing as a team. I tru­ly appre­ci­ate the wid­owed grannies that live near us, as they tru­ly know how to raise a child in the way they should go so they won’t depart from it.
2 OF THE MIRACLE BABIES NOW WALKING!

Baby Mila­gre (means Mir­a­cle), is now just over 1 year old and walk­ing very well! Milagre’s moth­er passed away after a C‑section was per­formed in the Region­al Hos­pi­tal. Her son, named Mila­gre by his father, was saved, PTL! But the father had no female rel­a­tive to help care for the new­born. So Mila­gre was sent to us by Social Ser­vices as he was very frag­ile after his rough start in life. 

Mila­gre enjoy­ing his new free­dom! See him in action at our YouTube Chan­nel. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Vl6Dz-nqOWQ
He is a joy to care for and a very hap­py boy now that he has mobil­i­ty. He will return to his father when he’s around 4 years old, but until then, we get to enjoy this bun­dle of joy!

ALBERTINA was aban­doned in the Bala­ma hos­pi­tal by her fam­i­ly, weigh­ing only 5.7kg/12.5 lbs. at 13 months of age. Even the Doc­tors held lit­tle hope that she would sur­vive, as her mal­nu­tri­tion sta­tus was one of the most severe they had ever seen. Nev­er under­es­ti­mate God’s heal­ing power!

Alberti­na after 4 months of good care. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YdxApmjFMkw
Prayer by our staff and the baby’s spon­sors, as well as a high pro­tein diet, soon had her released from the hos­pi­tal and on the road to recov­ery. Even the Doc­tors were amazed!

FOUR MONTHS LATER, this lit­tle girl weighs 9.4kg/21 lbs. AND IS WALKING!

ONLY GOD can pull off that kind of recov­ery, for it usu­al­ly takes up to 6 months to get a baby to gain this kind of weight. Alberti­na has been dif­fer­ent from the start, and I believe the Lord has great plans for that lit­tle girl!

YOUR LOVE GIFTS MAKE ALL THIS POSSIBLE, AND FOR THAT WE ARE TRULY GRATEFUL!

Bless­ings,
Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange
And the Bala­ma Staff

Bush Bunny Brenda Blog: October 5, 2024

LITTLE DISCIPLES CLASS RECEIVE NEW LEARNING MATERIALS

Our Lit­tle Dis­ci­ples class is for our chil­dren ages 3 to 5 years. Its pur­pose is to pre­pare them for 1st grade by learn­ing Por­tuguese through song, and grasp­ing “how to learn”. Our Assis­tant Children’s Direc­tor, Fati­ma, teach­es them basic num­bers up to 10, as well as the alpha­bet, and Bible Sto­ries.

While fetch­ing my Pass­port in Maputo last week, I had 3 hours in which to find and buy new learn­ing mate­ri­als that are not avail­able in our area. Bun­nies are always hop­ping around, so thought I’d make this trip ben­e­fi­cial for the chil­dren.

Flash­cards of 10 dif­fer­ent sub­jects can be used in both the Lit­tle Dis­ci­ples Class, and with our 1st to 3rd graders. I also found 5 children’s books IN PORTUGUESE that will broad­en their horizons.
Lit­tle Dis­ci­ples enjoy­ing the new num­ber flashcards. 

Watch the chil­dren repeat­ing their num­ber les­son at this YouTube link: https://youtube.com/shorts/NCiQtHm-XMs?feature=share
Our goal is to help all our chil­dren learn as much as they can dur­ing their young devel­op­men­tal phase.

I don’t know who was hap­pi­est about my find, the teach­ers or the stu­dents. The adults have nev­er seen books and flash­cards like this, so they are just as fas­ci­nat­ed as the chil­dren with their new learn­ing mate­ri­als.YOUR LOVE GIFTS MAKE THIS POSSIBLE, SO ALL OF US SEND OUT THANKS!


CLEAN WATER FOR MELUCO CHILDREN!

A request from Melu­co Dis­trict sent our water well repair team to that area with many spares your Love Gifts pro­vid­ed. The pho­tos tell the sto­ry of how they repaired 16 bro­ken wells with these spares, pro­vid­ing 1000’s of chil­dren with clean water.

Manuel pulling the pump rods on a well.
Suc­cess­ful repair brings clean water and lots of joy to all in this vil­lage!

Click the link to see the YouTube video.https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4RCbrU1ZnUM

Manuel and vil­lagers pulling a bro­ken water well pipe.
All this is pos­si­ble because YOU CARE that the chil­dren in our area have clean water, some­thing most peo­ple take for grant­ed. CLEAN WATER EQUALS HEALTHY PEOPLE.

Diar­rhea and Cholera is caused by drink­ing con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed water, and is still the # 2 killer in our area (2nd only to malar­ia).

THANK YOU FOR MAKING THESE WATER WELL REPAIRS POSSIBLE!

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF