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BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: OCTOBER 10, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: OCTOBER 10, 2020
 
FABULOUS FIVE MOVE INTO NEW HOME

Wednes­day, the Fab­u­lous Five Teenagers hap­pi­ly moved into their new home. Our staff helped them extend mos­qui­to nets over their new beds, and get all their belong­ings moved to the new site. You can see many of the gifts 4 of the teens showed off on mov­ing day.

New home, many gifts for Child Head­ed house­hold.
 
Four­teen year old Fer­nan­do is not in the pho­to as he left ear­ly that a.m. to vis­it a friend, not real­iz­ing it was time to move them. Fer­nan­do returned late after­noon to find his old house desert­ed and every­one gone. Neigh­bors told him where to find his fam­i­ly. Shocked, he came to my house and apol­o­gized (rare occur­rence around here) to me for not being around to help with the move. After 2 days, the Fab­u­lous Five are well set­tled in and enjoy­ing their new home.
 
THANK YOU TO THEIR MONTHLY SPONSOR, AS WELL AS THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTED “start-up gifts” so these young adults could have the basic items need­ed to begin a much bet­ter life.

Din­ha, the 17 year old “head of house­hold”,  seemed very relieved that Anna, our Children’s Direc­tor, lives so close by.  Being respon­si­ble for 4 oth­er teens is a BIG respon­si­bil­i­ty as many of you know.
 

THE NORM IN OUR LIVES

Each week we receive an aver­age of 1 or 2 babies into our for­mu­la 
pro­gram. New orphan chil­dren come in about twice a month because their Mom has died from some dis­ease or dur­ing child­birth. CV-19 is not a prob­lem in this area, PTL!
 

A wid­owed aunt with her 4 chil­dren and her sis­ter’s 4 orphans.  Your gifts tru­ly make a dif­fer­ence in the lives of this fam­i­ly.​

This week, Granny Assum­ia (Ah-soo-mia) report­ed to Social Ser­vices that she need­ed food help for her 2 orphaned Grand­chil­dren. One year old Jonas and 3 year old Muamede (Moo-ah-med‑y) hap­pi­ly left wear­ing new clothes and car­ry­ing a bag full of food that your love gifts pro­vid­ed.
 

Granny Assum­ia holds 1 year old Jonas with 3 year old Muamede at her side.​
 
The before and after pho­tos are shown here. I want­ed to show you the trans­for­ma­tion that takes place when they put on new clothes. Don’t be fooled by the lack of smiles for in this cul­ture, a smile means you are not tak­ing the gift seri­ous­ly. But know they were super hap­py for Muamede hap­pi­ly skipped off as his Granny head­ed them towards home.
 

Your gifts pro­vide new clothes for these 2 lit­tle boys.​
 

RAINY SEASON COMING EARLY.
 
The Octo­ber food give-outs were com­plet­ed today for more than 1,000 orphaned chil­dren in 22 remote vil­lages. Due to dark clouds hov­er­ing over Bala­ma all week with only mid­day sun­shine, our staff “took God’s hint” know­ing this means the rains will soon begin.
 

Food give-outs keeps orphans/grannies healthy.​
 
Novem­ber is seed give-out time, so our plan is not to wait, but push on with the final food dis­tri­b­u­tion start­ing next Wednes­day. If heavy rains hit before the 1st 2 weeks of Novem­ber, we won’t be able to get to many of the vil­lages as the roads are hard packed clay. Clay and water make for slip­pery mud roads which our trucks can’t nego­ti­ate. Even 4‑wheel-dri­ve pick­ups strug­gle in some of the deep­er mud holes.
 
But I am hap­py to announce that for the 1st time EVER, Bala­ma has a paved road all the way through our town that con­nects it to oth­er parts of the Province/State!Rainy sea­son will no longer be a major chal­lenge if we need to go to the Cap­i­tal of Pem­ba between Decem­ber and March. 
 
BECAUSE YOU CARE,  1000’S OF CHILDREN NOW KNOW THAT JESUS LOVES THEM.
 
THANK YOU FOR MAKING THAT POSSIBLE. 
 
BLESSINGS 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: OCTOBER 3, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: OCTOBER 3, 2020
 
HEALTHY TRIPLETS THANKS TO YOUR HELP

Triplets Mar­cia, Marceli­na, and Marce­lo are now very healthy at 6 months as they all weigh over 14.5 lbs/6.6kg  thanks to your help.
As you can see from their pho­to, they are chub­by lit­tle tykes, who began life at only a lit­tle over 2 kgs/4.5lbs each.
 

Bala­ma town triplets Mar­cia, Marceli­na, and Marcelo​.

The 2nd set of triplets from Rovu­ma vil­lage, Felis­mi­na, Filom­i­na, and Filomi­no, are close behind them in weight at 5kg (11lbs) each even though they are 7 weeks YOUNGER than the first set of triplets. I take my hat off to this moth­er and 2 old­er sib­lings of the Rovu­ma fam­i­ly, for they have done an excep­tion­al job of rais­ing these 3 lit­tle ones up to now.
 

Rovu­ma triplets are gain­ing weight rapid­ly.

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR BABY FORMULA PROGRAM, FOR IT LITERALLY MEANT LIFE VS. DEATH TO THESE NEWBORNS.
 

LIFE SKILLS TRAINING:  WEAVING A ROPE BED

Rope Beds are the “norm” for this cul­ture, as the mate­ri­als to make them are read­i­ly avail­able. I bought the bed frame from a local man who makes them, and our “Life Skills” team were taught by Rachide, my house guard, to weave the ropes super tight so it makes a very com­fort­able bed.
 

Life Skills Teens com­plete their 1st woven rope bed.

The Fab­u­lous Five Teenagers need this bed before they can move into their new  home this com­ing week. Our builders are still wrap­ping up the final touch­es on their home this week­end.  The video link will bet­ter explain how bed weav­ing is done, and you’ll see our team of young men learn­ing a new “life skill” while help­ing out the Fab­u­lous Five.
 
Watch a video of the Fab­u­lous Five weav­ing the bed for our new orphans here —>  https://youtu.be/21ULOeBVF4k
 
 
LITTLE SANTOS TAKES HIS FIRST SELFIE!

San­tos and his Fos­ter Moth­er, Felim­i­na, joined me in a self­ie last week, as 2.5 year old San­tos real­ly want­ed to play with my phone.
So I turned on the cam­era, and we did our best to get all 3 of us in the pho­to.  My arms were just a bit too short, but we tried. Any­way, San­tos LOVED THE PHOTO, so I want­ed to share it with you.
 

San­tos San­tos 1st self­ie with Bren­da and Fos­ter Moth­er,  Felimina​

Please know I love hear­ing from all of you, so don’t be shy about writ­ing. Tell me what’s going on in your life, for I am very iso­lat­ed here and emails are most wel­come. I will answer back for sure.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 26, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 26, 2020
 
CHILD-HEADED HOUSEHOLD NEEDS OUR HELP

MEET THE COUSINS WHO BECAME A FAMILY:  (L‑R) Celi­na-12, Fer­nan­do-13, Mani­ho-16, Nionel­da-14, Dean­ha-17. Eleven years ago, 2 sis­ters died with­in a week of each oth­er. One died in child­birth and the oth­er for unknown rea­sons. Each sis­ter had 5 small chil­dren who went to live with their Grand­moth­er, (10 kids in all). Need­less to say, Granny need­ed food and cloth­ing help, so that is how these chil­dren came to be in our orphan food pro­gram.
 

The Fan­tas­tic Five, youngest to old­est, hap­pi­ly wear­ing their new out­fits.

Their Grand­moth­er passed away a year ago, so her old­est daugh­ter came to live with the remain­ing 5 chil­dren. This Aunt passed away from can­cer 3 weeks ago, leav­ing the 5 young teenagers with no adult in the house­hold. In tears, the old­est girl, Dean­ha, came to ask our help, as their mud hut is very old, and not in great con­di­tion.

Our staff decid­ed the best thing to do was to buy a house near our mis­sion so our Children’s Direc­tor, Anna, could be close by to assist and guide them. Our head brick lay­er knew of a mud hut for sale just 3 hous­es away from our Children’s Director’s home, which places it with­in 100 yards/meters of our Orphan­age Water Well. The loca­tion of this home couldn’t have been any bet­ter! I con­sid­er it a Bless­ing from the Lord!
 

Two of our Life Skills stu­dents build­ing the bam­boo fence in front of new orphans home.​

The house need­ed a new roof, and basic upgrades like a cement floor, an out­door bath­room, a kitchen and a shad­ed out­door eat­ing area as there is no shade at all around this house. All this was eas­i­ly built dur­ing this last month by our brick lay­ers and car­pen­ters.
 

The Fan­tas­tic Five’s new home, still under con­struc­tion.​

The pho­to shows the house TODAY in the final con­struc­tion stages, as we plan to move the chil­dren into it next week, once final paint­ing is done.

THANKS TO YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT, THESE CHILDREN WILL BE SAFE UNDER OUR CARE, AND BE ABLE TO CONTINUE THEIR EDUCATION WITH OUR HELP.

SPONSORS ARE NEEDED to help them with their basic needs.

A TOTAL GIFT OF $60/MONTH PROVIDES ALL 5 CHILDREN WITH THEIR BASIC NEEDS (clothes, shoes,  school uniforms/materials, and a week­ly allowance to buy meat, fish, and veg­eta­bles). Their basic food is pro­vid­ed through our orphan
food pro­gram.

Please email me if you would like to pro­vide all or any part of this Love Gift to these brave young teens.


CONSTRUCTION RESUMES ON ORPHAN HOUSE #7!

With restric­tions eas­ing nation­wide, our team was giv­en per­mis­sion to com­plete Orphan House #7. This is much need­ed since oth­er 6 orphan homes are near­ly full.
 

ORPHAN HOME #7 with ring beam in place.​

The ring beam is going up as I write, so as soon as the walls are
com­plet­ed, the roof should be built with­in the next 3 weeks. We are expect­ing the rainy sea­son EARLY in Novem­ber, so it is essen­tial to
the com­ple­tion of the house that the roof be on before those rains
begin. The rest of the work can be done as long as the roof is on.
This is cut­ting it close, but NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD!

OUR HEARTFELT THANKS TO THE DONORS OF HOUSE #7 FOR THEIR PATIENCE DURING THIS UNEXPECTED 6 MONTH DELAY.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 19, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 19, 2020
 
EVA SHOWING OFF HER HOME SKILLS

Eva, the first child we took into our fam­i­ly in 2000, is now 22 years old. (Yeap, I just com­plet­ed 20 years in Bala­ma!) Two year old Eva and her Grand­moth­er came to us because Eva was suf­fer­ing from 6 major seizures DAILY due to Cere­bral Pal­sy. Long sto­ry, short, the doc­tors that saw her at age 2 told us she would most like­ly be unable to walk, speak, or take care of her­self. SURPRISE!
 

Eva pound­ing whole corn into corn flour.

She is NOW DOING ALL 3 AND car­ing for her grand­moth­er, as well! Pass­ing by her home this week, I found Eva “pil­lar­ing” (hand pound­ing corn into flour). Don’t be fooled, that “pound­ing pole” weighs about 15 lbs (7 kg).
 
Eva shows how it’s done in this video!
https://youtu.be/g‑7hsszrYWk

Yes, Eva is men­tal­ly slow and walks with a fun­ny gait, but with her Grandmother’s patient teach­ing, Eva has proven that she can be a use­ful helper around the house. She runs, sings, and speaks part of 3 lan­guages! NEVER SAY NEVER WHERE GOD IS CONCERNED!
 

REMOTE VILLAGE ORPHANS RECEIVING YOUR GIFTS

This week, we com­plet­ed all 5 remote vil­lage food give-outs using strict guide­lines to pre­vent any viral con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. Bala­ma is CV-19 free, and we hope to keep it that way.
 

Vil­lages orphans and their fos­ter moth­ers fetch­ing food.

Each orphan fam­i­ly received 1 sack of corn, plus salt, 1 piece of soap, and 3 kg (6.6 lbs) of dried beans/person.

THANK YOU FOR MAKING IT POSSIBLE TO CONTINUE HELPING THESE CHILDREN STAY STRONG AND HEALTHY.
 

BUILDING A LOCAL TOILET AND BATHING AREA

The 4 high school stu­dents par­tic­i­pat­ing in our Life Skills train­ing, are hard at work today, build­ing a bath­room for 5 young teenage orphans who will enter our pro­gram in about 10 days. I’ll tell you more about this “child head­ed house­hold” in next week’s blog.

Our boys, Alferes, Helder, Samuel, and Ize­bio start­ed their day by mark­ing out, and then dig­ging post holes for the bath­room. The boys then walked to a near­by neigh­bor and bought 5 bun­dles of grass for the bath­room walls. Car­ry­ing the grass bun­dles on their heads makes them look like a “grass train” as they walk one behind the oth­er.
 

Grass train head­ed to our newest mud brick home.

Once the fence posts were in, the 12 foot/4 meter long bam­boo rods must be split as they will sup­port the grass walls. Ize­bio knew how to split bam­boo, so we had him show the oth­er 3 how to do it.  Life Skills is all about “teach­ing one to teach one”.
 

Stu­dents mount­ing the grass walls on bathing area.​
 
These split bam­boos are then tied onto the fence posts with strong “cords” cut from old tires. The grass walls are secured in place by a 2nd piece of split bam­boo on the out­side of the grass to “sand­wich” it into place. Every house needs a bath­room, mak­ing this a vital part of House Build­ing 101.
 

Teen team with com­plet­ed grass bath­room with BBC mem­ber, Cabral as instruc­tor. (mid­dle, back row)
 
Our young teens are grow­ing into men, all because YOU GAVE so that they could have a bet­ter future. It takes more than aca­d­e­mics to make a well-round­ed cit­i­zen in this coun­try. With­out the basics of “mak­ing a home from local mate­ri­als”, where will they live?

UNTIL NEXT WEEK, MY FRIENDS.  KEEP YOUR PRAYERS FLOWING OUR WAY.

BLESSINGS
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 12, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: SEPTEMBER 12, 2020
 
LIFE SKILLS LEADS TO EMPLOYMENT 
 
Widnes (Wit-ness), an orphan who grew up in the ear­ly years of our pro­gram, is now 27 and a trained car­pen­ter’s assis­tant on his way to becom­ing a mas­ter car­pen­ter. When he grad­u­at­ed high school in 2011, he request­ed to appren­tice under our mis­sion sta­tion’s mas­ter car­pen­ter. This was 9 years ago, long before a life skills train­ing cen­ter was need­ed because most of our orphans were very young.


Widnes using a car­pen­ter’s hand plane to make a win­dow frame.
 
As I write, Widnes and our car­pen­ter are out replac­ing a dam­aged door frame in one of our wid­ow’s homes. The video link shows Widnes hand plan­ing a win­dow frame, the same as Jesus did. Car­pen­try in our area is still done “the Jesus way”, (all with hand tools) because elec­tric­i­ty was not avail­able here until recent­ly, and then only in the cen­tral areas of town. Our homes are just out­side that area.
 
Click here for video —>   https://youtu.be/97AKDdZE44s
 
Life Skills Train­ing leads to Jobs Skills Train­ing, a proven method to help teenagers become pro­duc­tive, skilled work­ers and lead­ers in their com­mu­ni­ties. 
 
 
BABY FORMULA, ORPHANED INFANTS, AND YOUR LOVE…
 
Baby for­mu­la is such a sim­ple, tak­en-for-grant­ed item in most coun­tries. Yet it is the dif­fer­ence between life and death to a new­born who los­es their moth­er just after birth. 
 
Thanks to your Love Gifts, our baby for­mu­la pro­gram is still able to help every infant sent to us by Social Ser­vices dur­ing their “milk depen­dent” days.
 
Such is the case for the frag­ile 8‑day-old THABO, who lost his moth­er a week after his birth on Sep­tem­ber 2nd. His granny, along with the father and aunt, brought him to our mis­sion sta­tion on Sep­tem­ber 10th, with a Social Ser­vices let­ter request­ing for­mu­la to save their 2.8kg (6 lb.)baby boy.
 

Baby Thabo with Granny and Aunt as they pre­pare him a bot­tle.
 
Thabo will be cared for in his infant year by his granny, who will bring him week­ly to our food cen­ter to be weighed and receive baby for­mu­la. As he grows, he will be giv­en baby cere­al to sup­ple­ment his diet until he’s about 9 months old. At that time he will be eat­ing well, and able to thrive on baby food pre­pared by the fam­i­ly. 
 
THANK YOU FOR YOUR LOVE GIFTS. 
THEY ARE A LIFE LINE TO INFANTS WHO HAVE NO MOTHER.
 
 
KID POWER!
 
As I walked through the vil­lage near our chil­dren’s homes, I came across a broth­er and sis­ter using their com­bined force to pump the local water well your love gifts pro­vid­ed 10 years ago. Kids are smart, and will find a way to “make things hap­pen ” using team work. The video I took tells the whole sto­ry.
 
This well is 35 meters/105 ft. deep, and it does take some mus­cle pow­er to pump it, espe­cial­ly as fast as these 2 are doing it.
 

Kid pow­er, fill­ing a buck­et at top speed
Click for video —>   https://youtu.be/QxujwbfUtLc
 
God’s Bless­ings to all of you!
Have a great week walk­ing with Jesus.
 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: SEPTEMBER 5, 2020

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

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: AUGUST 29, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: AUGUST 29, 2020
 
LAST OF THE HARVEST LEAVES THE FIELDS

Our 18 Grannies who are part of our mis­sion base, have kept their orphaned grand­chil­dren very busy in the last 2 weeks as they bring in the last of their har­vest. Each of our Grannies and the Fos­ter Moth­ers of our 6 orphan homes receives about 1 acre of land to use as a “teach­ing ground” for the chil­dren in our pro­gram.
 

Grannies with grand­chil­dren bring in Man­dio­ca Cut­tings that will be plant­ed in Octo­ber.​

KNOWING HOW TO PLANT/HARVEST is an essen­tial skill every Mozam­bi­can must know if they desire to eat. Thus our “train­ing fields” are now being cleared of the last of the Ervelia Beans and Man­dio­ca Root (cas­sa­va), so that these fields can be pre­pared for next year’s crop. Our plant­i­ng sea­sons are the oppo­site of the north­ern Hemi­sphere, which means we plant in Novem­ber to Decem­ber, and har­vest in April to July.
 

NITO, a spe­cial needs orphan (cen­ter) help­ing his Granny with the har­vest.

The objec­tive of our pro­gram is to pro­vide each child with a ful­ly round­ed edu­ca­tion. Not just class­room skills, but farm­ing “sur­vival” skills must be taught as well. Nor­mal­ly, the children’s par­ents would teach these skills to their chil­dren. Since our Fos­ter Moth­ers have tak­en over that role with all that it entails, it is our respon­si­bil­i­ty to make sure they learn every­thing need­ed to be a self-suf­fi­cient cit­i­zen.
 

GRANNY MASACA may be over 70, but still helps her grand­child bring in the har­vest.

BUSH BUNNY TIDBITS:
 
1.   PTL the Mon­goos­es are back! That means less snakes in the area. THANK YOU JESUS!
 
 
2.   Church­es are now allowed to open but with stiff mea­sures.  Since those reg­u­la­tions include only 50 peo­ple and no chil­dren, we will not be open­ing our church at this time. Our Sun­day ser­vices are held in small “house church­es” out­doors so that all our chil­dren may par­tic­i­pate.
 
3.   Schools will remain closed until Octo­ber 1st, when the gov­ern­ment will decide if they open at all for this school year which ends in Novem­ber.
 
4.   PRAYERS are need­ed for all of us, (please don’t for­get the 515 Melu­co orphans), as we con­tin­ue to take it one day at a time.  
PTL that ALL OF US are healthy and strong. Liv­ing out­side in this spa­cious area with lots of fresh air has many advan­tages.
 
5.   Our study and activ­i­ty peri­ods con­tin­ue with the chil­dren each morn­ing, keep­ing body and minds strong and absorbent.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR CONTINUED PRAYERS AND LOVE GIFTS DURING THESE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA TEAM

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: AUGUST 22, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: AUGUST 22, 2020
 
STANDARD BANK DONATES FACE MASKS
 
Our chil­dren, Muzi­la, Fati­ma, and Ali rep­re­sent­ed our entire chil­dren’s group in a sur­prise cer­e­mo­ny on Thurs­day to receive an entire case of cloth face masks with the bank’s emblem on them. The old­er chil­dren will be giv­en instruc­tions on when and how to use them before we dis­trib­ute them. 
 
Thank you Stan­dard Bank for your con­cern about our chil­dren’s safe­ty.
 

Muzi­la, Bala­ma Admin­is­tra­tor, Fati­ma, Ali, and SB Pres­i­dent mod­el their new masks. (left to right) 
 
 
COOL WEATHER HANGING AROUND
 
August is sup­posed to be warm to hot, but not this year. Nor­mal­ly, August and Sep­tem­ber in Bala­ma, the temps match TX weath­er almost per­fect­ly. HOT, HOT, HOT.
 
The 2 lit­tle vil­lage boys in the pho­to are keep­ing warm at the fire they made while wait­ing for the sun to heat up the air. Chil­dren learn essen­tial life skills, like start­ing a fire, at an ear­ly age here, for it is nec­es­sary for sur­vival. They are well trained at an ear­ly age, and rarely burn them­selves.
 

Two intel­li­gent lit­tle boys start a sim­ple fire to keep warm.
 
YOUR LOVE GIFTS pro­vide warm cloth­ing for our chil­dren so they don’t suf­fer the cold. Thank you for keep­ing them healthy and warm dur­ing our pro­longed cool sea­son. 

 
TEEN POWER!!!
 
Our 17 teenage boys helped out this month by giv­ing our 1,600 meter (over 1 mile) fence­line a good clean­ing. They suc­cess­ful­ly chopped and pushed back the weeds dur­ing their week­ly 2 hour work project, over a 3 week time peri­od. 
 

Our TEEN POWER return­ing from 2 hours of fence clean­ing.
Mon­key Bean best dealt with before the dew dries.
 

Mon­key bean grows wild on fences and in trees.
Those tiny hairs make you scratch like a mon­key.​
 
Teen pow­er is quite a force when har­nessed and these young men did a great job. This teach­es them work ethics, gives them work expe­ri­ence and exer­cise, burn­ing off their abun­dant sup­ply of ener­gy. School is not due to open till Octo­ber 1st, so busy hands are a good thing. 
 
All our chil­dren are kept busy dai­ly with games, sports, and class­room activ­i­ties. 
 
THANK YOU FOR PROVIDING A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT AND EDUCATIONAL BENEFITS FOR OUR CHILDREN. 
 
BLESSINGS 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 
AND THE BALAMA STAFF 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: AUGUST 15, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: AUGUST 15, 2020
 
AND THE LAME SHALL WALK!

Pas­tor Alber­to, in Namuno Dis­trict, report­ed that a woman named, Juli­et­ta, HADN’T WALKED IN 3 MONTHS due to a severe back injury which occurred right after she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Her fam­i­ly are Jesus believ­ers, so they trans­port­ed her from a remote vil­lage deep in the bush to where Pas­tor Alber­to has his church.

TEN MINUTES AFTER PASTOR ALBERTO PRAYED FOR HER, THE LORD JESUS HEALED HER BACK COMPLETELY! SHE GOT UP FROM HER GRASS MAT AND WALKED!!! (sound famil­iar?)
 

Juli­et­ta with her infant daugh­ter a few days after the Lord healed her back.​

Alber­to called me today to say she is now able to haul water on her head from the local riv­er, and enjoys play­ing with her lit­tle girl. THANK YOU JESUS FOR THIS MIRACLE HEALING!

The fam­i­ly and vil­lagers were great­ly impact­ed and are PRAISING JESUS, for many knew of this woman’s inabil­i­ty to walk. She had been told by med­ical per­son­nel, that they could do noth­ing for her.

FYI: The pho­to of Juli­et­ta and her lit­tle girl was tak­en and hand car­ried by Pas­tor Alber­to to me via his motor­bike. TWENTY-FOUR MILES (40km), ONE WAY, as their inter­net wouldn’t send it. I am very grate­ful for Alber­to, for he is a true “man of faith” and tru­ly knows that NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR OUR LORD.
 

TRIPLETS THRIVING AT 5 MONTHS!

It is now warm enough to weigh the babies with­out cloth­ing, so want­ed to show you what your BABY FORMULA LOVE GIFTS are doing for the infants of Bala­ma. Mar­cia and Marceli­no each weigh in at 13.2 lbs (6kg), while broth­er Marce­lo weighs 13.75lbs (6.25kg). Love and good food keep these babies healthy!
 

Triplets Mar­cia, Marceli­no, and Marce­lo show­ing off their chub­by 5 month old bod­ies.​

Will update you on the oth­er triplets lat­er this month, as they are slow­ly gain­ing weight after their res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness that caused them to be admit­ted to the Bala­ma hos­pi­tal.


BONIFACY LEARNING SEVERAL TRADES

Boni­fa­cy, now 20, is a spe­cial needs young man who is men­tal­ly slow. But that didn’t stop him from help­ing his Grand­ma around the house, as well as har­vest­ing her pro­duce from her lit­tle farm­ing field.
 
Grand­ma Sev­e­ri­na took in her 5 orphaned grand­chil­dren when they were all small chil­dren. Two of her grand­sons were men­tal­ly slow, but that didn’t stop her from teach­ing them how to do the basics of farm­ing,  mud brick mak­ing, and fetch­ing water from the local well.
 

The ever-smil­ing Boni­fa­cy with sack of Man­dio­ca root on his head.

I cap­tured the pho­to of Boni­fa­cy was last week as he returned from Granny’s farm with a sack of fresh Man­dio­ca Root on his head. This young man ALWAYS has a BIG SMILE on his face! I’m very proud of Granny Sev­e­ri­na and Boni­fa­cy for team­ing up to take care of the younger chil­dren in her home.
 
WITH GOD AND PATIENCE, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: AUGUST 8, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: AUGUST 8, 2020
 
SNEAKY SNAKE GETS CAUGHT
 
I was walk­ing near my dog pen when I saw a snake track that left the dog pen and returned onto itself after a few yards. It was fresh, cause I had walked that same area just a few min­utes before. Mean­ing: snake is near­by.  Call­ing my guard, I began to look for it when my mechan­ic yelled “STOP! It is in the fence!”.
 
Sure enough, while I’m look­ing on the ground, the snake went UP, tan­gling itself in the chain-link fenc­ing try­ing to get away from me on the out­side and the 2 dogs on the inside.
 
The video says it all as to what hap­pened next. With a 99.9% poi­so­nous rate in the snakes of this area, THE ONLY GOOD SNAKE, IS A DEAD SNAKE!

https://youtu.be/5QYzaPG7Pc8
 
Weath­er is warm­ing up, so 2 snakes in 8 days means time to be on the alert again. JOY! I am very grate­ful for sharp eyed work­ers and pro­tec­tive Angels. 
 

Sneaky Snake lost the bat­tle.
 
LOCAL MOTHER BIRTHS BABY AFTER SEVERE ACCIDENT

Mar­ti­na, 3 months preg­nant, was being giv­en a lift by her Uncle on his bicy­cle when he lost his bal­ance, caus­ing them to have a severe fall. Mar­ti­na suf­fered a frac­tured femur (right leg) which put her in hos­pi­tal for months.
 
Her baby boy, Alberti­no, was born 6 months lat­er in per­fect health. The hus­band aban­doned her dur­ing this time, leav­ing her 2 oth­er boys, ages 6 and 8, with her sis­ter, Vir­ginia.
 
Due to her poor health, Martina’s breast milk dried up com­plete­ly a few days ago, leav­ing 11 week old Alberti­no with noth­ing to eat. The local hos­pi­tal sent her to us for assis­tance. Car­ried to our mis­sion sta­tion on a friend’s motor­bike, Mar­ti­na walked with the aid of crutch­es to bring her baby to us.

Her sis­ter, Vir­ginia, has moved in with her as the 2 boys are too young to do all the house­hold work, plus care for the infant’s needs. The fam­i­ly had only star­va­tion foods avail­able to them, as their farm pro­duced noth­ing this year since no one was there to attend the fields.
 

Aunt Vir­ginia hold­ing baby Alberti­no with moth­er, Mar­ti­na.​

Jesus sent our group to this area so that oth­ers might live and know 
Him. YOUR LOVE GIFTS are pro­vid­ing the LOVE OF JESUS plus the milk and food this fam­i­ly needs so that they have a chance to regain what they have lost in the last year. THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS POSSIBLE.
 

PASTOR’S REPORT FOR JULY

SALVATIONS in our home church­es through­out 2 Dis­tricts:
        31 Adults
        14 Teenagers
        71 chil­dren
Our church­es will be allowed to open lat­er this month but only 50 are allowed to attend at once. I will be orga­niz­ing the Pas­tors with large church­es to have more than 1 meet­ing so that every­one can attend.

The BBC motor­bike and bicy­cle teams are still restrict­ed because the crowds of chil­dren they attract num­bers more than 50. Keep pray­ing for Mozam­bique as they begin a 3 month “reopen­ing” of their infra­struc­ture. Schools may not reopen until Oct. 1st if all goes accord­ing to plan.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF