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BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: AUGUST 1, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: AUGUST 1, 2020
 
VISITORS ENCOURAGE OUR CHILDREN

At 9 a.m. yes­ter­day we wel­comed Balama’s Admin­is­tra­tor and sev­en oth­er key Dis­trict Lead­ers to our mis­sion sta­tion for a brief 20 minute ori­en­ta­tion of our project. The Admin­is­tra­tor was keen to see our food ware­hous­es, which are stun­ning right now since they are full. The group then vis­it­ed our children’s homes, and were impressed at how well our chil­dren live, and how respect­ful they act.

The Admin­is­tra­tor stat­ed that elec­tric­i­ty is due into our orphans’ 
com­mu­ni­ty lat­er this year, and we promised to get “hooked up” to it as soon as it is installed. That is the only util­i­ty we don’t have as of 
now, since run­ning water was installed last year via an out­door tap at each orphan home.
 

O.U. Office Man­ag­er Cape­na (left) with New Admin­is­tra­tor vis­it­ing our chil­dren’s homes.
 
I thor­ough­ly enjoyed get­ting to vis­it with him, and explain the many 
facets of our pro­gram. THANKS TO ALL OF YOU, WE ARE ABLE TO GO BEYOND THE NORMAL LIMITS TO KEEP OUR CHILDREN IN CLEAN LIVING CONDITIONS SO THEY STAY HEALTHY.
 

PREVENTING ORPHANS IS OUR GOAL

Missi­na, a wid­ow at 27 years of age, was brought into the Bala­ma 
hos­pi­tal by her broth­er because her 10-week-old twin girls were los­ing weight dras­ti­cal­ly. Wid­owed dur­ing her preg­nan­cy, Missi­na has lit­tle food due to a poor har­vest, and her breast milk has dried up.

From birth to 10 weeks, both twins had lost crit­i­cal weight (800 gms each), mak­ing them look like they were 2 weeks old. Upon arrival at our mis­sion, Sahi­na (3.1kg / 6.8 lbs) and Saina (3.3kg / 7.26 lbs) were alert, but HUNGRY! Children’s Direc­tor, Anna, ori­en­tat­ed the moth­er and broth­er on how to mix for­mu­la, as the babies fed greed­i­ly on their new-found milk.
 

Wid­owed Missi­na with 10 week old mal­nour­ished twin girls.

Missi­na has 3‑year-old twins at home, so the whole fam­i­ly will ben­e­fit from your Love Gifts over the com­ing months, as the grow­ing sea­son is far ahead of us. (Har­vest begins next March.) With­out our food help, this moth­er and her 3‑year-olds would prob­a­bly per­ish, leav­ing the babies with no female fam­i­ly mem­ber to care for them.

OUR “PREVENT ORPHANS” PROGRAM is just as impor­tant as our “RESCUE ORPHANS” PROGRAM. One of our goals is to help mal­nour­ished, nurs­ing or wid­owed moth­ers to regain their health so they can con­tin­ue lov­ing and car­ing for their own chil­dren. The last thing we want is to have to raise chil­dren in a sit­u­a­tion that was total­ly pre­ventable. THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROUS MONTHLY GIFTS THAT MAKE THIS PREVENTION PROGRAM POSSIBLE.
 

OUR 3 MUSKETEERS ARE GROWING UP!

Left to right in the pho­to are Adeli­no (3.5 years), San­tos (3 years), 
and Mil­do (4 years). They are quite the com­bo to con­tend with as once their lit­tle feet hit the floor, it is go, go, go, until they take a nap 
after lunch. Mil­do is already in pre-school, and Adeli­no and San­tos 
will join him in Feb. 2021. YOUR LOVE GIFTS ARE AT WORK, PUTTING SMILES ON THE FACES OF OUR LITTLE ONES.
 

Our 3 Muska­teers, Adeli­no, San­tos and Mil­do.

FYI: School and church­es will remain closed through­out August.
Our school year is from Feb­ru­ary to end of Octo­ber, so it looks like a lost year for all our stu­dents.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: JULY 25, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: JULY 25, 2020
 
DOG SAVES BUNNY FROM NASTY COBRA!

Sun­day, July 19, I was about to step out­side my house at noon (warmest day of last week), when Misha (Mee­sha), a vis­it­ing dog from next door, set up an urgent bark­ing. She is nor­mal­ly very qui­et, and loves to lay in the sun on my car port just out­side my back door.

I imme­di­ate­ly stuck my head out the door, look­ing for trou­ble, but saw noth­ing (includ­ing the dog). The silenced was very con­cern­ing, for I had no idea WHAT OR WHO had caused Misha’s urgent bark­ing, and WHY had she run away?

I cau­tious­ly walked out into the car­port, and imme­di­ate­ly saw a LARGE zig-zag snake trail in the sand beside the cement slab. Now I knew why Misha had left! Smart dog!

I called the guard with 1 word, COBRA!  He grabbed our snake killer, a 13-foot (4‑meter) sol­id bam­boo rod and came run­ning. You don’t want to get too close to big snakes in Africa since they can stand up to half their length, and strike up to 10 feet from their posi­tion.

Our 7‑ton truck was sit­ting in my car­port, loaded with food for Meluco’s orphans. When we couldn’t find the snake because it’s sand trail end­ed at our cement side­walk, I was  con­cerned it had crawled up into the truck’s frame when the dog barked at it. (Misha had been sleep­ing in the warm sand just in front of the truck before she barked.)
 

Zide show­ing unwant­ed vis­i­tor at Bush Bun­ny’s house

An extend­ed search found the snake ON THE BACK SIDE OF MY HOUSE, sit­ting on the cement ledge that forms the foun­da­tion.
Obvi­ous­ly look­ing for food and warmth on the cement, this 5‑FOOT (1.5‑meter) SPITTING COBRA was a bit slug­gish in its move­ments when we first spot­ted it.

Zide, my guard, told me to step back, as he took aim with the bam­boo rod. The snake lay in a very dif­fi­cult posi­tion for the guard to hit it as it was against the brick wall of the house.

KAWAK! The bam­boo struck the cement, break­ing the end of the bam­boo rod. The snake was only stunned (not good), but at least the blow had knocked it off the wall. Zide is an expe­ri­enced snake killer, so imme­di­ate­ly struck a 2nd time, but missed as the snake turned in the blink of an eye, lung­ing its full length in his direc­tion!

Jump­ing side­ways with speed and agili­ty, the snake bare­ly missed bit­ing Zide. He then hit it 3 more times in quick suc­ces­sion with the bro­ken bam­boo, end­ing that quick but fero­cious bat­tle. I ran into the house and grabbed a machete (pan­ga), as no snake is a dead snake until it’s head is removed!

I regret that I didn’t get a video of this fight, but it all hap­pened in a mat­ter of 10 sec­onds. It would have showed you the skill and agili­ty need­ed to fight a large, fast mov­ing, African snake. I’ll try to remem­ber this when we next encounter a snake, for there is always a “next time” around here.
 

One-eyed Misha, my won­der­ful four-legged friend​

My thanks to JESUS FOR SENDING MISHA, the dog, who warned me, and Zide, the guard, for his brave attack skills in keep­ing me safe from this snake.

That was the warmest day we had all week (70ºF/23ºC), as the next day the tem­per­a­tures turned very cold again (48ºF/13ºC).
Since the snake was very thin, it was obvi­ous it was look­ing for warmth, and food dur­ing its mid­day excur­sion. It won’t need to look any­more, for Zide gave him a nice bur­ial in our back pas­ture.

2 LESSONS TO LEARN HERE: 
 
In the prac­ti­cal: ALWAYS LISTEN to the ani­mals around you, and imme­di­ate­ly inves­ti­gate with cau­tion. I have had God use birds, dogs, and just the tracks on the ground to give me warn­ing of an impend­ing dan­ger that saved me from harm.

SPIRITUALLY: BE WISE, AND KEEP ALERT, LISTENING TO GOD’S VOICE IN THESE END TIMES. Some “snakes” wan­der­ing city streets come with 2 legs.
 

OUR CHILDREN ARE ALL HEALTHY!

They are just a bit bored with the lack of school. We have increased our games and class­room activ­i­ties to help curb their bore­dom. The big boys love to play “bas­ket­ball-court soc­cer”, so below is a short video show­ing their com­pet­i­tive spir­it as they burn off some of their nev­er end­ing ener­gy. (Click the link or the pho­to to see the YouTube video.) 
 
https://youtu.be/WeG2UFsEXXc
 

Teens play­ing bas­ket­ball court soc­cer.​
 
The ball they are using is a spe­cial ONE WORLD BALL that is super tough. It won’t burst as it made of a spe­cial mate­r­i­al, and has a spe­cial valve that keeps it inflat­ed no mat­ter how rough it is treat­ed. Designed by USA engi­neers specif­i­cal­ly for African ter­rains.

YOUR LOVE GIFTS PROVIDED THESE BALLS, FOR WHICH ALL THE CHILDREN ARE GRATEFUL.

Bless­ings to you all in these chal­leng­ing times.
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: JULY 11, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: JULY 11, 2020
 
SURPRISE PREGNANCY PRODUCES TWINS IN NEED OF FORMULA

Fri­day, July 10th, an elder­ly look­ing cou­ple walked into our mis­sion with a beau­ti­ful set of twin girls, Liana and Riana. Much to our sur­prise, these folks were the PARENTS, not the grand­par­ents with orphaned babies. The moth­er looks to be in her late 40’s so TWINS in addi­tion to this sur­prise “late life” preg­nan­cy has over­whelmed this cou­ple.
 

Twins Liana and Riana, 10 days old with par­ents.

The moth­er devel­oped nasty abscess­es on 1breast, and her 2nd breast dried up on Thurs­day, leav­ing the infants with no milk! They rushed to the hos­pi­tal on Fri­day, July 10th, look­ing for baby for­mu­la and treat­ment for the moth­er. Social Ser­vices was called in and sent them to us for for­mu­la assis­tance. These 10-day-old girls were in need of urgent sus­te­nance!

THANKS TO YOUR LOVE GIFTS, 2 baby bot­tles, 2 cans of for­mu­la, and 2 bot­tles of ster­ile water for mix­ing the for­mu­la were pro­vid­ed imme­di­ate­ly. Few real­ize how impor­tant every LOVE GIFT is, for it can mean the dif­fer­ence in life and death to new­borns. 
 

Chil­dren’s Direc­tor Anna teach­ing for­mu­la prepa­ra­tion to par­ents.
 
LIFE FOR THESE 2 LITTLE ONES WAS A MERE $15 the first week and $10/week until they are 6 months old. This cou­ple could nev­er have afford­ed even the baby bot­tles at our mar­ket. ($1.50/R25 each) 
 
THANKS FOR BEING “GOD’S SAVING GRACE” IN THESE EMERGENCY SITUATIONS.
 

BUSY WEEK BEHIND US…

Our corn barn is now full, PTL!

THE RICE CROP, “straight from the field”, is in its final week of being sun dried. Our trucks will begin fetch­ing the rice on July 20th from those farm­ers who grew it. Grow­ing and har­vest­ing rice by hand is a back break­ing job, for there are no machines to help plant or har­vest it.

We waste no funds on a “mid­dle man” when we buy food for the orphans. All our bulk food sup­plies are bought DIRECT from the farm­ers, so that they alone get the ben­e­fit of your LOVE GIFTS. For most of these farm­ers, it is the ONLY income they receive each year. It means new clothes for their chil­dren and oth­er house­hold items they need.
 
YOUR LOVE GIFTS PROVIDE A 2‑FOLD BENEFIT, 1st to the farmer’s fam­i­ly and 2nd to the orphans who receive it.

THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS ALL POSSIBLE.
 

MELUCO HERE WE COME…
 
While wait­ing for the Rice to dry this week, our 7‑ton truck and 3‑man team will take 2 loads of life-sav­ing food to the 515 orphans of Melu­co Dis­trict, 9 hours dri­ve north­east of our Bala­ma base.

TOGETHER WE ARE CHANGING MORE LIVES THAN ANY OF US CAN IMAGINE.

Per­son­al note:  I tru­ly appre­ci­at­ed the encour­ag­ing emails I received this last week. Please con­tin­ue to drop me a line when you can, as it real­ly helps dur­ing this time of iso­la­tion.
 brenda@orphansunlimted.org

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: JULY 4, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: JULY 4, 2020
 
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY TO ALL OF YOU IN THE USA!

Be blessed at what you have, for time with FAMILY is irre­place­able. Those pre­cious mem­o­ries live on with us for­ev­er. Pray­ing for all of you that you will have a safe and fun week­end.
 

BALAMA KIDS CONTINUE TO FLOURISH DURING STAY AT HOME TIME

With school out through July, our staff is step­ping up our teach­ing time to cov­er oth­er sub­jects besides the out­door phys­i­cal activ­i­ties. Our Preschool­ers enjoyed the chal­lenge of sim­ple puz­zles, while our old­er chil­dren are chal­lenged with more advanced games and stud­ies. The pho­tos and videos are worth more than I can say about what the chil­dren are doing, so I will let them do the “talk­ing”.
 

4- and 5‑year-olds putting puz­zles togeth­er.
 
Watch the video and you can decide who had more fun… the kids or the teach­ers?
https://youtu.be/2w9G21StGFg​
 

The #1 pick of all they games they play? 4‑way Tug-of-War!
 
Watch the video:
https://youtu.be/wM1xIm5R8T4
 

PRACTICAL WORK ALWAYS ONGOING

With 105 chil­dren in res­i­dence here, we are con­stant­ly giv­ing out sup­plies, then restock­ing. This week found us replen­ish­ing our fire­wood brought in by local sup­pli­ers.
 

Staff unload­ing fire­wood for our chil­dren’s homes.

The BBC lead­ers, Car­l­i­tos and Daniel, took 2 weeks of food via motor­bike to the 9 orphans in the 7th of April vil­lage, an hour’s dri­ve from our mis­sion.
 

Car­l­i­tos and Daniel head into the Bush to deliv­er food to 9 orphans.​

Our food buy­ing for July begins next week, and con­tin­ues through the end of the month with a small group of helpers. Mov­ing slow­er is nec­es­sary in order to abide by all the reg­u­la­tions due to the pan­dem­ic.

So keep us in prayer, as our fam­i­ly pulls togeth­er to do “what­ev­er it takes” to get the children’s food into the barns. We start with corn, fol­lowed by rice in the hull (straight from the farm­ers field), peanuts, and Juko Beans both still in their shells. Stor­ing rice, peanuts, and Juko Beans in the shell keeps them fresh­er, and pre­vents bug prob­lems.
 

TOGETHER, WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!

Thank you for your ongo­ing prayers that mean so much to us. I appre­ci­ate per­son­al emails, as it gets a bit lone­ly over here with no vis­i­tors. So please feel free to write me and ask ques­tions at brenda@orphansunlimited.org

Due to July food buy­ing, I won’t be able to write long notes, but every­one who writes will get an answer. I tru­ly, tru­ly appre­ci­ate you all for your help­ing hand and prayers.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: JUNE 27, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“DATE: JUNE 27, 2020
 TRIPLETS GROWING AND OUR CHILDREN THRIVING

And it’s all thanks to your prayers and love gifts. With the schools closed, we are doing our best to keep our chil­dren active and learn­ing. The pho­tos in this blog are worth a thou­sand words. They show much of what we are doing dur­ing the cold sea­son (55ºF/15ºC) so our chil­dren stay healthy. Our chil­dren live and play togeth­er, enjoy­ing the out­doors at our learn­ing cen­ter at our Bala­ma mis­sion base.

I hope you enjoy the pho­tos as well as the 2 short videos below (can’t send more than 15 sec­onds) as our cell tow­ers can’t han­dle the big file. 

Under-12-year-olds receiv­ing a sec­ond set of warm cloth­ing for the sea­son. We wash 1 while we wear 1. Click on this link or the pho­to above to see our kids send­ing their thanks (Obri­ga­da!) for the warm clothes. https://youtu.be/hpBHah94iIU

Rosa ( 8.5 lbs/3.85 kg) and Ros­ali­na, (9 lbs./4.1kg) at 3 months!​ 
Mar­cia, Marceli­no, and Marce­lo (10 lbs/4.6kg) each at 4 months!​ 
In Bawana Games our teams start with the lit­tle ones … … And fin­ish with the big kids!

These are Bawana Relays on our soc­cer field. From small­est to old­est, every­one joins in for fun team com­pe­ti­tions. Every­one com­petes against their own age group. Click on the pho­to above or this link to see a quick video of our kids in action.​https://youtu.be/McuNC6Ah8OQ  


Our dorm boys deep in thought over a game of Rum­mykub.
Great brain exer­cise while hav­ing fun!

TOGETHER, WE ARE MAKING A BIG DIFFERENCE IN MANY YOUNG LIVES.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: JUNE 20, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“
DATE: JUNE 20, 2020
 
GOD DOING SOMETHING WONDERFUL IN ZITO

No one can explain it, but no one denies it is a good thing.  Zito 
con­tin­ues to THRIVE even with the odds against him.
 
Zito is ener­getic, plays Rum­mikub with the boys, loves art class, and con­tin­ues to wheel him­self long dis­tances in his adult tri-cycle with­out any­one help­ing him. He still requires a tiny dress­ing change on his hip each day, as the fis­tu­la found by the last sur­geon is still active. 
 

Zito and his ever faith­ful wheels.
 
HOWEVER, it doesn’t phase him one bit.  If you didn’t know he has a pseudomonas infec­tion in his left femur, you would nev­er sus­pect it. OUR STAFF, and the hos­pi­tal staff are hap­py to see him doing so well. 
 
I have no idea how God will answer our prayers, but in no way is this nasty infec­tion in con­trol of his body any­more. I will keep you post­ed as time goes on, but know that many months have passed with ONLY POSITIVE changes seen in Zito’s health. PRAISE THE LORD, for He is the God of won­der­ful mir­a­cles.
 
Here’s anoth­er quick video of our kids hav­ing fun and cel­e­brat­ing. Who’s your friend? Jesus!
https://youtu.be/yJzT160JAVA
 

SPECIALTY TEAM PROVIDES A HELPING HAND.

Our spe­cial­ty pro­cess­ing team of Manel, Car­l­i­tos, and Mon­sur left 
Tues­day morn­ing with a loaded 7‑ton-truck for our Melu­co mis­sion.
 
Prepar­ing them for the trip took 2 full days as it is sim­i­lar to  send­ing your fam­i­ly on a 3 day camp­ing trip in the bush. They need­ed every­thing from pots and pans to bed­ding, as well as a corn chute and all the small equip­ment to do the job. They also took 60 sacks of this year’s beans for the orphans.
 

Lift­ing a 400 lb./182kg corn chute onto our truck takes 10 men.​

The Melu­co mis­sion is the main stor­age facil­i­ty for the orphans’ food dis­tri­b­u­tion pro­gram that sup­ports 515 orphans and the wid­ows who care for them. They need­ed help to prop­er­ly sack, sew, and stack the 600 sacks of new­ly har­vest­ed corn that was now in their barn.

Using a small team of men, the team com­plet­ed the dusty job in 2 days, PTL, and were back in Bala­ma ear­ly on the 3rd evening. WE ARE VERY GRATEFUL, FOR THIS TEAM’S WORK MAKES IT POSSIBLE FOR THESE CHILDREN TO RECEIVE FOOD THROUGHOUT THE YEAR.
 

PREPARING CORN FOR MILLING INTO FLOUR

In order to make corn flour, it must be sift­ed to take out any dust and husk par­ti­cles present when sacked in the fields. This “clean corn” is then re-sacked and stored for a few days until it needs to be milled. 
 

Sift­ing the corn so it’s ready to mill into corn flour.
 
Click on the link below to see a short video of how it’s done in our huge 3‑foot-sifters.
https://youtu.be/FqflMosXrjY

Life in Bala­ma takes a bit more “prepa­ra­tion” than most real­ize. It is the locals who taught me how to do this. I just built the sifter a bit big­ger than what they use.

THANK YOU FOR MAKING ALL THIS POSSIBLE VIA YOUR LOVE GIFTS. TOGETHER WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE. 
 

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: JUNE 13, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“DATE: JUNE 13, 2020
SUCCESSFULLY RAISING TRIPLETS TAKES GOD’S BLESSING

Triplets Anto­nio, Jacobe, and Arma­lin­do are now 8 years old and in the 3rd grade. They are PROOF that with lots of prayer, rais­ing 3 tiny babies weigh­ing only 1.8kgs(3.9 lbs,) can grow into healthy chil­dren. 


Granny Armin­da and (L‑R) Anto­nio, Jacobe, Arma­lin­do

Eight years ago the Aunt and Grand­moth­er came to us for milk for­mu­la, but they lived too far away to fetch milk week­ly. We placed the 5 of them in one of our improved mud huts (tin roof, mud brick walls, and cement floor with out­door kitchen and bath­room.) With many prayers and our help, the 3 boys over­came any ill­ness that attacked their lit­tle bod­ies. Once a year old, they were thriv­ing, and we felt they had a great future.
The Aunt left them to get mar­ried when the boys were 3, so it was only Grand­moth­er Armin­da now car­ing for them. Once the boys were 5, the Grand­moth­er decid­ed it was time they moved into the vil­lage with her niece. The niece would care for them once their very ancient Grand­moth­er has fin­ished her race. Grand­moth­er Armin­da is one tough woman. She still comes every Thurs­day to fetch food for her­self and the 3 boys. God has giv­en her the grace to live a long life, and to see her grand­sons grow­ing into young men.

We use the above sto­ry of these triplets as an encour­age­ment to those who come to us with mul­ti­ple birth babies. Our baby for­mu­la pro­gram encoun­ters many sets of twins each year, so hav­ing 3 sets of triplets still has us amazed.

THANK YOU for your prayers and love gifts to help the 3 sets of triplets now in our pro­gram. One infant went to heav­en 2 weeks ago due to lung com­pli­ca­tions, but the remain­ing 8 babies are eat­ing and gain­ing weight.
YOUR LOVE GIFTS AND PRAYERS AT WORK!

I LOVE JESUS, JESUS LOVES ME
Click the link or the pho­to to see a YouTube upload of our kids con­tin­u­ing to prac­tice their Eng­lish.https://youtu.be/KXdyXVBZmZc   

HELPING ORPHANS IN THE BUSH
Our BBC motor­bike team is not func­tion­ing right now due to cur­rent health restric­tions against large group meet­ings. But the orphans in the bush still need to eat, so Car­l­i­tos and Daniel, BBC lead­ers, make a trip every 2 weeks tak­ing food to 3 grannies rais­ing 9 orphans liv­ing an hour by motor­bike from our base. 


Bush Granny and 2 orphans​.

Aunt with 3 Bush orphans and her own child.

These 2 youth Pas­tors load 2 motor­bikes with corn flour, dried beans, salt, and soap for these fam­i­lies. They spend a few min­utes min­is­ter­ing to the chil­dren, and talk­ing to the local vil­lage Pas­tor before return­ing on a rough dirt road that brings them back to our mis­sion sta­tion. 


Granny with 3 orphans​

YOUR LOVE GIFTS AT WORK, even in the midst of dif­fi­cult times.

June corn and beans are now in our barn, and all is well thanks to many pray­ing for us to receive what we need­ed for our chil­dren.
THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS PROGRAM POSSIBLE.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: JUNE 6, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“DATE: JUNE 6, 2020
BALAMA BASH A BIG HIT! 

Our 105 chil­dren and the 32 fos­ter moth­ers who care for them tru­ly enjoyed a dif­fer­ent kind of “careel” (top­ping over the rice) this year.  The goat meat was enhanced with Mon­te­ga (pin­to) beans in a juicy sauce that made our meal super high pro­tein for all.

 
San­dra, in front in the red dress, enjoy­ing her meal with her fos­ter sis­ters and brothers​. 

Mon­i­ca in front with 2‑year-old Jesuino in back who demand­ed to sit with the big boys!​

We have so many lit­tle ones under 3 who strug­gle to chew the goat meat, and this flavour­ful bean sauce put a big smile on their faces. They loved it and every­one who want­ed sec­onds, received it. 


Dixon far left (red shirt).  San­tos and Arman­do in front, just before San­tos, (ter­ri­ble 2’s), bopped his broth­er on his head with his kool-aid cup. Boys are full of sur­pris­es.​

 This video I took of them singing in Eng­lish before the meal was super pre­cious. Click the link to see the kids sing “I love you, Jesus” in Eng­lish! Our chil­dren are learn­ing a new lan­guage through song, a great teach­ing tool https://youtu.be/dJFV8sywkZ4

 
The rare smile on Mon­i­ca’s face tells all. She loves her cook­ies and suck­er that every­one received after a fan­tas­tic meal.

The pho­tos tak­en as they eat and receive their treats, tells “the rest of the sto­ry “. Bush Bun­ny’s crew hop­ping to the bean beat this week. Should wrap it up very soon.

 Bless­ings, Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange and the Bala­ma Staff

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: May 23, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“DATE: MAY 23, 2020
ANOTHER TRIPLET IN TROUBLE

Triplet Filom­e­na from Rovu­ma Vil­lage devel­oped a res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tion on Wednes­day mak­ing it hard for her to drink from a bot­tle. When her fam­i­ly brought her to our Thurs­day weigh-in the next day, she had lost 125 gms. This shows just how seri­ous any sick­ness can be for an infant that only weighed 1.75 kg (3.85 lbs) in her 2nd week of life. Her third-week-weight dropped to 1.6kg (3.52 kg). 


Triplet Filom­e­na on back of father. She is so frag­ile it made my heart ache as they left for home.

Please keep her in prayer, as she received med­i­cine for her infec­tion, but with­out the help of Jesus, we know her chances to recov­er are low.
Her sis­ter and broth­er are both doing well at this time. The cold tem­per­a­tures (15ºC/55ºF) in the ear­ly a.m. is not help­ing the sit­u­a­tion. This is UNUSUALLY COLD for May. THANK YOU FOR PRAYING FOR ALL OF THESE BABIES.
 
MEET THE “7TH OF ABRIL” ORPHANS
Car­l­i­tos Jorge, leader of the BBC Motor­bike Teams, uncov­ered these 9 orphans and their grannies 18 months ago in a very remote vil­lage named “7th of ABRIL” dur­ing his evan­ge­lis­tic out­reach. The 3 grannies and all 9 orphans were suf­fer­ing from severe mal­nu­tri­tion, with some of them too weak to walk more than a few steps.   Since it takes about 2 hours in a 4‑wheel-dri­ve vehi­cle to get there on a very bad road, Car­l­i­tos sug­gest­ed his BBC Team of 3 motor­bikes take week­ly food and oth­er need­ed items to them on their nor­mal BAWANA GAMES trip to that vil­lage. Six months lat­er, the chil­dren were stronger and ready to attend school, so school mate­ri­als were giv­en out and off they went to learn their ABC’S.

 
9 orphans with grannies, now healthy and proud to show off their new sweat shirts your love gifts provided​.

This pho­to shows them 18 months after join­ing our pro­gram (2 weeks ago), and as you can see, all of them are look­ing healthy, includ­ing the grannies car­ing for them. Car­l­i­tos took them their win­ter sweat shirts which they proud­ly show off in the pho­to. With the schools closed these last 90 days, Car­l­i­tos and assis­tant Daniel vis­it­ed them once every 2 weeks to take their food to them.

YOUR LOVE GIFTS ARE AT WORK, MAKING A BIG DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES OF THE INNOCENT.

THANK YOU FROM ALL OF US WHO EAGERLY SERVE SO THAT THESE CHILDREN CAN HAVE A FUTURE.

BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA TEAM

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG: May 16, 2020

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“DATE: MAY 16, 2020
3RD SET OF TRIPLETS GRACE OUR DOOR!

PRAYERS NEEDED, for these three tiny tots (1.5kg / 3.3lbs each) are show­ing just how tough they can be. The three (1 boy and 2 girls) were born May 9th and we received them on the 12th, for the mother’s milk was not suf­fi­cient for all of them.

 
Triplets, 1 boy and 2 girls, 3.3 lbs/1.5kg each.​

When admit­ted, they had no names yet, but we encour­aged the par­ents to take that step, for we declared they would live in Jesus’ name. Many here refuse to name their new­borns if they think they are not going to make it.
 

Quick­ly weigh­ing one of the new triplets at mid­day. Warmth is a high priority​.

AMAZED that they had the strength to suck­le, we imme­di­ate­ly got them wrapped in warm, infant-sized blan­kets that I cut from a large blan­ket. It was 55ºF (15ºC) in my house this a.m. as our win­ter is upon us. Keep­ing all infants, espe­cial­ly pre­emies, warm is a high pri­or­i­ty, for they lose body heat very fast. We also con­tributed two adult blan­kets for the moth­er and granny to use at night to keep all of them warm.

TWO DAYS LATER, at our week­ly “weigh in” for babies, all 3 were doing fine and showed an amaz­ing increase in weight of 250 gms each. We encour­aged the fam­i­ly for they are doing a great job.Keep them in your prayers, for they are far from “out of the woods” at this time, espe­cial­ly with win­ter upon us. Will keep you updat­ed on how they are doing. 

OUR KIDS DOING FANTASTIC!
Art class, Rum­mikub, BAWANA games, play­ground, and now school home­work are keep­ing all our chil­dren exer­cised both in mind and body. The pho­tos say it all. Even the teach­ers are hav­ing a ball in art class and learn­ing Rum­mikub as well.

 
3 yr. Old Arman­do work­ing hard at art “like the big boys”.​
 
Edna and San­dra enjoy the swings at our play­ground. 
Art class helpers join in the fun​. 

Video Links below: Bawana games help keep our kids healthy and fit.https://vimeo.com/419346097orhttps://youtu.be/AGyLDlwZMR4

TERMITES IN THE KITCHEN DRAIN SYSTEM?
For the first time since build­ing the dorm’s kitchen drain in 2007, we had to open it as TERMITES had tak­en it over—COMPLETELY!
They built a sol­id mud house inside the sep­tic box, and com­plete­ly blocked the drainage and air­vent pipes with mud.

 
Dig­ging ter­mite “house” out of kitchen drainage tank.​

Ter­mites are called the “under­ground mafia” around here, for they def­i­nite­ly try to con­trol the under­ground. We sur­mise that they did most of their con­struc­tion while the boys were on the first 30 day break dur­ing the lock­down, for they went home.
Seems they man­aged to com­plete the pipe con­struc­tion even with small amounts of water being poured down it dur­ing dish wash­ing.
Nev­er a dull moment around here.  We hope­ful­ly deterred them from return­ing by lay­er­ing the bot­tom of the box with rock salt.  It burns their bod­ies, so they try to avoid salty areas.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR FAITHFUL SUPPORT IN PRAYER AND LOVE GIFTS DURING THESE DIFFICULT DAYS.
OUR STAFF IS PRAYING FOR ALL OF YOU.

BLESSINGS IN JESUS’ NAME AS THE WORLD REOPENS.
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF