BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG

DATE: FEBRUARY 16, 2019

BABY JESUINO ALMOST LOST HIS FIGHT FOR LIFE

JESUINO start­ed with a fever late Tues­day night, which devel­oped into full blown malar­ia by Wednes­day morn­ing. Even with oral malar­ia treat­ment, his ema­ci­at­ed body quick­ly lost strength by Thurs­day morn­ing. The malar­ia kills the red blood cells caus­ing severe ANEMIA, the most com­mon killer of post malar­ia babies and young children.

Jesuino before his life threat­en­ing illness.

Ear­ly Thurs­day, I raced him to the emer­gency room, with his con­di­tion dete­ri­o­rat­ing before my eyes. His lab results showed his Hemo­glo­bin had dropped to a crit­i­cal lev­el of 4!!!  Nor­mal is 12 to 14.

With FERVENT PRAYER, he sta­bi­lized in the emer­gency room, but lost con­scious­ness after a short cry when they began his IV. (I was just thank­ing the Lord they found a vein!) With IV malar­ia treat­ment plus IV flu­ids, he slept com­fort­ably as we worked to find a donor with an A+ blood sup­ply. By 3 pm, a blood trans­fu­sion was admin­is­tered, which rapid­ly improved his vital signs.

Fri­day, he looked alert and back to his old self. Eat­ing and grab­bing at what­ev­er came close to his lit­tle hands. By Sat­ur­day, the Doc­tors told us he has devel­oped bronchial pneu­mo­nia, but is respond­ing to treat­ment and eating.

THIS LITTLE GUY IS A TRUE FIGHTER WITH THE KING OF KINGS WATCHING OVER HIM. Few would have sur­vived all that has come against him. Next week’s blog will pro­vide a fur­ther update. Keep him in your prayers, for he’s not out of the woods yet, and may need a 2nd blood transfusion.

WELLNESS DAY FOR OUR OTHER 48 RESIDENT ORPHANS

The Bala­ma Doc­tor made his month­ly vis­it, for it was time to update their med­ical cards, and let the 10 new chil­dren receive their first phys­i­cal.  The babies were not crazy about get­ting vac­cines, but then I’ve nev­er seen any­one who liked shots. Before leav­ing, the Doc­tor declared our chil­dren in good health. PTL!

Each baby was weighed and mea­sured for his growth chart.

Dr. Inter­views each child for health issues.

Baby San­tos in the arms of Anna, our Chil­dren’s Director

UNTIL NEXT WEEK!

BLESSINGS, 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG

DATE: FEBRUARY 9, 2019

SCHOOL DAYS, SCHOOL DAYS, OUR MOMS ARE CELEBRATING SCHOOL DAYS!

Mon­day found our staff busy dis­trib­ut­ing back­packs filled with the appro­pri­ate books, pens, pen­cils, rulers, etc. for each grade lev­el from 1 to 12. The kids are thrilled for it means new school uni­forms and shoes!

Vil­lage orphans receiv­ing school materials.

ALL OF THIS IS POSSIBLE BECAUSE YOU GAVE SO GENEROUSLY. OUR CHILDREN HAVE ALL THE TOOLS NEEDED TO DO THEIR SCHOOL WORK PROPERLY, INCLUDING COMPLETE SETS OF BOOKS FOR THE HIGH SCHOOL KIDS! Note: The 1st to 7th grades receive their school books from the school district.

First day of school! Our teens head­ed to high school.

Zito (mid­dle) and 8 oth­er teens receive school supplies

Most of the chil­dren real­ly do like going to school, but like all fam­i­lies, we have a few lit­tle boys who would pre­fer a full day of recess. With 8 of our 10 newest fam­i­ly mem­bers get­ting to enter the huge Bala­ma Town school sys­tem for the first time, it has been a very busy week  for Cape­na and Pas­tor Arman­do. These 2 men worked hard seek­ing school doc­u­ments so they could trans­fer these 8 new stu­dents from their vil­lage schools to the Bala­ma school.

By Fri­day, the final doc­u­ments were signed and all our 80+ school chil­dren were in their prop­er class­es. PTL!

Pri­ma­ry school stu­dents get­ting uniforms.

BABIES, BABIES, AND MORE BABIES!

Our infant milk for­mu­la pro­gram is expand­ing with 22 babies cur­rent­ly in the pro­gram. Three of those infants entered in the last 2 days.

Late yes­ter­day, Elsa, a 6 week old infant girl was sent to us from the hos­pi­tal, accom­pa­nied by her men­tal­ly chal­lenged moth­er, hus­band, and uncle. When the wife’s breast milk dried up a week ago, her hus­band scraped up mon­ey from all this fam­i­ly mem­bers to buy 1 can of milk and a bot­tle ($6.50 or R85). But as the for­mu­la ran out, the moth­er took the baby into the bush. It took the fam­i­ly 3 days to find her. She was fed on Kool Aid until they got her to us, for that was all they could afford.

The Uncle is well versed in bot­tle feed­ing, so he will teach Elsa’s Grand­moth­er how to prop­er­ly bot­tle feed her.

Baby Elsa in arms of her uncle.

THANKS TO YOUR LOVE GIFTS, THESE 22 BABIES ARE RECEIVING THE ONLY NOURISHMENT THEIR BODIES CAN ABSORB.

BLESSINGS AND MUCH THANKS FOR ALL YOU DO TO HELP THE CHILDREN OF MOZAMBIQUE.

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA 

AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG

DATE: FEBRUARY 2, 2019

EXPECTED 4, RECEIVED 10!!!

Our whirl­wind week start­ing at 8 a.m. Mon­day morn­ing with a call from Balama’s Social Ser­vices Direc­tor. He had a crit­i­cal­ly mal­nour­ished 1 year old orphan boy, (4.3kg) (9.5 lbs), who need­ed imme­di­ate place­ment with us. An hour lat­er he was in our care.

JESUINO UPON ADMISSION, JANUARY 26, 2018.

Sore­ly neglect­ed by his Aunt, lit­tle Jesuino’s (Jez-wee-noo) body could not take much more star­va­tion. In just 5 days of lov­ing care, Jesuino is fill­ing out his sunken cheeks, and allow­ing oth­ers to touch his hand with­out pulling away. He clings to his fos­ter moth­er, Hele­na, for fear she will aban­don him. 

His “aban­don­ment syn­drome” will sub­side as he real­izes food will always be there, and that we will not leave him alone. Hele­na feeds him a very high protein/vitamin cere­al on demand, along with milk for­mu­la, so that we can get max­i­mum calo­ries into his tiny tum­my each day. He also eats “Plumpy Nuts”, a high protein/peanut pack­et made specif­i­cal­ly for mal­nour­ished chil­dren. His 1 week pho­tos show how well he is gain­ing weight.

JESUINO 5 DAYS LATER, SITTING IN LAP OF HIS FOSTER MOTHER, HELENA.

WEDNESDAY WAS A CIRCUS WITH 9 KIDS IN THE RING!

Two fam­i­lies of needy orphans from 2 dif­fer­ent vil­lages moved in, fill­ing our newest home,  VICTORY HOUSE. 13 orphans now call Vic­to­ry House their home.

This means we need to do dou­ble time to com­plete house #6, for we only have 2 girl, and 2 boy beds avail­able out of 5 fos­ter homes. Rainy weath­er, cyclones, and a short­age of bricks has put us behind sched­ule. We are on it!  Mov­ing as fast as weath­er allows.

4 orphans from Kion­ga, ages 5 to 15, were liv­ing with their grand­moth­er, who has her hands full with 5 chil­dren of her own, plus a debil­i­tat­ed hus­band. We placed them in our food pro­gram a month ago, which helped curb their star­va­tion until per­mis­sion was grant­ed by Social Ser­vices to accept them into our family.

KIONGA FAMILY: Clau­sia, 15 years, 8th grade; Alber­to, 10, 1st grade; Dinis, 7, and Egidio, 5, pre-school (2 youngest must learn Por­tuguese to enter 1st grade.) All liv­ing in Vic­to­ry House.

5 orphans from Nacala Vil­lage, who were a CHILD-HEADED HOUSEHOLD (no adult look­ing after them), were doing very poor­ly after their 19 year old Sis­ter was no longer in good health and not able to care for them.  She moved in with her Aunt, leav­ing these kids to fend for them­selves. That left boys 16, 12, 10, 8, and a girl, 5 with huge respon­si­bil­i­ties! Social Ser­vices was noti­fied, and agreed they should come live with us.

NACALA FAMILY: (L TO R) LUCIA, 5, preschool; CASTRO 7, USSENE 8, AND MARIO 12.  ALL IN 3RD GRADE.  All but Mario liv­ing in Vic­to­ry House.

CIPRIANO, 16, 8TH GRADE, AND BROTHER MARIO, 12, 3RD GRADE liv­ing in boy’s dorm for over 12 to 18 year old boys.

The 16 year old boy, Cipri­ano, (Sip-ree-an‑o) has a bril­liant mind, mak­ing straight A’s in 7thgrade.  He tru­ly desires to con­tin­ue his stud­ies, and now lives in our high school dorm along with his 12 year old broth­er, Mario. His 4 broth­ers are also top notch students. 

These chil­dren DEFIED THE ODDS, man­ag­ing to go to school in their vil­lage with NO ADULT look­ing over them. Not many kids would do that! It is time to “let them be kids”, by tak­ing over the adult respon­si­bil­i­ties they have tried so hard to manage.

YOUR LOVE GIFTS AT WORK!

OUR 5 FOSTER HOMES ARE NOW HOME TO 49 ORPHANED OR ABANDONED CHILDREN.

SPONSORS ARE URGENTLY NEEDED FOR EACH OF THESE 10 CHILDREN, AS OUR GENERAL BUDGET WILL NOT SUPPORT THEM FOR LONG . 

$30/MONTH/CHILD is what we need.

Check out their pho­tos, for they are a hand­some group, although slight­ly mal­nour­ished. Please con­tact me via email if you’d like to spon­sor any of the chil­dren in these pho­tos. I will per­son­al­ly send you a close up pho­to of your child and their per­son­al data.

Thank you so very much for lov­ing all these chil­dren that Jesus sent us.

BLESSINGS,

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE FABULOUS BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG

DATE: JANUARY 26, 2019

POWERFUL TROPICAL STORM GIVES FATIMA EXTRA DAYS IN BALAMA

If any­one has a doubt at how the Holy Spir­it works in mys­te­ri­ous ways, then read on. Sunday, 

Jan. 20th, a friend, Karen, in Ohio sent me a late night notice on mes­sen­ger.  A trop­i­cal storm with 40 mph (68 km) winds was approach­ing the Mozam­bique coast very near where Fati­ma attends busi­ness school.  Fur­ther chat with Karen revealed that she did not know WHY this notice came across her feed, but she felt she should pass it on.

We are grate­ful she did not ignore this mes­sage, for Fati­ma was set to leave by bus with Pas­tor Fred on Tues­day.  They would be 3 days on bus­es to get to Chi­moio which is a few hun­dred miles inland from Beira.  She would then take 1 more bus on Sun­day, Jan. 27, to reach her school.

Since our area is so far from where the storm was to hit the coast, there was no news on local radio about it on Sun­day or Monday.

If not for my friend send­ing me her “heads up” mes­sage, we would have sent both Fati­ma and Fred right into the storm area.

Accuweath­er says it dropped 11 inch­es (277mm) of rain overnight.  Flood­ing in Beira caused water to rise to car win­dows levels.

The school Direc­tor con­tact­ed us on Fri­day, 25th to say that we are NOT to send Fati­ma until he gives the all clear.  The school with open late as most of the stu­dents live in the area hit by the storm.

A 2nd trop­i­cal storm is now form­ing off the coast bring­ing more rain to that area.

Fati­ma, ready to com­plete her last year of Busi­ness School, will remain safe­ly with us until the school reopens.

THANK YOU HOLY SPIRIT FOR MAKING SURE THE MESSAGE WAS RECEIVED IN TIME! 

(Note:  Les­son learned.  In cyclone sea­son, check accuweath­er daily.)

PASTOR ALBERTO RELEASED FROM PEMBA HOSPITAL

Pas­tor Alber­to, who injured his jaw and nose in a motor­bike acci­dent last week, is now back with this fam­i­ly in Balama.

He will con­tin­ue phys­i­cal ther­a­py next week in Mon­tepuez for his jaw mus­cles, ten­dons, and lig­a­ments are not func­tion­ing right.

PTL that a jaw frac­ture was ruled out with exten­sive x‑rays in Pemba.

He is on a liq­uid diet since he can­not open his mouth ful­ly or chew.  His weight loss in 1 week was evi­dent, so we start­ed him on our high pro­tein food sup­ple­ment for mal­nour­ished chil­dren, which he can drink as a liquid. 

PASTOR ALBERTO WITH HYPO FOOD SUPPLIMENT IN HAND

It will be sev­er­al weeks before he can return to his church evan­ge­lism work in Namuno.

FRIDAY, A “RARE” DRY DAY IN BALAMA

Thank to our sandy loam soil, water doesn’t stand on our soc­cer field.

PULL! PULL!

BBC lead­ers Berti­no and Daude had over 100 kids enjoy­ing tug-o-war and oth­er games at our field on Friday.

THEN THEY ALL GO DOWN! BOYS WON!

Pent up ener­gy was released, (fos­ter moth­ers great­ly relieved) as the kids had lim­it­ed activ­i­ties this week due to heavy rains.

FATIMA ENJOYING BAWANA GAMES ON FRIDAY

I could hear the laugh­ing and cheer­ing at my house, about 200 yards (meters) away.

After the games, devo­tions were held on our cement bas­ket­ball court.

BLESSINGS,

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE (now with web feet)

And the Bala­ma staff

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG

DATE: JANUARY 19, 2019

FOUR NEW ORPHANS MOVING INTO VICTORY HOUSE NEXT WEEK

An over­whelmed Grand­moth­er with 5 hun­gry, orphaned grand­chil­dren, 4 chil­dren of her own, 1 infant grand­child, and a dis­abled hus­band, defines a “fam­i­ly in a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion”.  All 12 are liv­ing in one small mud hut in the vil­lage of Kion­ga. When this fam­i­ly was brought to our atten­tion just before Christ­mas, we imme­di­ate­ly vis­it­ed their home and did an emer­gency food drop for them. They entered our week­ly food give out pro­gram on Thurs­days, until Social Ser­vices could com­plete their offi­cial assess­ment. This week, Social Ser­vices grant­ed per­mis­sion for the 4 youngest orphans to come live in our new­ly com­plet­ed VICTORY HOUSE!  (The 5th orphan is 18 and will remain with the grand­moth­er to give her a help­ing hand.)

Clau­sia (age 15, in 8th grade), with broth­ers Egidio (age 11, in 3rd grade), Momade (age 8, in 1st grade), and Dinis (age 5) are pic­tured with their Grand­moth­er Alissi­na on the right.

Will keep you updat­ed as we await the final doc­u­ments so the chil­dren may offi­cial­ly move into Vic­to­ry House. Lots to keep us busy, as our staff wast­ed no time in get them reg­is­tered for school last Thurs­day. School starts Feb. 5th.

Since they live only 2 miles away, our Children’s Staff will fetch them next week so they can be mea­sured for school uni­forms. They will then be tak­en to the Bala­ma mar­ket for new shoes and cloth­ing. Intro­duc­ing them to bunkbeds will be an expe­ri­ence, since none of them have slept in a real bed before.

YOUR LOVE GIFTS AT WORK! 

PASTOR ALBERTO, PIONEER EVANGELIST, CATAPULTED FROM HIS MOTORBIKE

Pas­tor Alber­to is cur­rent­ly in the Mon­tepuez Region­al Hos­pi­tal after call­ing for help through clenched teeth Thurs­day at 11 a.m. He hit a mud­hole the wrong way while rid­ing his motor­bike to the food mar­ket after a rain storm. The motor­bike came to an abrupt halt in the mud­dy hole, with the sud­den stop throw­ing Alber­to into a tree. It was a mir­a­cle he was not more seri­ous­ly hurt, and that he could even talk long enough to give us a call. The left side of his jaw as well as his nose are bad­ly damaged.

Pas­tor Alber­to with his bike.

Alber­to is our pio­neer evan­ge­list, whose call­ing is to plant church­es in unreached areas for Jesus.  He cur­rent­ly works in the coun­ty of Namuno to the south of Bala­ma. (Hine­ston Taber­na­cle, this is the Pas­tor you sponsor.)

Pas­tor Alber­to and our team of Pas­tors whom he trained.

Three of Alberto’s sons are on our staff. Manuel, whom I sent with our Land Cruis­er to res­cue his father yes­ter­day, pas­tors an Assem­bly of God Church in Bala­ma. Four of Manuel’s Youth Pas­tors make up part of our 12 man Bush Bik­ers for Christ (BBC) motor­bike group reach­ing over 18,000 children/week.

Berti­no is the leader of the Bala­ma Town, BAWANA GAMES pro­gram reach­ing over 500 children/week. Bertino’s younger broth­er, Pes­sute, is a Youth Pas­tor in the Bicy­cle Bawana Games group which min­is­ter to about 5,000 chil­dren in 10 vil­lages with­in 5 miles of Bala­ma town.

They are a Jesus lov­ing fam­i­ly for sure!

Prayer for a rapid heal­ing is much appre­ci­at­ed, for Alberto’s facial swelling is mak­ing drink­ing very difficult.

BLESSINGS,

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND HER BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG

DATE: JANUARY 12, 2019

DUCK DAYS CONTINUE AS RAINY SEASON LIVES UP TO IT’S NAME

Our rain-out days are lov­ing­ly called “DUCK DAYS” because the only hap­py crea­tures are the Ducks. January/February are Balama’s heav­i­est rainy days each year.

We did man­age on Mon­day and Tues­day to build up all the walls of Orphan House #6 to the 2 meter (6.5 ft.) lev­el. The ring beam that binds it all togeth­er is the next step, but we have to wait for a dry day to pour the cement mix­ture over the rebar.

BBC Teams were unable to go out sev­er­al days this week due to the heavy rains and ankle deep mud.

To cheer us all up, I have post­ed sev­er­al fun pho­tos tak­en of the chil­dren ear­li­er this week.

My cheer­ing squad at the Gazelle orphan home. They run to the fence to wave good­bye each time I visit.

Dixon all dressed up for church. 

A flash back to the past when we first met Dixon. What a dif­fer­ence a few years, your gen­er­ous sup­port, and lots of love make!

Soz­in­ho, Joane­ta, and Daniel with new toys. They smile lots but not for photos.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR OUR PAYPAL DONORS!

If you desire a 2018 year end donor acknowl­edge­ment and our end-of-year let­ter, we need you to email us your mail­ing address ASAP, as we send it in hard copy via USPS. Pay­Pal does not always pass along your cur­rent email address.Please send to Lin­da Fer­gu­son at linda@orphansunlimited.org Thanks so much for all you gave through­out 2018.

If you wish to make a dona­tion via Pay­Pal, you can do so via:

paypal.me/OrphansUnlimited

Or you can click the links to to right in this blog to set up your recur­ring love gifts through PayPal. ——->

If you pre­fer to send your dona­tions by check, please mail to:

        Orphans Unlimited

        562 S. Hwy 123 Bypass, #301

        Seguin, TX 78155

Bless­ings to all, as we care­ful­ly walk through the mud to make sure the chil­dren are all doing well. Even 4‑wheel-dri­ve is a stretch when the mud is this deep on our dirt roads.

UNTIL NEXT WEEK!

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange

And the Bala­ma Staff

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG

DATE: JANUARY 5, 2019

“BIG SURPRISE” MAKES HAPPY FACES IN THE NEW YEAR!

You nev­er heard such a com­mo­tion, when 24 kids began jump­ing for joy after being told they got to pick out a toy at the local mar­ket! When I went to Pem­ba in ear­ly Dec., all I could find were baby gifts.   Sin­cere­ly frus­trat­ed, I told our Staff, who quick­ly point­ed out that all but 8 of our chil­dren are now old enough to choose some­thing they want.

When they told me that the Bala­ma mar­ket for the first time has a good sup­ply of toys it was a “no brain­er”! Put all that togeth­er and it spells “SHOPPING TRIP” for the children!

As a child, my Grand­moth­er taught all her grand­chil­dren the val­ue of mon­ey. She gave each of us a small mon­e­tary gift at Christ­mas. After Christ­mas she took us shop­ping at a major depart­ment store where we could buy what­ev­er we want­ed with­in our bud­get. I decid­ed to pass on that “gift of learn­ing” to our children.

Balama’s “Major Depart­ment Store” is the town mar­ket.  It is HUGE!

THURSDAY, with the rains in a lull, off went our staff with our 24 old­er chil­dren for their shop­ping spree! Only the 8 babies and 5 small tod­dlers stayed behind. (The high school boys are on hol­i­day so they will receive their sur­prise upon their return.)

Each child was giv­en the equiv­a­lent of $5 to spend, which is A LOT of mon­ey in this cul­ture. They had a blast with all the girls choos­ing dolls that made sounds. The boys came home with a fleet of air­planes, police cars, heli­copters, and army trucks that actu­al­ly ran across the floor when you pulled their wind up string. The look on their faces told it all!

Hap­py kids head­ed home with new toys.

Pedro (left) and Pedri­to (right) brought home new dolls for their two baby sis­ters who were too young to go to the market.

THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO GAVE AN EXTRA CHRISTMAS DONATION. OUR CHILDREN HAD THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES GETTING TO SHOP FOR SOMETHING THEY TRULY WANTED.

HELPING OUR NEIGHBOR

In 2018, the Catholic Sis­ters opened a much need­ed school dorm for 7th to 12 grade girls who live in remote vil­lages. Cook­ing 3 meals a day for over 40 girls took a toll on their mud brick stove over the last 9 months. Their brick lay­er had tried to copy our “Rock­et Stove” pat­tern, but made errors in some of the key requirements.

When Sis­ter Isabel showed me the prob­lem, I took her to our orphan homes and showed her our new and improved Rock­et Stoves. They need­ed a DOUBLE ROCKET STOVE, which we had nev­er attempt­ed. So I designed one, and with a few tweaks by our Mas­ter Rock­et Stove Builder, Argenti­no, we gift­ed the Sis­ters with what they needed.

Aggie Engi­neer­ing cou­pled with a Mas­ter Brick Lay­er has devel­oped a stove that will hope­ful­ly last a long time.

Sis­ter Isabel, Admin­is­tra­tor of girl’s dorm admires her new Rock­et Stove.

2018 WAS A WONDERFUL YEAR, BECAUSE YOU SHARED YOUR LOVE WITH OUR 1,800+ ORPHANS AND THE 500+ WIDOWS WHO CARE FOR THEM. IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO DO WHAT WE DO.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND LOVE GIFT SUPPORT.

TOGETHER WE ARE CHANGING THE LIVES OF MANY CHILDREN.

BLESSINGS,

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG

DATE: DECEMBER 29, 2018

CHRISTMAS PARTY/NEW YEARS PARTY A BIG SUCCESS!

On Christ­mas Day, the Lord blessed us with Sun­shine after 14 DAYS OF RAIN! With water stand­ing on our play­ground, we prayed for a dry week and set the can­celed Christ­mas Par­ty for Fri­day, Dec. 28th.

God hon­ored our prayers, and weath­er pat­terns returned to nor­mal.  Rain­ing only in the late after­noon or night and in small amounts. THE KIDS HAD A BLAST!

Jump rope con­tests with 3 long ropes in motion so that every­one could join in. A super tug-o-war with at least 12 on each side.  First time for our lit­tle chil­dren, so it was fun to see them “get into the pulling”.

Our youngest enjoy 1st tug-o-war! Boys won so 2nd round we added 2 more girls to make it more fair. Boys still won!

Jump off was a great hit with all the children!

Our youngest enjoy first Christ­mas party!

THE STREET KIDS AND YOUR GIFT

The street kids from our Sun­day School sat solemn­ly on the ground for the prayer before the meal. Most did not have plates or cups to bring from home, but they hoped to receive food some­how. When we passed out the new plates and cups their eyes got wide, for they knew at that moment that food was com­ing. This group nev­er tastes meat, so this was super spe­cial to them. 

Hap­py street kid crowd cheers over new plates/cups 

WHEN TOLD THE PLATES/CUPS WERE THEIRS TO TAKE HOME, YOU SHOULD HAVE HEARD THE CHEERS AND WHISTLES! 

Your sim­ple gift made an impact that will be long remembered.

There was no food left over, as we had 192 chil­dren at the par­ty!  (our biggest yet!) The GIANT YOGURT FLAVORED LOLLIPOPS your gifts pro­vid­ed were a big hit with all the kids.

The youngest street child stunned at cookie/candy gifts.

192 chil­dren attend­ed the party.

THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS DAY SUPER SPECIAL FOR THE 192 CHILDREN WHO ATTENDED.

MAY THE LORD BLESS YOU 100 FOLD FOR ALL YOU HAVE GIVEN TO HELP HIS FORGOTTEN CHILDREN IN 2018.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG

DATE: DECEMBER 22, 2018

DUCK DAYS A DAWNING!

Lit­tle was accom­plished by any­one in Bala­ma this week due to over 5 inch­es of rain since Tues­day. (It’s still rain­ing as I write this.) We don’t have tar roads yet, so trav­el­ing on mud slick roads is very dif­fi­cult even with 4 wheel dri­ve. One mis­take and you are in the ditch for pos­si­bly sev­er­al days.

We call it Duck Days because the only ones hap­py are the ducks, play­ing in the mud and water.

Angry skies lead to 5 plus inch­es of rain this week

I left Bala­ma for Pem­ba with 2 men in a down­pour at 3 a.m. on Tues­day for the final sup­ply run for essen­tial children’s items we need­ed. We just bare­ly got through the mud slick roads on Wed. at 9 a.m. before the rains hit full force again. Very lit­tle sun has peaked it’s head out since. When you depend on solar pow­er, that is not a good thing, but am hap­py that we have good flash­lights (torch­es).

So all I can report is that the BBC motor­bike and bicy­cle teams only went out 2 days this week, com­ing back in the rain which fell at noon each day.

Our corn ware­house today.

Orphans did man­age to clean/plant fields between rains.​ Every child must learn agri­cul­ture to live well as adults.

PTL! ALL STUDENTS PASSED THEIR FINAL EXAMS

The high school only got results this week, which made them a bit ner­vous. It is tough on our kids who just came from remote vil­lages, for school in Bala­ma town is a whole new world to them. I’m proud of them for doing so well.

It took a lot of hard work, but thanks to Pas­tor Jose, our Por­tuguese lan­guage tutor, the new stu­dents learned a lot very fast.

FYI:  The vil­lage schools teach most­ly in Makua (trib­al lan­guage for it’s all the kids know). Bala­ma teach­es only in Por­tuguese, thus the lan­guage bar­ri­er for new students.

FRED TRAVELING TO FETCH FATIMA, OUR STUDENT IN CHIMOIO BUSINESS SCHOOL

It takes 8 days round trip to fetch Fati­ma from school for it is over 500 miles (833km) on pub­lic bus­es that do not run on reg­u­lar sched­ules. I just got word that they are now togeth­er in Chi­moio, and will depart on tonight’s bus for their 4 day return trip.

PTL for it if were not for cell phones, find­ing some­one in a large city would not be easy.

It is sad they have to spend Christ­mas on the road, but the school only let them out this morn­ing (22nd). Thanks to Mis­sion­ary Col­in and his wife Bet­sy, they have safe refuge until the bus leaves tonight.

OUR STAFF AND THE CHILDREN WISH YOU ALL A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS, AND A BLESSED NEW YEAR!

WITHOUT YOUR PRAYERS AND LOVE GIFTS MOST OF THESE KIDS WOULD HAVE PERISHED BY NOW.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO GROW A CHILD TO ADULTHOOD. THANKS FOR JOINING OUR “VILLAGE TEAM” TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN.

JESUS IS KING AND THE SAVIOR OF ALL!

BLESSINGS,

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA”

DATE: DECEMBER 15, 2018

CAST FREE AFTER 11.5 MONTHS!!!

PASTOR FRED FROM ROVUMA is now walk­ing with­out his cast for the first time in 11.5 months!

For our new read­ers, on Decem­ber 24th, 2017 the BBC TEAM motor­bike car­ry­ing Car­l­i­tos Jorge and Pas­tor Fred was rammed in the right side by anoth­er motor­bike. The impact was so force­ful it BENT THE BIKE FRAME and broke Fred’s right low­er leg in 3 pieces. This required 2 steel rods to repair it. 

Thanks to a VERY gen­er­ous donor, the surgery was pos­si­ble, but it was still a dif­fi­cult jour­ney, for the bones refused to knit togeth­er by July when the cast was due to come off. With improved nutri­tion, high dos­es of vit­a­mins and cal­ci­um, and NO weight bear­ing, those bones final­ly cal­ci­fied at each of the 3 breaks dur­ing the last 4 months.

Pas­tor Fred is cast-free!!

Fred is a very hap­py man now that he can walk again. How­ev­er, Fred faces sur­gi­cal removal of those 2 rods in July 2019. THANK YOU to all who have prayed for his recov­ery.  Those prayers have been answered, PTL!

60+ PLATES & CUPS GIFTED FOR STREET CHILDREN ON CHRISTMAS EVE!

Thanks to sev­er­al very gen­er­ous donors, we were able to buy more than 60 plates/cups! The few extra are just in case new lit­tle faces show up at our Christ­mas Eve Children’s Par­ty on Decem­ber 24th. Some of the extra funds were used to buy 200 large lol­lipops for all who come. (A real treat for they are hard to find.) The remain­ing dol­lars will be used to buy some of the school sup­plies we are miss­ing for the start of school on Feb­ru­ary 4th.

Plates and cups gift­ed to street children.

A BIG THANKS TO ALL WHO GAVE SO THAT THE VILLAGE CHILDREN CAN HAVE A DAILY REMINDER THAT SAYS JESUS KNOWS THEIR NAME. It is the first time for us to do this, so it will tru­ly be a BIG SURPRISE TO ALL THESE CHILDREN.

BART THE BAT RESCUED BY DE BUNNY

On Thurs­day, I noticed a bat hang­ing from the wood­en door frame where the motor­bikes are kept. Fruit bats are a GOOD THING as they eat bugs as well as fruit, so I decid­ed to move him before one of my guards noticed him.

Tak­ing a shov­el from the store room, I gen­tly lift­ed “Bart the Bat”, hop­ing he would climb on. At first he resist­ed by cov­er­ing his eyes with his wings.  I’m sure he was hop­ing I would go away, sort of like an ostrich bury­ing it’s head in the sand. If you can’t see it, it can’t see you!

When I urged him the 2nd time, he grudg­ing­ly grabbed onto the shov­el. Bart rode grace­ful­ly to the near­est Man­go Tree where he quick­ly grabbed onto a branch. With­in sec­onds he was hang­ing upside down and drift­ing off to sleep. After all, it is day­light, and his time to snore.

Bart the bat hang­ing out in our Man­go Tree.

I know I have act­ed like Bart, hop­ing the prob­lem would go away.

Jesus says “ASK IN MY NAME”, and I will show you the solution.

Make JESUS the first one you call on when in trouble.

JESUS TELLS US TO LOVE ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL (except the snakes, right?)

“Snake Sea­son” has reared its head, for the intense rains this week have dri­ven them out of the rat tun­nels to high­er ground (our homes and barns). This is keep­ing our Mon­goose fam­i­ly very busy indeed!

The night guards killed a very long spit­ting cobra at our corn barn this week, while the guards at my home dealt with a large ADDER (rat­tlesnake) near my kitchen, just last night. So we are on “high alert” at night, and all our guards have rub­ber boots to pro­tect against any strikes.

As if to prove my point, I walked out of the office just now and encoun­tered a tur­tle sit­ting against the wall.  My guard and I both jumped as it moved when we walked by. Just glad it wasn’t a snake!

Ted the tur­tle crawls in just 20 min­utes after I passed through this door.

With heart pound­ing from the Tur­tle scare, I real­ized it was a Holy Spir­it “nudge” to tell me: KEEP YOURSELF COVERED IN PRAYER 24 hours a day for the ene­my waits in the shad­ows.I believe God gave me this expe­ri­ence so that all of us are remind­ed to stay alert dur­ing the holidays.

MY CHRISTMAS PRESENT TO YOU

The Holy Spir­it is JESUS with­out human lim­i­ta­tions. He gives us INFORMATION so we can gain REVELATION which leads us and oth­ers into TRANSFORMATION. (Not a Bun­ny orig­i­nal, but want­ed to pass it on as my “gift” to all of you!)

OBEYING  the Holy Spir­it is what keeps this Bun­ny out of many “traps”, and has saved me from death more times than I can remember.

PLEASE SHARE, for the Holy Spir­it is a life saver!

JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF