CYCLONE KENNETH TO HIT OUR BALAMA AREA BY THURSDAY NIGHT Prayer pow­er is need­ed to help our orphans and wid­ows to escape any dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tions caused by heavy rains, winds, and flash flood­ing. Bala­ma and Melu­co are both high areas, but flash­floods could sweep through both areas due to heavy rains. Most like­ly we will lose phone and inter­net for the dura­tion of the storm (Sun­day, 27th), and pos­si­bly a week after­wards. Prayer request is for the safe­ty of all our chil­dren, the wid­ows, and all our food ware­hous­es in BOTH DISTRICTS. Radar shows the whole CABO DELGADO PROVINCE (STATE) will feel the weight of this cyclone until Sun­day. I praise the Lord, believ­ing it will NOT TURN SOUTH, thus head­ing right into the Meluco/Balama areas.  The corn and beans need prayer pro­tec­tion for it is still in the fields for it is just now har­vest time. Our pro­gram DEPENDS on these fields full of food to feed our orphans. WE NEED A SUPER JESUS MIRACLE!!! I will make con­tact as soon as pos­si­ble AFTER THE STORM PASSES, but that will depend on phone/internet ser­vice. So keep pray­ing until you hear from me.Bless­ings,Bren­da Lange and the Bala­ma staff

EASTER, A CELEBRATION OF LIFE! 

YOU ARE THE REASON, FOR THE ENTIRE O.U. FAMILY WALKS “HAND IN HAND” TO HELP THE INNOCENT. And no one is more inno­cent than a new­born infant like baby San­tos. Born on Good Fri­day 2018, he now cel­e­brates 1 year of life! 

San­tos and grand­moth­er, 10 days after birth.

With a birth weight of 2.8 Kg (6 lbs.), this tiny lit­tle boy sur­vived against all odds. His moth­er died the same night he was born. He nev­er received immu­ni­ty build­ing liq­uids from his mother’s breast, and his fam­i­ly had no way to feed him. This lit­tle fight­er drank NOTHING for the first 36 hours of his life!

DESPERATE FOR HELP, the fam­i­ly took him to our near­est church.  The Pas­tor imme­di­ate­ly brought the infant and grand­moth­er to our mis­sion via motor­bike, as he lived in a remote area with­out reli­able cell service. 

With severe dehy­dra­tion and a seri­ous­ly infect­ed umbil­i­cal cord, his sur­vival chances looked grim, but for Jesus! Lots of prayers bom­bard­ed heav­en, and Jesus answered, for the tiny body respond­ed, with no sign of tetanus, a com­mon killer of home born infants. Nurs­ing Sis­ter Ligia refused to give up, and drib­bled glu­cose water into his mouth for an hour before she man­aged to start­ed an IV on him.

TEN DAYS lat­er, sta­ble but still very frag­ile, he was released into our care. Under the care of 3 fos­ter moth­ers, San­tos (named for the Sacred Day on which he was born), has con­tin­ued to grow at an amaz­ing rate!

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR OUR LORD JESUS, AND SANTOS IS LIVING PROOF! 

Look at baby San­tos today!

Two of San­tos’ “OU broth­ers”, baby Arman­do and 2‑year-old Mildo.

BLESS THE LITTLE CHILDREN, FOR THEY ARE THE HEART OF GOD!

The Bala­ma Admin­is­tra­tor stunned us by doing  “3 firsts” on his ini­tial vis­it to our children’s homes this last Wednes­day. First, he entered our mis­sion by greet­ing each child with a gen­tle touch on the head. 

Admin­is­tra­tor greets our children.

He then prayed for our chil­dren, fol­low­ing with a very eye open­ing sto­ry about “thou shall not steal” for Jesus is always watch­ing! The chil­dren were total­ly focused on him, for this man is a born sto­ry teller!

Admin­is­tra­tor and orphan­age man­ag­er, Cape­na, inside the boys’ room at Vic­to­ry House.

His vis­it was a great bless­ing to all of us as he toured our homes, fol­lowed by a TOTALLY POSITIVE REVIEW. This man’s love for Jesus and our chil­dren was beyond doubt, and for that we are most grateful!

HAPPY RESURRECTION DAY TO ALL OF YOU! MAY IT BE A TIME OF MANY “NEW BEGINNINGS” BETWEEN YOU AND JESUS. HIS RETURN FOR HIS CHURCH IS VERY SOON!

BLESSINGS, 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF

LITTLE ONES GROWING UP FAST!

I am fas­ci­nat­ed by how fast our babies are grow­ing up. As a proud “Mama” to these chil­dren, I want­ed to share their lat­est fun pho­tos with you.

Arman­do learn­ing to walk with the help of ‘big sis­ter’ Felimina.

7 month old Vic­to­ria with Fos­ter Father Raul.Orphaned at 3 days and weigh­ing only 2kg (4.4lbs.), Vic­to­ria has blos­somed weigh­ing in at 6kg.(13.2lbs.) this week!

Ade­line with ‘sis­ter’ Angel­i­ca is now in pre-school!

Your Love Gifts are a bless­ing beyond words. THANKS TO YOU, THEY HAVE A BRIGHT, HEALTHY FUTURE!

TEXAS DONOR CELEBRATES BIRTHDAY WITH OUR STAFF

One of our Texas donors, David, want­ed an Inter­na­tion­al Birth­day Par­ty, so we made it hap­pen! On March 29th, our BBC teams (18 men), the 15 Bala­ma and Namuno Dis­trict Pas­tors, and our ENTIRE STAFF, includ­ing the 12 man con­struc­tion team and our 5 car­pen­ters, gath­ered togeth­er for a great time of fel­low­ship and feast­ing. David’s gift pro­vid­ed 2 goats, and all the “fix­ins” as we Texas folks call it.

Pas­tors being served at the Inter­na­tion­al Birth­day Party!

Since many feasts are pro­vid­ed for our chil­dren and Fos­ter Moth­ers, David decid­ed that the “back­bone work­ers”, who make this pro­gram pos­si­ble, should be hon­ored.  I total­ly agreed, and we made the most of it.

Every­one left with smiles on their faces and full tum­mies, total­ly blessed by the love shown them through this party.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID, AND THANKS FOR SHARING IT WITH US!

CYCLONE RESCUE EFFORTS CONTINUE BECAUSE YOU CARE!

I felt the best way to say ‘Thank You’ is to tell you exact­ly what we are doing with your gifts.

    1. $15,000 is being sent to Mer­cy Air for fuel for the 2 helicopters. 

    2. The bal­ance is being used to assist Mer­cy Air with the Water Purifi­ca­tion Pack­ets they so des­per­ate­ly need.

    3. Eric, an O.U. Board Mem­ber and South African Liai­son, is still coor­di­nat­ing efforts with Mer­cy Air in RSA to get these water purifi­ca­tion pack­ets to the cyclone victims.

I am very thank­ful he no longer has to dri­ve the dif­fi­cult route through Zim­bab­we (4 bor­der cross­ings) to get these pack­ets to the Mer­cy Air base in the cyclone area.

Mer­cy Air’s car­go plane is now trans­port­ing TONS of donat­ed mate­ri­als TWICE A WEEK direct­ly to their Mozam­bique dis­tri­b­u­tion site.

Mer­cy Air staff plan­ning next load to cyclone victims.

Fuel and a pick-up (bakkie) have been donat­ed for Eric’s use, so he will now trav­el only 4 hours each way to get these pack­ets to Mer­cy Air’s RSA (South Africa) base. This allows us MORE FUNDS to buy water purifi­ca­tion pack­ets vs. trav­el costs. Please know we are stretch­ing your gifts to help the mul­ti­tudes have clean water.

TOGETHER, WE ARE SAVING LIVES!

BLESSINGS AND MANY THANKS FOR ALL YOU DO TO HELP US, TO HELP OTHERS.

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“DATE: APRIL 6, 2019

FROM “BUSH BUNNY BRENDA“ DATE: APRIL 6, 2019 (all pho­tos, below)   THE SICK HEALED AND WITCH HUTS BURNED! TWO WITCH HUTS WENT UP IN SMOKE THIS MONTH! This is thanks to Pas­tors Alber­to and Fran­cis­co,  evan­ge­liz­ing in Namuno Dis­trict south of Bala­ma. To top that, 2 adults were healed after prayer! Prayer STOPPED an asthmatic’s attack, and an epilep­tic man’s seizure. NEITHER ILLNESS has returned to these adults since their heal­ing. THANK YOU JESUS!!!   MARCH SALVATIONS (Bala­ma and Namuno Dis­tricts) 47 adults, 52 teenagers, and 90 chil­dren. BALAMA BBC GROUPS (Vil­lage Pas­tors, motor­bikes, and bicy­cle groups) teach­ing the Bible to well over 30,000 chil­dren a week!   Tes­ti­mo­ny:  A Mus­lim Leader in a remote vil­lage had a stroke 7 months ago, and has been bedrid­den ever since. He tried pray­ing to his god, and when that didn’t work he went to a witch doc­tor.  When that failed to heal him, he gave the order to “call the Jesus man” to pray for me. THREE DAYS after being prayed for by our MANGO TREE CHURCH PASTOR, the man was seen WALKING WEAKLY out of his hut! He is get­ting stronger dai­ly, and gives all the cred­it to Jesus!   His fam­i­ly has not inter­fered, which is unusu­al, for it is nor­mal to exile a Mus­lim who receives Jesus as their Lord and Sav­ior. The fam­i­ly is push­ing him to trav­el to Tan­za­nia, and it is my opin­ion they want to get him away from his Chris­t­ian sup­port­ers in his vil­lage. So we shall see if he stands his ground. ONLY GOD KNOWS where this man belongs right now.   Just as Jesus used that “JEW HATING SAUL” to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, He can use this man’s mighty tes­ti­mo­ny where ever he goes! When a Mus­lim Leader finds Jesus, many begin to fol­low, for the truth has been revealed!   YOUR GIFTS ADVANCING THE RESCUE WORK  The news has moved on, as the hard­est part of any res­cue work con­tin­ues. In this case, the needs will be great until the next har­vest. PTL that seeds have been deliv­ered by a relief group, and are being dis­trib­uted so these farm­ers can once again sup­port them­selves in 2020.   Mer­cy Air’s 2 heli­copters, whom you are sup­port­ing with fuel, are work­ing long hours out of a Christian’s farm near the wiped out area of the Buzi Riv­er. EACH HELICOPTER moves 20+ TONS of food and essen­tial items/day, for many peo­ple are still cut off by flood waters.     Eric, our RSA Coor­di­na­tor, and his friend Wikkie, drove long hours for 3 days last week­end to reach this farm with a load of sup­plies, includ­ed 12,000  water purifi­ca­tion pack­ets.     Those pack­ets will clean up to 250,000 LITERS OF WATER (more than 62,500 GALLONS). Water­borne dis­eases are the most seri­ous threat to these peo­ple at present  for diar­rhea can kill an adult in 3 days.   WE THANK ALL OF YOU FOR MAKING THE SACRIFICE TO HELP THOSE WHO HAVE NOTHING LEFT. Eric said the hard part was see­ing the lack of hope in the eyes of the sur­vivors. JESUS BRINGS HOPE TO ALL WHO HAVE SUFFERED GREAT LOSS. THE CHRISTIAN TEAMS WORKING THIS DISASTER ARE MAKING SURE THOSE WHO HAVE LOST THEIR HOPE, KNOW THAT JESUS CAN AND WILL RETURN THE “LIGHT OF HOPE” TO THEIR EYES!    MAF FLIES IN SUPPLIES FOR THE BALAMA TEAM MAF (Mis­sions Avi­a­tion Fel­low­ship) divert­ed on March 18th to help with the cyclone dis­as­ter relief. Eric  was sup­posed to ren­dezvous with MAF in Inham­bane on March 19th to hand off our annu­al sup­plies, which are not avail­able in north­ern Mozam­bique.    Since MAF could not meet Eric, they arranged safe stor­age for our sup­plies in Inham­bane City until their plane could fetch them. As promised, MAF fetched and deliv­ered those life-sav­ing sup­plies to a land­ing strip near us just yes­ter­day. We are very grate­ful to the Nam­pu­la based MAF Team for all they do to help mis­sion­ar­ies through­out all of Mozam­bique.    JESUS WANTS ALL OF US TO NETWORK, SHARING HIS LOVE WITH EVERYONE WE MEET.   YOU ARE A BIG PART OF THAT NETWORK IN MOZAMBIQUE, AND FOR THAT WE ARE MOST GRATEFUL.   BLESSINGS, BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG

DATE: MARCH 23, 2019

DEVASTATION BEYOND WORDS

That is the only way to describe the destruc­tion left by Cyclone Idai. An esti­mat­ed 1.7 mil­lion peo­ple are with­out safe homes, food, or safe drink­ing water through­out Cen­tral Mozambique.

There is still no word from our orphan, Fati­ma, who is at busi­ness school south of the Beira area. We are believ­ing she is safe, as her school seems to be out­side the flood zone, but inside the cyclone wind zone. Many of her school mates are from Beira, mak­ing it dou­bly hard on them not know­ing where their fam­i­lies are.

PRAYER NEEDS:  

1. RAPID RECOVERY for those still strand­ed in the flood waters.

2. SAFETY FOR THE RESCUERS risk­ing their lives to save those strand­ed souls.

3. FOOD SUPPLIES TO MULTIPLY, as the aid groups are strug­gling to help everyone.

4. COMMUNICATIONS/ELECTRICITY TEAMS to be able to restore pow­er and phones soon.

The res­cuers are fac­ing mon­u­men­tal tasks try­ing to air­lift or res­cue by small boats, over 13,000 peo­ple still strand­ed in the flood waters this week. It is esti­mat­ed that the “SPRINT PHASE” of the res­cue efforts could con­tin­ue for anoth­er 2 weeks. THE MARATHON PHASE will go on for over a year, for these peo­ple will need food sup­port along with SEEDS to plant so that a har­vest is pos­si­ble in April, 2020.

THANK YOU TO ALL WHO RESPONDED IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE RELEASE OF THIS STORY. YOUR GIFTS ARE HELPING MERCY AIR’S 2 HELICOPTERS SAVE 1000’S OF LIVES. Our goal is to keep them in the air for as long as needed.

Mer­cy Air drop­ping food box­es in iso­lat­ed areas.

Mer­cy Air’s STAFF has adopt­ed an orphan­age destroyed in the storm that host­ed 26 lit­tle boys. Any funds donat­ed for Cyclone Relief that end up not being need­ed for fuel have been des­ig­nat­ed to help them rebuild the orphanage.

THERE IS STILL TIME TO GIVE IF YOU WANT TO HELP! (See our giv­ing instruc­tions at the bot­tom of this blog post.) We will make a 2nd trans­fer to their account in a week’s time for gifts being sent this week.

As long as they have fuel, Mer­cy Air’s 2 heli­copters will go out loaded with food box­es, med­i­cines, and hygiene pack­ets to those in remote areas where no roads exists.

Togeth­er, we are mak­ing a dif­fer­ence, one life at a time.

BACK IN BALAMA, OUR CHILDREN ARE SAFE

Thank you for all the emails ask­ing if we are OK. Bala­ma is on HIGH GROUND, about 1,950 ft. (600 meters) above sea level.

1. House #6 con­struc­tion resumed last Mon­day with the erect­ing of the roof. As of today, half the roof is on, but we had to delay the 2nd half due to rainy weath­er. The foun­da­tion of their lunch room and kitchen is now in the ground.

Builders lift­ing truss­es into place.

Roof­ing com­plet­ed on 1st half of house #6.

Foun­da­tion on new kitchen/lunch room begins.

2. Meluco’s bridge has been giv­en a tem­po­rary make-over. Just in time, for our March sup­ply truck leaves next week to take much need­ed items to the  515 orphans we sup­port in that area. My dri­ver is very hap­py, for he does not like shar­ing the back road through the game reserve with the Ele­phants or Baboons.

Bless­ings to all of you, and thanks again for your prayers and gifts that are tru­ly mak­ing a difference.

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

AND THE BALAMA STAFF

FOR THOSE WANTING TO DONATE FOR CYCLONE RELIEF

Please email me if you are able to help. If I know your gift is on its way, I will pull from our emer­gency funds to speed up our help­ing hand. 

Make checks payable to Orphans Unlim­it­ed and please note CYCLONE RELIEF on the memo line of the check.

Alter­na­tive­ly, you can donate to us via Pay­Pal at this link and use the pull­down to indi­cate Cyclone Relief.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=NZNS33RBE6Z9Y&source=url

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG, ‑SPECIAL-

DATE: MARCH 20, 2019

URGENT: HELP NEEDED FOR CYCLONE IDAI VICTIMS IN MOZAMBIQUE

Trop­i­cal Cyclone Idai slammed into the coast of Mozam­bique near Beira on Fri­day. Sim­i­lar in strength to a Cat­e­go­ry 3 hur­ri­cane, the storm left wide­spread destruc­tion and com­mu­ni­ties under deep water in an area over 30 miles wide! Hun­dreds of peo­ple are already con­firmed dead and sur­vivors are still strand­ed on rooftops and in trees as the flood­ing has not yet reced­ed.

Our lit­tle Fati­ma is in this area and we have no way of find­ing out how she is because no phone ser­vices exists. All cell tow­ers were dam­aged as well as roads and bridges have been washed away for many miles.

Before and after flood­ing: Peo­ple are strand­ed on rooftops.

Peo­ple gath­er­ing in the high­est areas.

Our Chris­t­ian friends, Mer­cy Air, who depend on dona­tions, are in the area help­ing sur­vivors with their heli­copter and plan to send their 2nd chop­per on Mon­day.

Funds are need­ed imme­di­ate­ly to assist with FUEL for their emer­gency food drops and rooftop res­cues. No gift is too small. 

All love gifts des­ig­nat­ed CYCLONE RELIEF will be sent direct­ly to them to help them with FUEL.

Mer­cy Air mak­ing air drops of food for strand­ed citizens.

Mer­cy Air flight paths mak­ing relief runs on Tuesday.

Food packs have been donat­ed by oth­er groups, but there is no way to get it to those in need except through air drops. These guys are work­ing long hours to get help to those strand­ed in trees, on roof tops, and small islands of land.

The water will not recede for weeks, and no roads exist to the need­i­est areas.

Peo­ple are still strand­ed through­out the area.

Let’s give them a help­ing hand and pray our Fati­ma and her school­mates are safe.

Please email me if you are able to help. If I know your gift is on its way, I will pull from our emer­gency funds to speed up our help­ing hand. 

Make checks payable to Orphans Unlim­it­ed but please note CYCLONE RELIEF on the memo line of the check.

Alter­na­tive­ly, you can donate to us via Pay­Pal at this link and use the pull­down to indi­cate Cyclone Relief.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=NZNS33RBE6Z9Y&source=url

BLESSINGS 
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA 

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG

DATE: MARCH 16, 2019

JESUINO MAKING GREAT RECOVERY

Many have asked how Jesuino is doing, so here is the latest! 

He’s gain­ing weight rapid­ly, mak­ing his face almost unrec­og­niz­able from his entry pho­to. This shows all of us how lit­tle bod­ies can bounce back when giv­en the opportunity. 

Jesuino upon admis­sion in mid-Jan­u­ary (left) and then in mid-March (right) after much prayer and a high pro­tein diet.

Social Ser­vice mem­bers from Pem­ba and Bala­ma vis­it­ed us yes­ter­day after­noon and were AMAZED at the dif­fer­ence. Great prayer and a high pro­tein diet do won­ders for mal­nour­ished lit­tle bod­ies. He weighed 4 kg (8.8) in mid-Feb­ru­ary when admit­ted to the hos­pi­tal with life threat­en­ing ane­mia. His weight on March 14 was 5.7 kg (12.54 lbs)!  He still has a ways to go before he catch­es up with his age brack­et, as most 1 year olds weigh 12 kg (26 lbs.). 

THANK YOU for your prayers and love gifts which are mak­ing his rapid recov­er a reality.

CYCLONE IDAI (EE-DIE) HITS BEIRA, CAUSING MASSIVE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION

This is the 2nd cyclone (hur­ri­cane) of 2019,  and the STRONGEST to hit the mid­dle of Mozam­bique in the last 10 years accord­ing to Accuweath­er. Winds gust­ing to 240km/hour (120–140 mph) hit Thurs­day night, but PTL, the 8 inch­es of rain they expect­ed it to bring ashore did not materialize.

At least 100 peo­ple lost their lives in Mozam­bique and Malawi.  EVERYONE in the area lost their crops, and many their homes.  Please keep these folks in your prayers, for it will be an intense year of hunger for the sur­vivors with all the crops now destroyed in this huge area.

Eric Dry was sched­uled to leave RSA TODAY with essen­tial sup­plies for our food buy­ing pro­gram not avail­able in our area. His annu­al trip was sched­uled 2 months ago, with no one expect­ing a late cyclone to interfere.

MAF (Mis­sions Avi­a­tion Fel­low­ship), which is called Ambas­sador Avi­a­tion in Mozam­bique, was uncer­tain until late last night if they could fly to meet Eric in Inham­bane next week due to the high winds that they must fly through. Lots of text mes­sages were rac­ing back and forth between Eric, the pilot, and I over the last 3 days. Eric takes vaca­tion time to help us with this trip, so he is on a set schedule.

PTL, the head pilot texted late last night that the flight would be delayed by a day or 2, but it would hap­pen. The MAF crew plan to drop sup­plies for storm vic­tims on their way to fetch our sup­plies.  Thank­ful­ly, Eric orga­nized a 3 day stay so all should work out. 

Please keep Eric and his youngest daugh­ter Chanelle and her 2 chil­dren in your prayers, as they make this life sav­ing trip to help our chil­dren. Stay tuned for “the rest of the sto­ry” next week!

BUSH BUNNY AND CREW TO THE RESCUE! 

Our staff are trained RESCUERS and that includes the 4 legged kind too! When the fran­tic wife of our Bala­ma doc­tor raced into our office to ask us to save her dog, our team went into action.

Her 4 legged friend had fall­en into a 36 ft. (12 meter) deep, open water well the night before and was alive!

She and her guard had searched for over an hour, and final­ly heard him whin­ing from deep with­in this water well. The ground around the well was very soft, so we placed our heavy alu­minum lad­der across it to secure the rope, pro­vid­ing the res­cuers a safe foothold. The Dr.’s house guard, who knows the dog well, brave­ly low­ered him­self to the bot­tom of the well using a stur­dy rope we provided.

Nor­mal­ly, a dog will pan­ic and fight, thus slip­ping out of a sin­gle loop placed around his chest. This young pup seemed to under­stand the sit­u­a­tion, and stayed super calm allow­ing our team to lift him out on the first try. We could not believe he was UNHURT.   He eager­ly greet­ed those he knew and start­ed rolling in the sand to dry off. He had been sit­ting in dirty, chest deep water for at least 16 hours!

Dog as he was pulled out of the well.

Get­ting the guard out was now our major chal­lenge. With the guard assist­ing by using the footholds dug into the side wall of the well, our 4‑man res­cue team lift­ed him out using all the strength they could manage. 

Guard strug­gling to climb last 6 feet out of deep well.

The final 6 feet were very dif­fi­cult, as the dirt crum­bled if the guard touched it. With much help from our team, he final­ly made it out, unharmed. The relief at being out of that hole was very evi­dent on his face!

Guard strug­gles out after a dif­fi­cult 10 minute climb.

THANKS TO OUR TEAM,  this very blessed dog and his fam­i­ly hap­pi­ly walked towards their home to feed a very hun­gry dog!

Our team closed the top of this well to pre­vent fur­ther acci­dents at this site.

BLESSINGS TO ALL OF YOU WHO MAKE THIS PROGRAM POSSIBLE.

We save lives, both great and small, because JESUS loves them all!

UNTIL NEXT WEEK,

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 

AND THE BALAMA RESCUE STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG

DATE: MARCH 9, 2019

BUILDING THE FUTURE CHURCH OF BALAMA

 
Chil­dren are the cen­ter of Jesus’ eye, and He wants ALL chil­dren every­where to know how much he loves Him. I know these num­bers must seem too good to be true, but believe me, these are TRUE HEAD COUNTS.

The largest pop­u­la­tion in Bala­ma is UNDER 15 years age. So it makes sense that the largest group in the church­es will be the chil­dren. This month’s stag­ger­ing report even caught me off guard!
 
BAWANA GAMES: 30,825 CHILDREN/WEEK HEARD GOD’S WORD COUNTY WIDE!!!
SALVATIONS:  22 adults, 19 teenagers, and 24 chil­dren
Note:  Most of the chil­dren in the Bawana Games groups have already prayed to receive Christ into their hearts.
 

Crowds of kids gath­er to hear God’s word

Tug-of-war in the vil­lage takes on new meaning!

All our kids lined up on the soc­cer field for Bawana games.

SCHOOL DAYS ROCK!
 
In Bala­ma, chil­dren are in their class­room only half days. You either enter at 7 a.m. and exit 11:30a.m. or attend the after­noon ses­sion from 12:15pm to 5pm. Chil­dren in grades 5 and up are assigned a Phys­i­cal Edu­ca­tion day which occurs dur­ing the time frame they are not in the class­room. Exam­ple: If a child is in the morn­ing class, then they will have P.E. one after­noon dur­ing each week LEAVING FOUR DAYS for sports and Bawana Games at our mis­sion station.

Kids need to be active to stim­u­late brain growth, thus enhanc­ing their learn­ing capac­i­ty. So we pro­vide plen­ty of activ­i­ties each morn­ing and after­noon at our bas­ket­ball court or soc­cer field.

Our pre-teens learn­ing basketball.

All the younger chil­dren have a 1 hour homework/study time with Pas­tor Jose each day. Jose has com­plet­ed 12th grade, so he tutors the younger chil­dren in Por­tuguese and the more dif­fi­cult school assignments.

Our High School teenagers have study time at our dorm with Pas­tor Arman­do each day. We have a COMPLETE LIBRARY of school books for them to read and take notes from. This study pro­gram worked very well last year, and ALL our high school stu­dents improved their grades.
 

BUSH BUNNY TIDBITS:
 
With the chil­dren all set­tled into school, our lives can con­cen­trate on many chores that keep this mis­sion ticking.

1. Rains are still com­ing night­ly, which has caused us to halt all con­struc­tion at that site due to super mud­dy con­di­tions. We will raise the roof, lit­er­al­ly, as soon as the rain stops falling. It’s a patience game, as the rains should be dimin­ish­ing, but this year weath­er pat­terns have been dif­fer­ent than in the past.
 
2. Brick mak­ing (cin­der blocks) is mov­ing for­ward at max­i­mum capac­i­ty. Our team makes 256 large (28 lb/14kg) bricks dai­ly for house #6 and all its sup­port buildings.

Brick mak­ing for house #6.​

3. Our 6 ton truck, so vital to food buy­ing, now has a new set of front springs. This truck sat idle for FOUR due to the lack of parts.  But thanks to Eric Dry in RSA and friends in the trans­port busi­ness, the parts final­ly arrived last week. Patience is some­thing every­one learns here whether you want too or not.
 
4. Car­pen­ters are hard at work mak­ing doors, win­dows, and kitchen cab­i­nets. Our goal is to have every­thing ready to be mount­ed in House #6 as soon as the roof is on.
 
BECAUSE YOU CARE, OVER 2,000 ORPHANS AND THE WIDOWS WHO CARE FOR THEM, ARE EATING HEALTHY AND THE CHILDREN ARE ABLE TO GO TO SCHOOL.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR JESUS HEART TOWARDS OUR CHILDREN.
 
BLESSINGS,
BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE
AND THE BALAMA STAFF

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA BLOG

DATE: MARCH 2, 2019

FLOOD CRISIS TAKES OUT 3 BRIDGES NEAR MELUCO ORPHANAGE

Cape­na drove to Melu­co last Mon­day for his annu­al meet­ing with staff and gov­ern­ment offi­cials in Melu­co Dis­trict (coun­ty). Your Love Gifts assist 515 orphans and wid­ows with food, cloth­ing, school mate­ri­als, and build­ing sim­ple mud hut hous­ing in very crit­i­cal situations.

All went well on Mon­day until a mas­sive rain storm hit just as Cape­na fin­ished his meet­ings. I told him to stay the night as the storm would cause slip­pery roads and dan­ger­ous travel.

Lit­tle did we know that this very storm would wash away THREE BRIDGES that link Melu­co town with the main high­way 33 miles (55 km) away. Expect­ing him home by noon on Tues­day, I was SHOCKED when I got an ear­ly morn­ing pho­to from Cape­na show­ing the 1st miss­ing bridge at the edge of town.

Noth­ing remains of the main bridge lead­ing into Melu­co town.

The good news is that the 1 lane game reserve road going out the oth­er side of town was open to small 4 wheel dri­ve trucks. It was a rough 9 hour dri­ve with “BEWARE OF ELEPHANTS” signs post­ed where they love to cross the road.

Cape­na said they did not spot any ele­phants, (PTL!) but that they saw many Baboons with some stand­ing up to 5 ft. (1.5m) tall.

That reserve does like to grow them big! A 5 foot baboon can reveal his 3 to 4 inch “canine teeth”. Dead­ly to any­thing it attacks. They are also known to have 3 times the strength of a STRONG full grown man. 

FYI:  You do not want to meet an ele­phant on a 1 lane MUDDY road, for you have no avenue of escape.  Ele­phants are famous for flip­ping cars with their tusks, or sit­ting on the hood, killing your engine. 

We are tru­ly grate­ful that the Lord Jesus brought Cape­na and assis­tant dri­ver, Mario “Big”,  home safely.

Bala­ma’s main road just after a heavy rain. Slip slid­ing away!

The only dam­age to the truck was a lost license plate on the front. He said they had to dive through 4 deep mud/water holes that cov­ered the road. He thinks it was ripped off as they crossed one of those holes. 

NEVER A DULL MOMENT WHEN JESUS GIVES YOU A BUSH MINISTRY!

9 OF OUR 10 NEW FAMILY MEMBERS NOW BLESSED WITH SPONSORS

The last to need a spon­sor is Momade Alber­to. He’s in 2nd grade at 9 years of age. We all call him Alber­to to avoid con­fu­sion, for we have anoth­er boy named Momade in the same house. 

These 2 boys are great friends now, and I see them help­ing each oth­er car­ry water from our near­by water well to their home. If the Lord places “Alber­to” on your heart, we would all be most grate­ful. He’s a great kid with a beau­ti­ful smile.

Momade Alber­to and his beau­ti­ful smile.

NEW SHIRTS DONATED TO OUR 13 YOUNGEST BOYS

Peter, my friend at the Graphite Mine, has returned for anoth­er year of work at the mine which is just down the road from our mission.

Alex, Leanne, and Peter are avid sup­port­ers of our chil­dren.  They do their best to send cloth­ing and shoes from Aus­tralia each time Peter trav­els back to Bala­ma for his job.

Leanne just blessed our boys with fan­cy new shirts. Alex sent long sleeved shirts for the cold­er weath­er which begins in April. We are most grate­ful for these much need­ed gifts, and for Peter’s will­ing­ness to bring them to us.

13 hap­py boys with new polo shirts for 1st time in their life.

THANKS ALEX and LEANNE, for your recent gifts put big smiles on 13 beau­ti­ful faces!

Bless­ings, 

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange

And the Bala­ma Staff