Bush Beat Blog

DATE: SEPTEMBER 4, 2016

Bush Beat Blog

ABANDONED CHILDREN RECEIVE NEW CLOTHS. THEY ALL HAVE SHOES, BUT WHEN PLAYING THEY LOVE TO GO BAREFOOT.

While at the “Aban­doned Kids Com­plex”, Pedro, one of the 5 year old twins, walked up and asked me some­thing in Makua.  I didn’t under­stand, so I took his hand and walked him over to one of the 3 Fos­ter Moth­ers who care of these chil­dren.  Lau­ra tells me he is ask­ing if I would take them all to our play­ground in my car for it’s about a 400 yard/meter walk for these lit­tle ones.  Get­ting to ride in a car is a BIG DEAL to these tiny peo­ple, so I was thrilled to give them a treat.

Call­ing all 9 of the 11 res­i­dents that were present, we marched togeth­er to the car in sin­gle file.  My King Cab is a bit high for these under 5 year olds, so the 6 lit­tle ones had to be lift­ed into the back seat.  My work mobile just became a school bus!

The old­er boys begged to sit in the back which is cov­ered by a canopy.  I let these 2 be “big boys” in the back since I had a brick lay­er rid­ing back there also.

My rules is no lit­tle kids in the back with­out adult supervision.

It was so sweet to see the smiles and excite­ment on their faces.

For it is moments like these that are for­ev­er etched in my memory.

6 CHILDREN RESCUED AFTER 2 DAUGHTERS PERISH

FIVE MOTHERLESS CHILDREN WITH GRANNY AND HER ONLY LIVING DAUGHTER.

Granny was over­whelmed when her old­er 2 daugh­ters both died from abdom­i­nal ill­ness­es, leav­ing 2 babies and 4 old­er chil­dren with­out moth­ers.  The fathers of these chil­dren dis­ap­peared months ago when the women became sick.

Social Ser­vices brought them to our food dis­tri­b­u­tion ask­ing for our help.  We also orga­nized cloth­ing and oth­er essen­tial needs for them.  One of the babies is not shown in the pho­to, as anoth­er fam­i­ly mem­ber is tak­ing care of it, since these 5 are a hand full for Granny and her only remain­ing daughter.

Res­cu­ing those in des­per­ate need is what Jesus asked us to do.

THANK YOU for mak­ing this res­cue a real­i­ty and many oth­ers like it!

SNAKES GALORE FOR FARMING FIELDS ARE BURNING

August and Sep­tem­ber all Mozam­bi­cans in the rur­al areas begin clear­ing their farm­ing fields.  That means likes of smoky days as the vil­lagers burn the 7 foot (2 meter) tall grass that now cov­ers these fields.  Besides heavy smoke, it brings out the worst in all the snakes who live in those fields.  On Mon­day my gar­den­er saw a 1 meter (39 inch) cobra crawl­ing along the side of my house.  He killed it with 1 strong whack from a long bam­boo pole as it tried to climb onto the walk­way of my car­port near the entrance to my house.

Then Wed., as I drove past the kid’s play­ground at NOON, I saw our gate guard run­ning for all he was worth with a big stick in his hand.  PTL that all the kids were home eat­ing lunch, for he was chas­ing a 1 meter (39 inch) cobra that was mov­ing at high speed under the swings.  The snake hes­i­tat­ed when it ran up against the con­crete wall of the slide.  That hes­i­ta­tion was its last mis­take as the guard ran up and swung his stick with all his might.  Hear­ing the loud WHACK, and see­ing part of the stick fly­ing across the play­ground, I was hop­ing he hit his tar­get!  Sure enough, the snake’s back was bro­ken.  Unable to move, it was put out of its mis­ery with a 2nd blow from what was left of the stick.

Peo­ple ask me how I cope with the snakes in our area.

  EASY.

YELL JESUS HELP!, and take eva­sive action, for my angels are always watch­ing over me!

For it’s not the ones we kill who give me the creeps, but the ones WHO GET AWAY!

For most like­ly, they will show up again in the near future.

In real­i­ty, we only see snakes twice a year now.  When fields are burned, and when the rainy sea­son starts.  Fire and water tend to run them out of their habi­tats, so they decide to join us in ours.  They are on my unwant­ed vis­i­tors list for sure!

BAWANA GAMES MINISTRY NEWS.

THE FOLLOWING PHOTOS WERE TAKEN BY CARLITOES JORGE AT OUR MAURUA CHURCH.

Three adults receive Jesus after last Fri­day’s Bawana games pre­sen­ta­tion. 1,687 chil­dren and numer­ous adults came to the program.

Mem­bers of the BBC Bike Team, seen here help­ing church mem­bers in Mau­rua build their church. This is our newest church plant.

Bless­ings,

Bush Bun­ny Brenda

“Bush Bun­ny” Bren­da Lange

Bush Beat Blog

DATE: August 14, 2016

PUTS SMILES ON LITTLE FACES

Fos­ter Moth­er Bal­bi­na and her girls, the first to get to choose shoes from our Aus­tralian donors at Syrah Resources.

These smiles tell it all, as these orphans/abandoned kids show off their new shoes.

Thanks to our Aus­tralian friends and their fam­i­lies at Syrah Resources, the orphans received a spe­cial treat this week.  It was 6 months since they last received shoes, and one look told me those shoes were fin­ished.  So out came the ones we have received over the last few months.   There are always staff mem­bers from Syrah fly­ing back and forth from Moz to Aus­tralia.  When clothes or shoes are donat­ed, our friend Alex Wor­ley gath­ers it up and sends it our way with the next per­son head­ed to Bala­ma.  This is a great bless­ing for sure.

Note:  We nor­mal­ly buy shoes at the local mar­ket, but they are already well worn, unlike the donat­ed shoes which are either new or like new.
THANK YOU TO ALL OUR AUSTRALIAN FRIENDS FOR MAKING A BIG DIFFERENCE IN OUR CHILDREN’S LIVES.

: Children’s Direc­tor, Anna, teach­ing a granny how to bot­tle feed her orphaned grand­daugh­ter with a  bot­tle.  Most of the grannies around here have nev­er used a bot­tle with pow­dered baby for­mu­la, so it takes a few min­utes of train­ing before they grasp how to do it.

BBC MOTORBIKE TEAM TAKES BAWANA GAMES TO 3 NEW VILLAGES.

Car­l­i­tos Jorge and his team of 7 men set an all new record Thurs­day this week as they explained God and cre­ation to 2,138 chil­dren and adults in 3 vil­lages over a 7 hour period. 

Folks, this is super hard work, for the team leaves at 5:30a.m. and returns at 1pm, for it is over 10 miles (17 km) to these remote vil­lages on roads that are only suit­ed to motorbikes.

Start­ing any new pro­gram is a chal­lenge, but our team THRIVES on challenges.

They made it hap­pen today using the tug-o-war game to draw a huge crowd in each of the 3 vil­lages.  We have per­mis­sion for 2 oth­er vil­lages in that area, so plan to open them next week.

After­wards, they had devo­tions and had those chil­dren pray with them who want­ed to accept Jesus as their Savior.

The pho­tos tell it all!
Blessings,

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange

The Amaz­ing Bala­ma Staff

Bush Beat Blog

DATE: July 9, 2016

It all began at 6 a.m. with the fos­ter moth­ers at our home for “aban­doned chil­dren” report­ing a theft and a runawa

I’ve always said that when it rains it pours around here, and such was the sto­ry that day.  It RAINED both drops from heav­en, mak­ing the day super wet, windy, and cold (55F/15C), while it “rained” much sor­row  for 4 small chil­dren in our care.

ABANDONED CHILDREN (I call them my “Gag­gle of Gig­gles”) AT THEIR OUTDOOR BREAKFAST TABLE.

EMILIA, the 19 year old leader of the “child head­ed house­hold” whom we res­cued last Jan­u­ary when her mud hut col­lapsed in a storm, ABANDONED her 2 chil­dren and her 2 orphan broth­ers dur­ing church time last Sun­day.  The fos­ter moth­er, Ati­ja and trainee moth­er, Marceli­na, told us that they had the 9 lit­tle chil­dren dressed and ready for church, when Emelia refused to leave with them.   Upon their return at noon, the fos­ter moth­ers real­ized that much of the children’s food was miss­ing.  A quick look revealed that Emelia and all her clothes were also miss­ing.  The moth­ers decid­ed to wait till Mon­day to see if she returned on her own, but it was pret­ty clear that  Emelia had tak­en what she could car­ry and run away.  Five days have past and with no word about where she is.  Pret­ty obvi­ous she has left Balama.

GOD’S PROVISION IS ALWAYS RIGHT ON TIME

TEN DAYS AGO, a wid­ow named Marceli­na answered our “ver­bal ad” for a wid­ow who would like to train as a “relief” fos­ter moth­er.  We real­ized that since all our fos­ter moth­ers are get­ting up in age, we need­ed a woman ready to “step in” if a moth­er falls ill or sud­den­ly grad­u­ates to heaven.

Marceli­na filled that bill, show­ing excel­lent work skills and love for the chil­dren.  With this inci­dent, we ele­vat­ed her to per­ma­nent fos­ter moth­er, and she moved into our “aban­doned children’s home” that same Mon­day after­noon, bring­ing her 5 and 9 year old chil­dren with her.

We praise the Lord that this sit­u­a­tion could be rec­ti­fied so eas­i­ly.  All the chil­dren love Marceli­na which has made their tran­si­tion to a new “Mom” eas­i­er for these 4 lit­tle ones.

GRANNY WALKS 20 MILES TO BEG HELP

Granny Palmi­ra car­ried 2 year old Julio and held the hand of 4 year old Del­ton as they walked 20 miles through the bush to seek refuge in one of our homes.  A mem­ber of our remote Njan­j­away (N‑John-jah-way) Church led by Pas­tor Alber­to in Namuno Dis­trict, Palmi­ra heard him talk about our pro­gram in Balama

Jorgina, 3, and Baby San­dra, 1, now learn­ing to walk, enjoy a safe play area as the men build them a new fence.  Teenag­er Felim­i­na, when not in school, loves watch­ing over San­dra.  Who needs dolls when you have the real thing to play with!

After 2 months of beg­ging help in her area, (her house had fall­en down and she had no food left), she took it upon her­self to leave her few belong­ings and walk to our Bala­ma mis­sion sta­tion with­out telling any­one.  This “three­some” arrived on Wed. at noon with only a small purse con­tain­ing the children’s Birth Cer­tifi­cates and the cloths on their backs.

While they ate some lunch at our worker’s kitchen, we con­firmed her sto­ry via a trust­ed friend.  He stat­ed he knew her well, and that she was tru­ly close to giv­ing up hope.   He also stat­ed that Palmi­ra was not exag­ger­at­ing when she stat­ed she was des­per­ate to save her grand­chil­dren.  He was not sur­prised she had walked that long dis­tance through dan­ger­ous bush to find us

As one who despis­es “red tape” and long delays while the answers are obvi­ous, I gath­ered Pas­tor Fred and Children’s Direc­tor Anna into a hud­dle and we “made a plan”.  Took all of 5 min­utes for we are a team of action!

The very next day we had a grand­moth­er leav­ing for their home vil­lage with her grand­chil­dren.  We had giv­en them tem­po­rary refuge from their men­tal­ly ill moth­er.  With that prob­lem resolved, they had request­ed to move back to their home vil­lage to be near family.

Palmi­ra and her 2 grand­chil­dren were giv­en every­thing they need­ed, (your love gifts at work), and tak­en to a spare bed­room of that very home for the night.

Their joy was evi­dent in their faces as they saw their new home after 2 months of sleep­ing outside!

The next day, we loaded up the fam­i­ly that desired to leave, and took them back to their home village.

RESCUING IS WHAT WE DO BEST!  IT COMES NATURAL SINCE THAT IS WHAT JESUS DID FOR ALL OF US!

“ABANDONED CHILDREN’S HOME” RECEIVES NEW SAFETY FENCE

BIG JOB almost done as men dig final post holes for the fence at the “Aban­doned Children’s Home”.

Com­bine 9 “vul­ner­a­ble” lit­tle ones, most under the age of 5 with the old­est being 8, and a busy dirt road out­side the back of their house, and you get an “acci­dent wait­ing to hap­pen” type sce­nario.  With a spe­cial gift from an anony­mous donor, I was able to pur­chase 3 rolls of 6 ft./1.8 meter chain link fenc­ing that would give these pre­cious lit­tle ones a bit more secu­ri­ty.  Build­ing the fence around this 1 acre home site was a 2 day job for a 12 man team as each hole had to be dug by hand.

This fence will pay high div­i­dends as these lit­tle ones have had sev­er­al close calls with speed­ing motor­bikes that now use this once “qui­et” dirt road for a speed­way to avoid the cops.  OUR HEART FELT THANKS GO OUT TO OUR ANONYMOUS RSA DONOR!

SALVATION BREAK THROUGH WITH CORN WORKERS!

80+ men just made a life chang­ing deci­sion, thanks to God’s Fire “burn­ing through Balama”.

Fri­day, July 8th, was a spe­cial day for all of us, as our dai­ly devo­tions REAPED A HUGE HARVEST!

As I awoke at 4 a.m.,  I felt a “calm” in my spir­it.  As we approached our 5:30 a.m. devo­tions time with the work­ers, that “calm” turned to a burn­ing FIRE in my spir­it.  We had over 100 men gath­ered, most who worked for us dur­ing the 1st corn buy­ing.  All had come to con­firm their names for our 2nd corn buy­ing which begins on Mon­day, the 11th.  (Jobs for 90% of these men were already con­firmed, so what I am about to describe was not a false move to per­suade me to hire them.)

We sang and prayed, when sud­den­ly the “FIRE” inside my spir­it came forth in a flood of pow­er­ful words.  (God’s anoint­ing had hit full force!)

I described Hell and Heav­en to these men in great detail, using exam­ples from true tes­ti­monies of peo­ple I know.

Explain­ing that after death there are only 2 roads avail­able to them.  Most had heard the gospel, but failed to tru­ly under­stand it’s impor­tance in deter­min­ing their eter­nal exis­tence.  Well, the LORD’S FIRE hit them deep in their hearts that morning.

MOST RAN from where they were stand­ing and hit their knees where Pas­tor Fred and I were stand­ing!  It was quite a site to see! Pas­tor Fred led them in the sinner’s prayer. We then coun­seled them on how to begin their walk with Jesus.

THE HARVEST IS RIPE, MY FRIENDS,

AND GOD IS MOVING IN A VERY POWERFUL WAY ALL OVER THE WORLD.

ALL JESUS ASKS FROM US IS TO BE “AVAILABLE

AND BOLD” IN CARRYING HIS MESSAGE TO THE

LOST.

HAPPY TRAILS, UNTIL THE NEXT TIME WE MEET.

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE IN MOZAMBIQUE

Bush Beat Blog

DATE: July 2, 2016

FOSTER MOTHER ROSA HOLDING DANIAL WITH ORPHAN SAMUEL, AGE 12, RECEIVING TWO BAGS OF CHICKEN FROM OUR FRIENDS AT SODEXO AND SYRAH RESOURCES. CHILDRENS DIRECTOR, ANNA, IS DISTRIBUTING FROM THE TRUCK, ASSISTED BY MONSUR.

This was the cry echo­ing through our fos­ter homes last Wed. when Sodexo’s Robert Bradley in coor­di­na­tion with Syrah Resources deliv­ered to us anoth­er 10 sacks of frozen chick­en legs! (15 kg each/33lbs).  Our orphans have great mem­o­ries, so as soon as they saw the bright­ly col­ored sacks in the back of our pick-up truck, the air was filled with the shouts of CHICKEN, CHICKEN from 109 very hap­py children!

Each house received a gen­er­ous amount, and the chil­dren hap­pi­ly ate chick­en for the next 2 meals.

We have no refrig­er­a­tion, so as the African father said to his son when they found an ele­phant killed by poach­ers, “CALL THE VILLAGE!, for we have much meat to eat tonight!”  And so they ate, and ate, and ate until they could eat no more.  Such is life in the African bush.

A HEART FELT GIFT FROM THE HEART OF A BEAUTIFUL LADY

Yes­ter­day, I returned from a sup­ply run to Pem­ba, and upon my return received the news that the Assis­tant Admin­is­tra­tor for Bala­ma was bring­ing us a dona­tion of corn for our children.

The sto­ry behind this gift is one of pure love.

Last Tues­day Bala­ma received sev­er­al impor­tant nation­al lev­el vis­i­tors who rep­re­sent women’s rights in Mozam­bique.  This com­mit­tee of 13 pulled a sur­prise vis­it to one of our orphan homes, and were very pleased at what they found.  In this cul­ture the con­di­tion of the bath­room says a lot about how well a moth­er keeps her home, so that was the only build­ing they entered.  When they found it very clean and neat, with the lid over the latrine to pre­vent fly infes­ta­tion, they were very happy.

They then drilled the fos­ter moth­er about her salary and work­ing con­di­tions, which they also found very satisfactory.

The group left, and were not heard from again, until yes­ter­day.  The leader of this woman’s group, who wish­es to remain anony­mous, was giv­en 150kg (330lbs.) of beau­ti­ful corn as a “wel­come gift” from the women of Bala­ma.  As this vis­i­tor left for anoth­er Dis­trict, she stat­ed that she want­ed her gift of corn passed on to our orphans.

Thus the 3 bags of corn that were deliv­ered yes­ter­day.  As I write this, those 3 bags are being sift­ed and pre­pared for milling on Mon­day.  They will then be dis­trib­uted to our children’s homes, as the donor wished.

( L TO R), SOCIAL SERVICE DIRECTOR, BRENDA, AND ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR SHOWING OFF THE BEAUTIFUL BAGS OF CORN RECEIVED AS A GIFT TO OUR ORPHANS.

We are most grate­ful to both of these groups for their gen­er­ous gifts to our children.

MEDICAL GIFT TO BALAMA HOSPITAL SAVES 2 OF OUR OWN

On Tues­day, Fos­ter moth­er, Sue­ma, age 60, was found to be very weak and los­ing con­trol of her legs, accord­ing to Anna, our Children’s Direc­tor.  I rushed to her mud hut, and we imme­di­ate­ly took her to the hos­pi­tal.  Her Blood Pres­sure was off the charts, and she was giv­en imme­di­ate treat­ment with some of the very med­i­cines YOU PROVIDED last week.  She was released at dark and PTL the fast action of the med­ical staff kept her from hav­ing a stroke.   She was giv­en the prop­er med­ica­tions to con­trol her blood pres­sure, and is recov­er­ing with­out fur­ther problems.

Momade, age 6,  was car­ried to the my home on the back of one of our fos­ter moth­ers on Tues­day.  He was ful­ly con­scious but unable to speak, very rest­less, and was flail­ing his arms uncon­trol­lably.  Even though he had no fever, I knew in my heart that this was malar­ia.  We talked with the local Doc­tor who met us at the emer­gency room along with Catholic Sis­ter Isha, a great Emer­gency Room Nurse.  An IV was start­ed using the TAPE that YOU PROVIDED last week.  It took 2 oth­er women besides myself to hold him on the bed, as his rest­less­ness became worse, for he was “out of his head” with the sickness.

That TAPE saved the day for no way could we have kept a line in that boy with only the help of a cot­ton ban­dage wrap.  Momade was giv­en IV med­ica­tions which pre­vent­ed the malar­ia from going cere­bral.  His Rapid Malar­ia Test turned pos­i­tive in 60 SECONDS when it usu­al­ly takes 5–10 min­utes for the results!  That meant he was in grave dan­ger for the malar­ia bugs in his blood were pow­er­ful and numer­ous.  I orga­nized 2 fos­ter moth­ers to stay with him, and PTL he was released to con­tin­ue oral treat­ment by NOON the next day!

FOSTER MOTHER LAURA WITH MOMADI, AGE 8, JUST TWO DAYS AFTER HIS HORRIBLE CASE OF MALARIA.

THANK YOU JESUS for his rapid recovery!

GOD’S BLESSINGS NEVER CEASE TO AMAZE ME

I also want to say THANK YOU to all our faith­ful sup­port­ers around the world (some who have been with us since the begin­ning in 1991).

I want you to know that an esti­mat­ed 20,000+ chil­dren have been saved from cer­tain death over the last 25 years,  thanks to your generosity!

This is no exag­ger­a­tion, as only the Lord Jesus tru­ly knows how many lives were saved because of your food and med­ical assis­tance in the last quar­ter century.

Thou­sands of Orphaned, aban­doned, dis­abled, and mal­nour­ished babies and chil­dren have grown up to become respon­si­ble adults.   YOUR GIFTS AND PRAYERS have shaped a new gen­er­a­tion of believ­ers in Christ Jesus, who are now lead­ing the next gen­er­a­tion to the Lord.  Train­ing up the next gen­er­a­tion was one of the orig­i­nal goals we had when com­ing to Bala­ma in 1999.  That goal is now a real­i­ty, thanks to your faith­ful support.

I also want you to know that I met with all 15 of our Bala­ma Pas­tors this week at our month­ly “salary day” meet­ing.  All are report­ing increas­es in atten­dance for both their children’s and adult pro­grams they hold each week.  Four of these Pas­tors are using their per­son­al motor­bikes to reach out week­ly to 10 dif­fer­ent small, remote villages.

YOUR GIFTS pro­vide them with the gaso­line to do so.

CLOSING THE MEETING WITH THESE MEN HOLDING HANDS IN A CIRCLE, I remind­ed them of the vision that Jesus showed me on that Texas day when He called me to mis­sions. When I asked the Lord WHERE I was to be a mis­sion­ary, He showed me a large gold­en wheat field ready to harvest.

It was sur­round­ed by MATURE OAK TREES.  (Isa­iah 61:3)  They shall be called OAKS of RIGHTEOUSNESS, a PLANTING FOR HIS SPLENDOR.

I told those men that they are the OAKS that the Lord was refer­ring too in that scrip­ture. For in Bala­ma, we have sur­round­ed the har­vest field, and are reap­ing the har­vest, just as the Lord wants us too.

The pieces of God’s “Chess Game” are now in place, and we will not stop until the KING OF KINGS returns!

Bless­ings to you all as we con­tin­ue march­ing for­ward towards the final har­vest of souls for Jesus

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange

“Bush Bun­ny” Bren­da Lange

 
LOVE GIFT TO: ORPHANS UNLIMITED in RSA
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