DATE: MAY 9, 2015

TRUCKING IN THE BEANS.

God is so, so good to us, for we made our quo­ta before oth­er buy­ers got to the beans.

WEIGHING THE SACKS.

Price went up from last year, but that is to be expect­ed with short sup­ply and BIG demand.

SPRAYING AND SACKING THE BEANS FOR STORAGE.

Our team of 63 men man­aged the pro­cess­ing and stor­age in THREE DAYS!  Our team real­ly pulled their weight and did a tremen­dous job

STACKING THE BEANS (EACH SACK WEIGHS 132 LBS. ‚OR

(60 KGS).

The pics tell it bet­ter than I can.

BUSH BUNNY TIDBITS

Bean buy­ing “con­sumed” us this week, but we still host­ed 2 sets of INSPECTORS for our hous­es.  One group on Tues­day, who just drove up with­out notice.

They loved our work.  Then the BIGGY—2 health inspec­tors who per­formed the final health inspec­tion for our Nation­al Orphan­age Licensing.

We passed with only a request for a few minor adjust­ments (paint­ing boys and girls sym­bols on the bath­rooms doors), and believe it or not (col­or changes of some of the paint used inside the hous­es.  These men pre­fer white vs. our cheer­ful yel­low, so we must repaint, (not a great col­or for young boys with dirty hands).

ON A PERSONAL NOTE:

My Mom, Con­nie, is back in the hos­pi­tal, and my Dad, Willard, has been sick with a res­pi­ra­to­ry infection/allergies this week.  Mom has mul­ti­ple prob­lems and is very weak.  Progress will be slow.

Prayer is great­ly appre­ci­at­ed for both of them.

Dawn and I are hav­ing a great time work­ing and fel­low­ship­ping togeth­er.  She did a great job as Observer/Guard at the Bean Barn these last 2 days.  (Dawn flew in from South Africa on Thurs­day night, after get­ting her Res­i­den­cy visa).  We only had a few men in our group of 63 who tried to “hide” vs. doing their work.  Dawn’s “eagle eyes” kept every­thing run­ning smoothly.

Some of the men who KNEW I couldn’t have seen them sneak behind the barn, began to think I had eyes in the back of my head!  I didn’t both­er to tell them oth­er­wise. Tee Hee.

Super nice to have a 2nd set of eyes on duty!

BLESSINGS,

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

DAWN HORGER

Ask and you WILL receive!

God opened the flood gates this week after our “bean prayer” for 100 tons to fill our barn.

Our GOD is a GOD of MULTIPLICATION, and as we are learn­ing, HE CAN MULTIPLY ANYTHING!

How to acti­vate His Bless­ings:  ASK IN JESUS NAME (with right motive), BELIEVE, AND RECEIVE!

On Mon­day, Cape­na spread the word to our 3 church­es in the major bean grow­ing area, and the “bush grapevine” was activated.

The Lead­ers in these areas report­ed that their beans WERE NOT READY, and that the bean har­vest would be small this year.  Very dis­cour­ag­ing since all chil­dren depend on beans to meet their dai­ly pro­tein needs.  It also means prices will be high­er than normal.

GOD PROVIDES FROM A NEW SOURCE

Our MECUTI PASTOR, Arman­do,  was first to bring his beau­ti­ful beans to our barn (1.5 TONS) just 48 hours after the  “bush grapevine” went into action.

What’s amaz­ing about this?   FOR 3 YEARS, THIS AREA HAS HAD A WEAK BEAN HARVEST!

Pas­tor Armando’s 40 church mem­bers say they can fill 300 sacks!  (20 tons)  With that news, we hap­pi­ly sent the Pas­tor back to his church with 100 sacks in hand.  When they fill those, we will send more.

GOD IS NOT LIMITED, as Moses sto­ries would tell you.  If God can pro­vide food in abun­dance from heav­en, NO PROBLEM to pro­vide beans from a weak field!

BABY DANIEL, STANDING AT 7 MONTHS ! ERNESTINA, FOSTER MOM, SAYS HE IS CRAWLING AND READY TO WALK.

GOD’S PROVISION FOR TRUCK REPAIRS

I was shock to find out from Lin­da, at our Texas office, that a gift had arrived which MATCHED the repair costs of our Land Cruiser’s transmission.

This gift was sent BEFORE the amount of the repairs was known.

We had prayed and ASKED JESUS to pro­vide for the repairs, but no one was told the amount, as I didn’t know what it would be.

Obvi­ous that JESUS total­ly under­stands how essen­tial that truck is to our orphan food pro­gram, since it is the main truck for haul­ing to all the remote sites.

I LOVE IT WHEN JESUS PROVIDES THE NEED BEFORE THE AMOUNT IS EVEN KNOWN.

YOUNG COOK AND HOT “POP”, A DANGEROUS COMBINATION

BRENDA ‚PUTTING SYLVADINE OINTMENT ON BAD 2ND DEGREE BURN. BRAVE GIRL, NO TEARS.

Eight year old orphan girl, Vela,  found out the hard way last Sat­ur­day that a firm grip is need­ed when mov­ing hot liq­uid corn cere­al called “pop”,  from the fire.  The pan slid from her grasp splash­ing over her fore­arm from elbow to wrist.  Sec­ond degree burn blis­ters rose up imme­di­ate­ly.  Her Grand­moth­er washed off the “pop”, but felt that no treat­ment was need­ed since no raw skin was exposed (only huge blisters)

 VELA SHOWS US HER ARM EIGHT DAYS AFTER THE ACCIDENT.

WE THANK GOD FOR HER RAPID HEALING.

Lit­tle Vela is one tough lit­tle girl, and obvi­ous­ly has a HIGH pain tol­er­ance,  for her grand­moth­er only brought the burn to my atten­tion 36 hours lat­er, on Sun­day after­noon.  Only mild­ly infect­ed, I cleaned and cov­ered this large burn with Syl­vadene oint­ment before wrap­ping her arm in a ster­ile ban­dage.  Hard­ly a wim­per left her lips, which amazed every­one, as 4 adults stood by to help hold her if she tried to pull away.

With much Prayer, Tylenol, and Amox­i­cillin for infec­tion, Vala­tia returned to school on Wednes­day with her ban­daged arm, as it was heal­ing nicely.

On Sat­ur­day, the 8th day since the acci­dent, VELA WAS COMPLETLEY HEALED with new skin cov­er­ing the burn area.

God is good, ALL THE TIME!

We PTL for her rapid healing.

DAWN RECOVERING FROM MALARIA

Dawn Horg­er, our newest mis­sion­ary, nev­er expe­ri­enced malar­ia when work­ing in South­ern Mozam­bique for over a year.  She is in Bala­ma only 3 weeks and a nasty mozzy must have found her quite tasty upon her arrival!  She had a mild reac­tion com­pared to most “first timers”, but said she would rather not repeat the experience.

Speak­ing from expe­ri­ence, IT IS A BUMMER!

Keep your prayers coming!

Next 3 months will be super busy as we bring in the har­vest in order to feed hun­gry orphans.

BLESSINGS,

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange

Dawn Horg­er

LARRY FRIEND, INTERNATIONAL TRAINER FOR AWANA GAMES taught a 2 day sem­i­nar that expand­ed into 3 days at the Pastor’s request.

Par­tic­i­pants included:

32 Pas­tors from ALL 3 DISTRICTS (coun­ties) where our church, Igre­ja Aguas Vivas exists (Liv­ing Waters in Mozambique).

The Youth Pas­tor from the Bala­ma Assem­bly of God, also attended.

Loads of fun for all, as Lar­ry is a great teacher.

The Pas­tors were so, so sur­prised when they saw the 66 lessons print­ed in Portuguese!

FIVE PASTORS were first timers, and will be start­ing new AWANA GAME CLUBS in 3 Districts!

Jill, Dawn and Dave made a super paint­ing team while Lar­ry was busy teach­ing the pas­tors. The swings are look­ing “bluer than new”.

We send a BIG THANK YOU TO LARRY FRIEND for help­ing us expand and upgrade our AWANA GAME CLUBS.

DAVE VANDERGRIEND, we thank YOU for mak­ing the Por­tuguese cur­ricu­lum pos­si­ble, (he financed it).

AGUAS VIVAS is the first to have the Por­tuguese cur­ricu­lum in all of Mozambique!

This gift now allows us to EXPAND our vision so that ALL CHILDREN MAY HEAR OF JESUS CHRIST.  We plan to offer train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for oth­er church­es in all 17 Dis­tricts of Cabo Del­ga­do Province (state).

THE HARVEST IS RIPE, AND WE EXPECT A “SEA OF MOZAMBICAN CHILDREN” TO FILL HEAVEN BECAUSE THEY FOUND JESUS AT AN AWANA GAMES CLUB!

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

LAND CRUISER NOW IN PEMBA

THURSDAY start­ed ear­ly with a 3 a.m. wake up for Manuel and his team who trans­port­ed the Land Cruis­er to Pem­ba on the back of our 7 ton truck.

The truck was giv­en a 3 hour head start, with all the vis­i­tors leav­ing at 6:30 a.m. with me in our King Cab.

The unload­ing of the Land Cruis­er was much eas­i­er than expect­ed, as the mechan­ic allowed us to use his oil chang­ing plat­form togeth­er with our home made ramp.

The pho­tos tell it all, and the process was safe­ly done in 15 min­utes with the help of 6 strong men (push­ing), along with Ivan (the mechan­ic), Dave, and Lar­ry who set up the “bridge” in front of the wheels.  Once the bridge was aligned, the truck crossed over to the cement plat­form with­out incident.

The bro­ken trans­mis­sion will be removed on Mon­day and we will know what repairs are needed.

MUCH WORK AHEAD AS BALAMA BEAN WAR HAS BEGUN!

Shock­ing news hit me as reports rolled in ear­ly this morning.

Our vis­i­tors left on Fri­day, and I no more got out of bed on Sat­ur­day when the bean reports start­ed flow­ing in from our remote Pastors.

We already knew the bean har­vest would be small­er than usu­al due to either not enough rain at the right time, or too much at the wrong time.

But I didn’t expect this!

ILLEGAL BUYERS ARE POSTING SIGNS in the bush say­ing they will pay the UNHEARD of price of 25 mets/kg!

(US 68 cents/2.2lbs or ZAR 7/kg)

Nor­mal price in 2014 was 15 mets/kg!   (US 45 cents/2.2lb. or about ZAR 5.50/kg).

That is 23 cents MORE than normal/kg and we will have to beat that price or no one will sell to us!

CAPENA WILL BASH THE BUSH FOR BEANS EARLY MONDAY

Cape­na is our expert orga­niz­er of the vil­lage coops.

He will be ON THE ROAD ear­ly Mon­day morn­ing to speak to all the lead­ers of the co-ops in the 3 areas that grow the major­i­ty of the beans in our dis­trict (coun­ty).

We expect­ed the price to be high­er than last year, but NO ONE expect­ed the ille­gal buy­ers to push it to a record high.

100 TONS NEEDED TO FEED 2,500+ ORPHANS FOR 2015

Until the har­vest is brought into the vil­lages, NO ONE KNOWS how many tons are avail­able for sale this year.

NO BEANS EQUALS MALNUTRITION IN 1000’S OF CHILDREN!

It is the only pro­tein that is avail­able to most vil­lage children.

Meat is scarce, fish unavail­able, so beans is everyone’s pro­tein source.

PRAY for a super­nat­ur­al BLOCKADE to the ille­gal buy­ers so they are not able to buy in Bala­ma this year.

We will be mak­ing sure the prop­er author­i­ties are noti­fied this week about the “signs in the bush”.

Super­nat­ur­al inter­ven­tion very much need­ed, as it is almost impos­si­ble to con­trol these buy­ers who come at night and on Sun­days when few peo­ple are around.

.

Baby Edna says,“hello, and thanks for her toy giraffe,

it tastes great.….”

GOD’S BLESSINGS TO ALL OF YOU!

THE BALAMA MISSIONARIES,

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

DAWN HORGER

FAMOUS AWANA 4 TEAM TUG O WAR!  AWANA leader Car­l­i­tos Jorge (orange shirt) and Dave Van­der­Griend (blue shirt) in background.

Over 100 chil­dren, teens, and adults attend­ed, hear­ing the sto­ry of Jesus’ Ascen­sion after the games were over.

Every team man­aged to win a few rounds, but the Bala­ma team were the cham­pi­ons by far.

AWANA RELAY (bal­anc­ing a bean bag on your head while run­ning with a baton).

We hope it served as a encour­ager to prac­tice more for the July con­test that is com­ing up.

Dave and Lar­ry show­ing their true col­ors as they make AWANA Tug O War ropes.

INTERNATIONAL AWANA LEADER, LARRY FRIEND  was extreme­ly pleased, as none of us have ever attempt­ed an “area contest”.

Lar­ry encour­aged all the chil­dren to come back each Sat­ur­day, by giv­ing those on the side lines a taste of the games.

Set­ting up 4 teams of young teens and 4 teams of lit­tle chil­dren, they played bean bag toss, to see who was the best.

Loads of fun for all!

  TEAM PHOTO: LARRY FRIEND, DAWN HORGER, JILL MITCHELL AND DAVE VANDERGRIEND.

MORE AFRICAN ADVENTURES/CHALLENGES COMING UP!

MONDAY will find 24 Pas­tors from 3 Dis­tricts (coun­ties) com­ing togeth­er for a huge AWANA conference/training ses­sion with AWANA LEADER LARRY FRIEND.

The new Pres­i­dent of Mozam­bique will be pass­ing through at some point Mon­day for Tues­day, so our ses­sions will be very flex­i­ble since every­one is expect­ed to attend the Pres­i­den­tial wel­com­ing parade.

MONDAY AND TUESDAY, Friend and spon­sor, Dave Van­der­Griend togeth­er with our truck team will dig a hole for the 7 ton truck to sit in, mak­ing it low­er to the ground.

They will then pray, push and pull with a team of men, and pos­si­bly oth­er trucks, in order to load the Land Cruis­er up on top of that truck for the ride to Pem­ba on Thurs­day.  Easy enough if the Land Cruis­er could be dri­ven up the ramp, but that is not the case here.  Our car­pen­ters have already built a very stur­dy wood­en ramp that will be car­ried to Pem­ba for unload­ing the truck at the repair shop.  (Yeap, we will get pho­tos, for next week’s blog.)  Can’t wait to see how many men it takes to push the truck up there!

THURSDAY, we will all head to Pem­ba for the great unload­ing of the truck.  Noth­ing bor­ing about this week!

Bless­ings from Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange

Dawn Horg­er

And our 1 week visitors,

Dave Van­der­Griend

Jill Mitchill

Lar­ry Friend

DATE: MARCH 28. 2015

Baby Edna and her fos­ter moth­er are a sweet reminder of ore mot­to, HAND IN HAND WITH THE LEAST OF THESE.

Thank you to all who sup­port these pre­cious lit­tle ones.

To have an effec­tive min­istry on any mis­sion field, means a mis­sion­ary is always open to mul­ti­ple attacks from many avenues.

This week, we had more than our share.

1. Sad­ly, over last week­end, Stephen Miller, decid­ed that Bala­ma was not for him and request­ed to go home.  While I was in Maputo last week, he strug­gled to han­dle the stress of the lone­li­ness and iso­la­tion of a city man in a total­ly iso­lat­ed coun­try set­ting.  Stephen was a great help while he was here as he tru­ly loves the Lord.  My prayer for him is that he finds a place in the USA where he can faith­ful­ly serve the Lord.

Balama’s lack of social life and enter­tain­ment is hard on every­one who comes here.  Some just can­not live in such a qui­et, iso­lat­ed area, where we have to make our own entertainment.

I have had mis­sion­ar­ies from cities with­in Mozam­bique who have ques­tioned how I han­dle the isolation.

My answer after 25 years of “liv­ing it”:

First, you have to be tru­ly called of God, cou­pled with a “spir­it deep commitment/never say QUIT atti­tude”, towards both GOD and the peo­ple He sent you to serve, or you will nev­er make it.

Sec­ond, You have to be a “self-starter”, well-moti­vat­ed, full of per­sis­tence, per­se­ver­ance, and the desire to serve the Lord no mat­ter what is thrown at you.

I had no idea as I waved good­bye to Stephen on Mon­day morn­ing,  that the busy week­end was just a warm-up for what was about to hit.

2. MONDAY:  First acci­dent at our play­ground.  A neigh­bor­hood boy, age 7, fell and broke both bones in his left fore­arm while get­ting out of the sand pit at the foot of the pre-school slide.  I was at the goat pen, 3 miles away in Rovu­ma vil­lage when it hap­pened.  We had 3 men super­vis­ing the chil­dren, as it hap­pened at after­noon activ­i­ty time.

Youth Pas­tor, Car­l­i­tos Jorge, had his motor­bike near­by.  He and guard, Dia­man­ti­no, cra­dled the boy on the motor­bike and took him to the hos­pi­tal. (With all the pot holes in the road, this gave him a smoother ride than I could have done in my King Cab.)

His fore­arm was at a 90 degree angle, so a seri­ous break.  They called me from the hos­pi­tal, so I dropped all and head­ed to the emer­gency room in Bala­ma.  All end­ed well, as the hos­pi­tal staff did a great job of putting the arm straight, and then cast­ing it.  Smart­ed a bit, as no anes­thet­ic is avail­able at our hos­pi­tal, but this young man was super brave and only shed a few yells and tears.

I then took him home, which was “fun”, since this lit­tle one only knew the route “he walked” to get to our play­ground.  We lit­er­al­ly had to take him to our com­pound and then retrace his route to get him home.  Sort of like wind­ing through a rat’s maze, as we snaked our way between mud huts on nar­row roads.

His moth­er is one of the local school teach­ers, and was shocked but most grate­ful for the care we had giv­en her son.  I saw him yes­ter­day run­ning down the road, so it is obvi­ous no bro­ken bones will keep that lit­tle man from hav­ing a good time!

3. TUESDAY:  Our corn grind­ing mill broke down after milling only 4 sacks of corn (still had 14 to go).  The axle in the mill final­ly wore out after 4 years of use and was mak­ing a hor­ri­ble rack­et.   Fast action was need­ed, since we still had about 840kg (1,848 lbs) of corn to mill that was to be dis­trib­uted at Thursday’s food give out.

Cape­na, our office man­ag­er, was out on an errand, and Manuel, our mechan­ic and dri­ver, had just left for our Melu­co orphan­age, 6 hours away.  I called Cape­na, who raced back to fetch the corn, tak­ing it to a local mill he hoped would help us out.  Not all mills will take that much corn at one time, since it means they can­not attend their reg­u­lar cus­tomers.  It takes about 5 hours to mill this much, but God gave us FAVOR, and it was done by late that after­noon.  PRAISE THE LORD!

4. WEDNESDAY:  All was going well until Manuel didn’t return from Melu­co by Noon.  Mul­ti­ple tries to reach him by phone didn’t work.  I was ready to go look­ing for him when he called in.  The TRANSMISSION had gone out on the Land Cruis­er he was dri­ving in a zone where no cell ser­vice exist­ed.  This is the same pick-up he just drove on the 12 day jour­ney to Maputo and back.  He man­aged to find some­one to tow him to Mon­tepuez, the town 30 miles (60 kms) from Bala­ma.  Our mechan­ic there told him to tow the truck back to Bala­ma, for it would take sev­er­al months to find a new trans­mis­sion, and he refused to guard the truck that long.

THANKFULLY, Cape­na was at the Mont­puez bank deposit­ing funds to pay for the water well parts that we bought last week.

Cape­na was dri­ving my Land Cruis­er, and after buy­ing a strong tow rope, was able to tow him to Bala­ma.  Not as easy as you think since a HUGE RAIN STORM com­plete with heavy light­en­ing, flood­ed Balama’s streets as Cape­na and Manuel entered the last 12 miles (20km) of their dri­ve.  They final­ly made it home just before dark.

Eric Dry is try­ing to help us orga­nize a rebuilt trans­mis­sion for the truck.  Not an easy task due to the dis­tance to find parts which are only found in Maputo, 4 days dri­ve away, or South Africa, 5 days dri­ve.   Oth­er chal­lenges are the cost, and the dif­fi­cul­ty of import/export, and trans­port to get such a heavy piece of equip­ment up here.

So the truck will be sit­ting for a while, as we work out a solution.

NOTE:  When my old King Cab’s trans­mis­sion went out 5 years ago, it sat for 8 months, as we tried to get the parts up here for the repairs.

NOTHING IS EASY IN THIS PART OF AFRICA.  That is why “per­sis­tence and per­se­ver­ance” are nec­es­sary traits if you plan to sur­vive the dai­ly chal­lenges of being in mis­sions here.

5. THURSDAY:  Repair­ing the old corn grind­ing mill was not pos­si­ble as it was total­ly worn out, so Manuel found us a new one.  He plans to have it run­ning by Mon­day afternoon.

We were blessed to get 4 years from that mill,  as we mill about 1.5 TONS of corn/week  to feed the 318 orphans and wid­ows whom we serve at each Thursday’s food give out.  This group includes the 25 homes of orphans liv­ing in our spe­cial homes near our mis­sion sta­tion, plus 211 orphans liv­ing with elder­ly grand­moth­ers who can no longer farm, and are total­ly depen­dent on our help to pro­vide for their orphaned grandchildren.

FACT: It is usu­al­ly only the grand­moth­ers who will take in orphaned fam­i­ly mem­bers.   I take my hat off to these women who have tons of love and a big heart for children.

6. FRIDAY:  I was sup­posed to go to Pem­ba to get sup­plies, but I was rude­ly awak­ened at Mid­night with all the symp­toms of malar­ia.  Seems I brought  back more from my Maputo trip than I planned on, since the incu­ba­tion peri­od for malar­ia was just right.

Not the way I planned it, but there was no way I was going anywhere.

I’m total­ly fine 48 hours lat­er as I con­tin­ue the 3 day pack of med­ica­tions that kills it out, as I nev­er delay start­ing treat­ment.  Delay­ing is what caus­es this hor­ri­ble mos­qui­to car­ried dis­ease that presents with “flu type symp­toms topped off with a migraine headache” to pro­long it’s course and cause per­ma­nent organ damage.

These chal­lenges, hit­ting one after the oth­er, seemed over­whelm­ing to me ear­li­er this week, so I hit my knees.

JESUS sent HIS PEACE and ASSURANCE that He will pro­vid­ed all the solu­tions for our chal­lenges.  In years past,  I’ve wit­nessed HIS SOLUTIONS come forth to over­come greater chal­lenges than this.

That is why I call this a FAITH BUILDING WEEK.

Bless­ings and much THANKS to all of you, who faith­ful­ly pray for us through our dai­ly challenges.

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da in Balama

My Mon­day flight on LAM to Maputo went smooth­ly, with only a minor delay at landing.

LAM (Moz. air­lines) has the nick name of “Late And Maybe”, mean­ing it usu­al­ly runs late and it “might” get you there.

We got to with­in 30 min­utes of land­ing at Maputo when sud­den­ly the engines did a great decel­er­a­tion, feel­ing like we “stopped” in midair.

Cap­tain announces that the Maputo tow­er had asked us to slow down because 2 oth­er planes were already in the land­ing pat­tern and they could not han­dle us at this time!  We all got a hoot out of that one! (Seems 2 is a crowd, and 3 impossible).

Then we get to the airstrip 20 min­utes lat­er, and were told to “cir­cle over the ocean” because there were still 2 planes in the hold­ing pattern.

So we cir­cle and are final­ly able to land safe­ly, a bit late, but we were there!  All land­ings are great land­ings if you can walk away from them.

FYI:  LAM has great pilots who do a very good job with the lim­it­ed run­ways avail­able to them.  The new air­port at Maputo is all glass front and very beau­ti­ful and clean.  Far cry from the last time I was there.

Grab­bing my lug­gage, Manuel and Car­l­i­tos were there to fetch me with our Land Cruis­er pulling Eric’ Dry’s trail­er.  So off we “crawled” to the bor­der, only 40 miles (80 km) away.  Traf­fic in Maputo is thick all day long for there are more cars than there is road space, and only 1 road to get you where you need to go.

First 5.4 miles (9km) took us 40 min­utes.  Once we cleared the city traf­fic, we were able to move on, get­ting to the bor­der at 7pm (this bor­der clos­es at 10pm).

We breezed through, meet­ing Eric on the oth­er side, where he led us to the B&B where we would sleep, reor­ga­nize sup­plies, and repack at 5a.m. the next morn­ing.  Because I had pre-orga­nized most of the lug­gage when I was in RSA in Feb., the re-pack­ing was com­plet­ed by 10a.m.  A quick sand­wich for lunch and off we head­ed to the bor­der with Manuel dri­ving the Land Cruis­er, and Eric and I fol­low­ing in Eric’s SUV pulling the trailer.

THAT is where we knew the fun would begin, as cus­toms can be challenging.

I apol­o­gize to my RSA friends, as there was no time for phone calls.  We were only in RSA for 16 HOURS!

When I arrived on Mon­day night, I had dri­ven 4 hours by car, leav­ing 4 a.m. from Bala­ma to Pem­ba, did some minor min­istry work, then trav­eled 3 hours by plane, fol­lowed by the gru­el­ing 3 hour truck ride with 2 bor­der cross­ings (lots of paper­work!).  Eric took us to a restau­rant for sup­per, mak­ing it 9:30 p.m. by the time we got back to the B&B.  Bun­ny was sleep walk­ing by that time as I am total­ly a MORNING BUNNY!  (Can’t remem­ber the last time I saw 10pm!)

THE BORDER:

God threw open the doors, and we breezed through with­out a problem!!!!

As Eric said, “That was the eas­i­est I’ve ever crossed that border!”

We were on the Moz. side, dri­ving to Maputo by 11:15a.m.!  A SUPER MIRACLE THE LORD CAN REPEAT ANY DAY!

Once in Maputo that Tues­day after­noon, we got to our hotel,  again unpacked, and orga­nized some of the lug­gage to trav­el by air with me (heat sen­si­tive items), and the rest was insu­lat­ed in suit­cas­es for the 4 day dri­ve back to Bala­ma.  These sup­plies are VITAL to our mas­sive food dis­tri­b­u­tion pro­grams, as well as the health of the children.

No sup­plies would have lit­er­al­ly shut down our exten­sive food assis­tance pro­gram to over 2,500 orphans and widows.

Manuel and Car­l­i­tos arrived TODAY, March 21st, after 10 days on the road!

They picked up a load of water well sup­plies on their way back from South Africa, and brought them in along with the VITAL sup­plies need­ed to keep our pro­gram run­ning smoothly.

Won­der­ful to have our whole team back at the base!

The truck arrived at NOON today, with all of us super hap­py to have made the trip with­out any hassles!

GOD IS GREAT!  ALL THE TIME!

Is the job tough?  YOU BET.

Is it worth it?

One look at our huge fam­i­ly of chil­dren, and there is NO DOUBT in my mind!  YES, I would do it all again anytime.

BALAMA MISSION RAN SMOOTHLY, THANKS TO CAPENA AND STEPHEN

Cape­na, my office man­ag­er, and Stephen Miller, mis­sion­ary trainee, han­dled the basic mis­sion pro­grams this week with­out problems.

Our newest fam­i­ly mem­ber, Baby Edna, is now healthy (she came to us with a mild res­pi­ra­to­ry infection).

The 80+ orphans liv­ing in our fos­ter homes are all doing well in school, and enjoy­ing the won­der­ful play­ground fur­nished by ICM, Inc. of Wichi­ta, Kansas.

I opened the slide yes­ter­day, and it was like bees flow­ing into their hive, as the chil­dren swarmed up the 2 sto­ry ladder.

More next week, as we pre­pare for our first MAJOR AWANA COMPETITION on April 11th!

We have invit­ed the AWANA vil­lage teams from 4 areas to participate.

The Inter­na­tion­al AWANA leader, Lar­ry Friend, as well as orphan spon­sors Dave and his Daugh­ter Jill will be vis­it­ing us from April 10th to 17th.

Bless­ings,

Bush Bun­ny Brenda

Stephen Miller

Three of the babies have fam­i­ly to care for them, but one of those babies was crit­i­cal, so I had to rush her to the emer­gency room to be admitted.

Baby Edna and her grand­moth­er need­ed more than just milk and a baby bottle.

BABY EDNA, THE NEWEST MEMBER OF OUR BALAMA FAMILY

Granny Ros­ali­na, Fos­ter Moth­er Bal­bi­na with Baby Edna in her arms, and Children’s Super­vi­sor, Annater­sia  (Anna-Ter-see-ah)

Meet Baby EDNA Sal­i­hi­na (Sal-eh-hee-nah), born Nov. 25, 2014, who now lives per­ma­nent­ly in our fos­ter home for girls.

PTL she is healthy, weigh­ing in at 3.5Kg (7.7 lbs) as a 4 month old.

Her moth­er died about a month ago, rea­son unde­ter­mined.  Granny Ros­ali­na (very up in age) brought Baby Edna to us imme­di­ate­ly to ask for milk, know­ing the lit­tle one would not sur­vive with­out it.

We watched Granny Rosa real­ly strug­gle these last 30 days, try­ing to care for Edna.  Liv­ing 8.5 miles (14 km) away, she suf­fered much to car­ry Edna to our milk dis­tri­b­u­tion point each week, as no oth­er fam­i­ly mem­ber exists to help car­ry the baby that long dis­tance.  Granny, very thin and unhealthy her­self, knows she will not live to see the lit­tle one grow up, and asked us to take her into our care.

With a few phone calls, Cape­na, our office man­ag­er, con­vinced Social ser­vices to allow us to adopt her since no oth­er fam­i­ly exists.

Granny will receive food every 2 weeks at our widow’s and orphan give out, since she was only eat­ing the star­va­tion root called Casa­va.  She is very hap­py to get to vis­it Baby Edna when she fetch­es her food.

BABY EDNA needs a spon­sor for $30/month, as she is already on Baby Food and for­mu­la, and eat­ing well. 

MAPUTO HERE WE COME

Left to Right: Mario, (now in dri­ving school, so he stayed behind), with Car­l­i­tos and dri­ver Manuel about to depart for Maputo with truck and trailer.

MANUEL and CARLITOS drove out at dawn on Thurs­day morn­ing to begin the 5 day dri­ve to Maputo (Nation­al Cap­i­tal of Moz.) for our once a year sup­ply run.

On Mon­day, 16th, Cape­na and Stephen will “hold down the fort” in Bala­ma, while I will fly to Maputo.  Our truck team will fetch me at the air­port for the 1 hour dri­ve into South Africa.

Once across the bor­der, we will ren­dezvous with Eric Dry (who has the supplies,)

This saves us 2 days dri­ving, not hav­ing to go all the way to Pre­to­ria. PTL FOR ERIC!  (He is still a very vital part of our team, as he now acts as our liai­son for what­ev­er we need.)

Once loaded, we will return to Moz. and sleep overnight.  I will fly back with the heat sen­si­tive sup­plies on the plane, and the truck will dri­ve for 4 days to bring the rest.

I will not have e‑mail ser­vice from 16th to 19th, so any mes­sages will not be answered until I return to Bala­ma next Friday.

ISRAEL NEEDS YOUR PRAYERS!

Friends of mine, Julie and Alf Saun­ders are car­ing for orphans and doing a fan­tas­tic work among the poor in the Golan Heights area of north­ern Israel.

This area is just south of Syr­ia, and is a big “hot spot” with many chal­lenges at this time.  Please keep them and all those liv­ing in that area in your prayers.

It is report­ed that there is a heavy accu­mu­la­tion of troops just 6 miles across the bor­der from there.

SOLAR ECLIPSE HAPPENS THIS WEEK ON MARCH 20TH

WITH THE 3RD BLOOD MOON FOLLOWING CLOSE BEHIND ON APRIL 4TH!

GOD IS SHAKING THE HEAVENLIES, SO KEEP YOUR SPIRITUAL EYES SENSITIVE TO WHAT THE LORD IS ABOUT TO DO.

TOGETHER WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE WORLDWIDE!

PRAYER AND PRAISE ARE THE MOST POWERFUL TOOLS THAT GOD GAVE US.  SO BOMB THE HEAVENLIES.  FORCE DEMONS TO FLEE YOUR LIFE AND THE LIVES OF THOSE YOU PRAY FOR!

JESUS WINS! YEAH!!!!

Bless­ings from Balama,

Bush Bun­ny Brenda

Steven Miller