Katie and Ash­lynn busy sort­ing clothes for our kids.

Sat­ur­day, the Bala­ma Blaz­ers, Katie and Ash­lynn, and I will leave Bala­ma for the 4 hour dri­ve to Pem­ba.   They can catch a plane and begin their 40+ hour jour­ney to the USA.

When Jesus sends you to one of the “ends of the earth” spots He talks about in the Bible, it takes a while to get out of there.

Katie Pol­cyn and Ash­lynn Gra­bill went the “extra mile” by giv­ing a year of their lives to help keep our orphans pro­vid­ed with love, as well meet­ing their phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al needs that are essen­tial to rais­ing up great children.

Many tears have been shed by staff and chil­dren over their leav­ing, as they are dear­ly loved, and will be great­ly missed.

But the Lord has oth­er assign­ments for them, so they must say good bye.

From all of us in Bala­ma, our Orphans Unlim­it­ed Board and USA Staff, we say THANK YOU MY FRIENDS for bless­ing us with your pres­ence and help­ful hearts.

You were both a joy to have here, and a bless­ing in all you did to help make my load a bit lighter.

You endured the hard­ships and many crowns will await you in heav­en for all you gave to save lives in Mozambique.

THANK YOU FOR GIVING TO THE LORD!

See you again in heav­en, if not before.

TREE SNAKE DECIDES TO RAID OUR CHILDREN’S SEWING CENTER

Atoomany, the mas­ter ped­al pow­er sewing expert who makes all our children’s cloth­ing, was joined by a 3 foot tree snake in his place of work.

He told me he was sewing along on his ped­al pow­ered Singer sewing machine, when he heard a loud PLOP, right out­side the win­dow next to him.

He went out to inves­ti­gate, and that move kept him from being cor­nered by this nasty crit­ter.  For this 3 foot tree snake, in a very bad mood from falling out of our kitchen’s man­go tree, zipped at high speed through a small hole in his shop’s win­dow screen.  (The screen had been chewed open by a rat).

Plen­ty of work­ers were near­by, so his call for help was answered by 6 men.  The snake nev­er stood a chance.

One of the men grabbed our 12 foot (4 meter) snake killing bam­boo, shoved it through the Y joint of a small tree, and snapped it off in the mid­dle.  The 2 pieces were then tak­en by 2 men into the sewing room, ready for action.  The snake was hid­ing, so some quick moves by 2 men had to be made to get the snake out of hid­ing.  Once the snake was forced into the open area, the WHACK WHACK, told me that the dan­ger was over and the snake was history.

Ash­lynn helped Atoomany sew a piece of screen over the hole, so pre­vent fur­ther vis­i­tors.  All’s well that ends well!

OFF TO PEMBA IN A FEW HOURS, so I need to close.

Bless­ings and Much thanks to all of you for your prayers and faith­ful support.

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange

Stephen Miller

I’m very proud of our youth group, because they did not come run­ning to “Mama Bren­da” ask­ing for mon­ey.  They began by work­ing for oth­ers in their farm fields.  When that work ran out they had 1/3 of the funds.   Only then did they came to me ask­ing if I’d give them the con­tract to clean my Moringa fields, instead of giv­ing it to work­ers. I read­i­ly agreed.

Last Sat­ur­day they com­plet­ed that con­tract but still lacked $40, to reached their goal of 8,000 Mts ($250).  They begged for more work, but I only had one small area that need­ed clear­ing behind my garden.

Kids clean­ing fields to earn funds for church keyboard.

About 15 youth showed up and attacked it with glee, know­ing that when they fin­ished, funds for the piano would be complete.

BUT THE MET A FEW SURPRISES!  Two ADDERS (poor cousin to the Rat­tlesnake for they have the same ven­om but no warn­ing rat­tler), let them know real quick that this was THEIR AREA and the kids were to get out!

There were 3 adult men with the chil­dren, so these 2 slow mov­ing, but dead­ly snakes lost the bat­tle, as the men beat them to death with long bam­boo rods.

Need­less to say, I sent the kids home with­out fin­ish­ing the field, as it was just too dangerous.

I told them I’d give them what I promised as “dan­ger pay” for almost com­plet­ing the field.

Sev­er­al men will com­plete the field with much cau­tion lat­er this week.

I appre­ci­ate the snakes for con­trol­ling the rats in my field, as these 2 super fat snakes had eat­en well, but they must learn how to be good neigh­bors if they want to live near my garden.

Berti­no will take a taxi this week to Nam­pu­la, 7 hours south of Bala­ma, to make the pur­chase.  Excite­ment is in the air, as the kids wait for their long desired key­board.  It’s great to see them grow­ing up, and being will­ing to work for what they want.  Our “life skills” lessons are work­ing, and this is the fruit.

BALAMA SLIDES INTO MARCH WITH PASTORAL TRAINING

Pas­tor Alber­to set up a 5 week train­ing course for our pas­tors and lay lead­ers, which start­ed Feb. 27th.

Pas­tor Alber­to teach­ing our devo­tions class with SANDWRITING.

In the pho­to, he is teach­ing our entire staff and work­ers about God in 3 per­sons with a dia­gram drawn in the sand.

In the class­room we have a real white board, but when in Africa, do it the African way!

WHITE BOARD OF AFRICA (SAND)

The sand is reg­u­lar­ly used dai­ly for busi­ness nego­ti­a­tions for adding up a sale, count­ing items being loaded onto a truck, as well as kids draw­ings and games. Costs noth­ing, and eas­i­ly erasable by drag­ging a foot across it.

When in Africa, we do it the African way.

DAWN HORGER, MICHIGAN, WILL JOIN OUR MISSIONARY STAFF IN APRIL!

Dawn has a long his­to­ry of mis­sions, and has been work­ing in Beira, Mozam­bique as a Pro­gram Direc­tor. Those mis­sion­ar­ies had to leave for health rea­sons, so Dawn has applied to join our staff. She will arrive from the USA on April 8th.

Need­less to say, I’m very pleased that we will con­tin­ue with a 3 mis­sion­ary staff here in Balama.

BALAMA BLAZERS, KATIE AND ASHLYNN’S LAST WEEK IN BALAMA

We will real­ly miss you, Katie and Ashlynn!

Real­ly hard to see them go, as they have been my right and left hands for the last 10 months.

The kids are heart­bro­ken, and the staff like­wise, but it’s time for these 2 won­der­ful young ladies to return and begin their next assign­ment for the Lord.

We pray for all of you, and appre­ci­ate your prayers for our har­vest.  God is mov­ing, for the corn near our church in ROVUMA VILLAGE, has sud­den­ly SHOT TO THE HEAVENS in growth!  Reports tell me the same is hap­pen­ing in oth­er areas where we have churches.

I’ll get you a pho­to for next week’s blog, as some fields have grown from 5 .5 ft. to 8 feet in the last 10 days!

WE ARE CALLING IT HEAVENLY CORN, for it sur­pass­es any­thing I’ve ever seen!

BLESSINGS,

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

KATIE POLCYN

ASHLYNN GRABILL

STEVEN MILLER

BACK IN BALAMA…

Cape­na, office man­ag­er, Katie, Ash­lynn and Steve were busy milling the corn on Mon­day and dis­trib­ut­ing food to the orphans on Thurs­day.  Our car­pen­ters man­aged to get the required bunk bed lad­ders and safe­ty bars built.  Nel­son, our first orphan to enter into 11th grade, is now busy paint­ing these lad­ders for us and going to night school.

Ever see 39, ten pound grasshoppers?

That is what we now have with the 39 baby goats that were all born with­in 2 weeks of each other.

Kids at play — the four legged kind 

I went out to give them their 30 day de-wormer treat­ments this a.m.  When we turned them out with their moth­ers to graze, all I saw were goats hop­ping in every direc­tion.  They don’t like the damp, foot tall grass (30cm), so try to hop over it, only to find them­selves in deep­er grass.  There is no keep­ing them with their moth­ers, who graze near­by, as these lit­tle ones much pre­fer to stay and play on the 3 logs we have in the shade of our cashew nut trees.  Baby goats only drink milk until they are at least 30 days old.   That is when their stom­achs are ready for green leaves.  So these lit­tle stinkers are only inter­est­ed in play­ing around, and have no use for their Mom­mas until their stom­achs start growling.

PRESCHOOL IN FULL SWING WITH 55 LITTLE ONES

Since all chil­dren in this area (orphans or not), only speak their trib­al lan­guage, Makua, our pre-school helps pre­pare them for first grade.

If you do not know Por­tuguese, then you will fail, as the teach­ers are required to teach only in that language.

All 4 and 5 year olds in our 25 orphan hous­es, as well as the young ones who attend our Sun­day school or just live In the area, are eli­gi­ble to enroll.

Main objec­tive is to teach them the Bible and Por­tuguese, through song, pic­tures, and games.

Kids at play — our boys and girls

They also learn the alpha­bet, col­ors, and their num­bers, so are well ahead of most 1st graders when they enter school.

The new play­ground is a big hit, but these lit­tle ones are for­bid­den to climb into the tree­house slide, for they are too young to han­dle it.

THE HARVEST

Please pray for the corn and bean har­vest in our area, as late rains are caus­ing the har­vest to be late, and pos­si­bly small­er than usual.

This means real prob­lems for our food dis­tri­b­u­tion to the 2,500 orphans who depend on our program.

With God’s help there is still time for the corn and beans to multiply.

They just need some sun shine and a boost from heaven.

FULL TIME FEMALE MISSIONARY HELPER NEEDED WHO CAN COMMIT TO 10 MONTHS STARTING IN MAY OR JUNE.

SPONSORSHIP TO COVER TRAVEL COSTS, MEDICAL, RESIDENCY, AND LIVING EXPENSES PROVIDED.  ONLY NEED PERSONAL SUPPORT OF $150/MONTH.

THANKS MUCH FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND LOVE GIFTS THAT HELP US MOVE MOUNTAINS FOR JESUS!

Bless­ings,

Bush Bun­ny Brenda

Katie Pol­cyn

Ash­lynn Grabill

Steve Miller

PHILLIP FERGUSON II, 1970 — 2015

Phillip was a genius when it came to any­thing relat­ed to com­put­ers or the inter­net.  When our old web­mas­ter became ter­mi­nal­ly ill, it was Fil2 (as he was fond­ly known), who came to our res­cue.  He designed our new web­site as you see it today, and taught Lin­da Fer­gu­son, my sec­re­tary and his moth­er, how to do blog updates.  He was always ready to assist Lin­da with any tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ty, and was a key fig­ure in our min­istry for the last 3 years.

We dear­ly miss Fil2, but his mem­o­ry lives on through the web­site he built for us, so that oth­ers can know what Jesus has called us to do in Mozambique.

NO BLOG LAST 2 WEEKENDS was in respect for Fil2, as well as Phillip Sr., Lin­da Fer­gu­son and fam­i­ly, as she and her fam­i­ly laid Fil2 to rest with a great memo­r­i­al ser­vice last Fri­day in Eagle Lake, TX.

Any­time there is an inter­rup­tion of the blog for any rea­son, I will always post it on my Face­book page.

If you would like to keep up with me on FACEBOOK, then please send me a friend request AFTER Feb. 13th.

I will have lim­it­ed inter­net this next week and will not be able to respond while in South Africa.  (see sto­ry below)

Thanks for under­stand­ing and please con­tin­ue to pray for Lin­da and family.

Lin­da and I will con­tin­ue to put out a week­ly blog to keep you updat­ed on all that tran­spires as we bring 1000’s to Christ in 2015.

BUSH BUNNY AND STAFF SURVIVED THE INSPECTION!

PTL it is over!

Two days of show and tell, and the final rec­om­men­da­tions on the 3rd day fol­lowed by me dri­ving them back to Pem­ba. We did VERY well, as these 2 men were very favourable towards our pro­gram. They told us in the exit inter­view, to keep up the great work! They said our pro­gram is unique from all oth­ers in this State (Province), in that it tru­ly meets the needs of the peo­ple “where they live”.

They saw the “fruits” of our labors via the chil­dren, and were espe­cial­ly impressed with our orphans who have grad­u­at­ed, trained in a tech­ni­cal skill at our base, and have become pro­duc­tive cit­i­zens in the com­mu­ni­ty.  Three of our orphans still work with us (2 in our car­pen­try shop, and Nel­son who con­tin­ues to study in 11th grade at night school and teach AWANA to chil­dren in the daytime).

God has been so gra­cious to us!

THANK YOU ALL FOR PRAYING FOR US TO HAVE FAVOR.

God gave it for sure! Now we wait.

These men will file their report that will go to the top lev­el offi­cials for a deci­sion on our per­ma­nent licensing.

SCHOOL STARTS FEB. 9th!

UNIFORMS, school books, back packs, math sets, and all the lit­tle things that it takes to out­fit a stu­dent were giv­en out on this afternoon.

The kids get so excit­ed when we dis­trib­ute school mate­ri­als. Eas­i­er said than done, as each child was sized and their school uni­form cus­tom made for them. All grades wear a white shirt, with grades 1–7 wear­ing MAROON pants/skirts, and the high school (8–10) wear­ing black pants/skirts.

NOTE:  Thanks to your gen­eros­i­ty, our chil­dren are usu­al­ly the only ones who have a com­plete set of text­books in school.

Sad, but some of these books are very hard to find, as they are not even sold in Pem­ba. The great heart­ed office man­ag­er, Cape­na, man­aged to buy the hard to find school books while on hol­i­day over Christ­mas in Nam­pu­la City, 7 hours dri­ve south of us.

BBB FLYING TO SOUTH AFRICA FOR 5 DAYS

Bunny’s lap­top is slow­ly dying of old age.  Time for an upgrade before it crash­es. Eric Dry locat­ed a new com­put­er for me with the new Win­dows 8.2  (had to be ordered to get it, but it came in today).

I will be back in Bala­ma on Fri­day night, Feb. 13th. Plan to eat all the ice cream I can find!

STEPHEN MILLER OF CALIFORNIA JOINS OUR STAFF!

Stephen arrived last Wed. right in the mid­dle of the inspec­tion.  But thanks to Katie and Ash­lynn, he is now receiv­ing Bible School, Cook­ing lessons, and a basic ori­en­ta­tion of our pro­grams, as he waits for my in-depth ori­en­ta­tion once I return from South Africa on Feb. 13th.

FACING THE CHALLENGES

1.  Elec­tric­i­ty is still out, but word is it “might” be restored in the next week.  Repair­men had to resort to lift­ing those HUGE met­al tow­ers with a heli­copter, (very dan­ger­ous), since no crane could get into the area due to mud­dy con­di­tions and con­tin­ued rains.  Feb. is our most rainy month of the sea­son.  Repairs of any­thing are super difficult.

2.  BRIDGES STILL DOWN and riv­er flood­ing mak­ing repairs almost impos­si­ble.  Route to Maputo (only north to south road in whole coun­try) is still cut off near Beira, so sup­plies are very lim­it­ed in Pem­ba, since sup­ply trucks can­not get through. (only Air or Ship car­gos at the moment.)

3.  SECOND BRIDGE at Lurio Riv­er, which divides us from Nam­pu­la City, our biggest north­ern sup­ply post, is at full flood lev­els!  Flood waters ARE AT THE SAME LEVEL OR FLOWING OVER THIS 300 YARD (METER) WIDE BRIDGE (that is a 50+ foot wall of water).

4.  Heavy trucks are not being allowed to pass over the bridge at this time, as it is dam­aged.  No repairs can be done at this time, but small vehi­cles are allowed to pass one at a time.

TOGETHER WE ARE WORLD CHANGERS!

Thank you so much for your con­tin­ued sup­port in prayer and love gifts.

Bless­ings,

Bush Bun­ny Brenda

Safe­ty of the chil­dren and our mis­sion­ary staff must come first, as we are fac­ing a volatile sit­u­a­tion at the moment with many post storm challenges.

A cyclone (hur­ri­cane) fol­lowed by a 2nd cyclone that down­grad­ed to a severe trop­i­cal storm, hit our area all with­in the last 2 weeks.

1. The first storm knocked over 10 met­al tow­ers that car­ry elec­tric­i­ty to all of north­ern Moz. Over 9 mil­lion peo­ple have been with­out elec­tric­i­ty and many with­out run­ning water since Jan. 12th.  Esti­mat­ed time of repair is first week of Feb., IF the rains hold off.  (could be longer as Feb is our great­est rain fall month).

2. Sec­ond­ly, these storms com­plete­ly destroyed 2 major bridges on the ONLY ROAD between south­ern and north­ern Moz.

This means NO SUPPLIES can reach us except by ship or air.

No esti­ma­tion on when this road will open, which pro­vides vital food sup­plies for these same 9 mil­lion peo­ple.  I’ve man­aged to buy 6  weeks of salt, canned fish, soap, sug­ar, and cook­ing oil from a Bala­ma busi­ness­man this week.  Our kids are pret­ty much “safe” as long as they fix this road in the next 30 days.

Foods we depend on from oth­er areas have sky­rock­et­ed in price, and frozen or cold foods are non-existent.

Nam­pu­la, the largest sup­ply cen­ter in the north, has already sold out of most of its supplies.

Pem­ba, our cap­i­tal city, is low on sup­plies as well as the towns of Mon­tepuez and Bala­ma.  (We bought the last of the soap and most of the salt, when we pur­chased sup­plies 2 days ago.)

Pray for PEACE TO REIGN, (no food riots), and for the road and elec­tric crews to work with GOD’S DEVINE FORCE, allow­ing them to restore ser­vices in the next 30 days.

Our kids are thrilled with the new playground.

3.  We are expect­ing an air ship­ment via MAF of vital life-sav­ing sup­plies for our orphans (com­ing in from RSA in between Feb. 15th and 28th).  This was delayed from last Nov. , and I have to be here to receive it.

MONKEY BAR FUN.

4.  IMPACT OF FLOODING ON OUR FOOD SUPPLY IN BALAMA

The floods caused by the cyclone destroyed many acres of  beans and corn in parts of Bala­ma as well as 1000’s of acres in the area just south of us.  That means that many ille­gal buy­ers will swarm the Bala­ma area by April 1st, look­ing for beans and corn to buy.  We had favor last year with the gov­ern­ment, who allowed us to buy ear­ly, and we expect to receive that same favor this year.

KATIE DANCING WITH ORPHANS.

5. IF THAT WASN’T ENOUGH CHALLENGES, PEMBA SOCIAL SERVICES IS COMING FOR OUR PERMANENT LICENSING EVALUATION IN NEXT 14 DAYS!

Our Awana leader arriv­ing on his bike. Nei­ther rain, nor storm will keep this devot­ed man of God from his appoint­ed task.   

This is the FINAL, and most impor­tant of all the inspec­tions so far.

We are ready, but it does mean we will have to fetch them in Pem­ba (8 hour dri­ve round trip), host them for 2 days, then return them to Pemba.

Going the extra mile is essen­tial if you want to raise orphans in any African country.

Keep your prayers com­ing!  We sure need them.

Bless­ings,

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange

Bala­ma Blazers:

Katie Pol­cyn

Ash­lynn Grabill

High water has caused major wash outs at the entrance to one bridge and dam­age to anoth­er bridge.

No elec­tric­i­ty in gov­ern­ment offices, means no ser­vice to the pub­lic.  Did get the bank­ing done, PTL, cause they have a gen­er­a­tor back up!

But that was all we got done.  Cold food in the gro­cery stores was defrost­ing fast.  I grabbed 2 frozen chick­ens, a block of but­ter, and some cheese, know­ing there would be no more “safe cold foods” to eat until pow­er was restored.

BUSH BUNNY IS PREPARED!

Since we are remote, and have NEVER depend­ed on local util­i­ties, we are set up for sur­vival with­out electricity.

Solar fridges, pow­ered by 6 solar pan­els and 4 large trac­tor bat­ter­ies, keep food fresh for sev­er­al days to a month, depend­ing on what it is. We cook on a gas stove from bot­tled gas, and I keep a 4 month sup­ply of gas bot­tles for just such emer­gen­cies as this. Our water comes from a hand pumped water well, sim­i­lar to the ones you see on old west­erns.  Noth­ing but mus­cle pow­er need­ed there!

BEING PREPARED AND HAVING ADEQUATE FOOD AND FUEL SUPPLIES ON HAND are essen­tial to sur­vival in remote Africa.

I was once cut off for 7 weeks from civ­i­liza­tion by 12 miles of washed out road and 5 fall­en bridges.

Didn’t suf­fer a bit, since I had 3 months of food sup­plies tucked away.

God expects all of us to BE PREPARED for the unexpected.

Whether it comes in the form of a spir­i­tu­al bat­tle and/or a phys­i­cal disaster.

KNOWING GOD’S WORD, and USING IT in the prop­er way, will always be the #1 TOOL I have in my heart.

Are you pre­pared for what might be about to hap­pen in this YEAR OF MANY CHANGES?

GET READY, FOR GOD’S SON IS COMING SOON!

GOAT WARS OF BALAMA

Might seem like a minor thing after what you just read about the cyclones.

How­ev­er, our children’s meat source is very impor­tant, as it is the only fresh meat avail­able in this area.

With out­siders com­ing into Bala­ma, and offer­ing high prices for any edi­ble ani­mal on 4 feet, it puts our goats at high risk to thieves.

Goat sup­plies are almost non-exis­tent as most of the local grow­ers have been forced to sell off their herds or have them stolen in the night.

We keep 3 strong men with machetes and pow­er­ful flash­lights at our goat pens each night, and have 3 men watch­ing the herds graze dur­ing the day.

Oth­er­wise, your goats will dis­ap­pear.  The thieves have even been so bold as to approach my herds­men and try to BUY the goats direct from them in our own pastures!

Bless­ings,

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange

Bala­ma Blazers:

Katie Pol­cyn

Ash­lynn Grabill