From: “Brenda Lange” December 20, 2013 6:10:12 AM CST

DODGING RAIN STORMS AS THE CHILDREN’S PARTY MUST GO ON!

To put on a par­ty here, you have to go “the extra mile”, since noth­ing comes pre-pack­aged. You want meat, you buy it on the hoof and butch­er the morn­ing of the par­ty. You want rice, you have to orga­nize some­one 1 DAY in advance to “de-hull” the rice by pound­ing the sun dried hulls in a “pil­lar” (pee-larh) which is a large mor­tar made from a tree truck.

So my day start­ed at 3a.m., wak­ing up to a pound­ed rain storm on my tin roof. With a lot of prayer, Praise the Lord!, it stopped at 3:30a.m. So I jump into my King Cab, tak­ing one of my night guards with, to fetch our hon­oured goat at our goat barn 3 miles up the road. Three men unloaded our “guest” at the Children’s Cen­ter, while I dis­tract­ed our 2 guard dogs (who want­ed a goat break­fast). Back at my house, my guards helped me load the 2 HUGE cook­ing pans, 100 lbs of rice, and all the trim­mings into my truck so I could car­ry them to the cooks at the Children’s Center.

Now it’s break­ing dawn at 4:40a.m., and my 3 teams of work­ers (car­pen­ters, brick­lay­ers, and painters) come walk­ing in to work. We hold a short time of devo­tions, before these teams start drag­ging their tools and mate­ri­als from the ware­hous­es. An hour lat­er, every­one has all they need and are final­ly set­tled and doing their jobs. (Bun­ny takes a big breath to relax after an hour of run­ning from ware­house to warehouse.)

7a.m. rolls around and I think I can grab my “break­fast on a bun” when here comes more work­ers need­ing sup­plies. (orga­ni­za­tion is not their strong point). FYI: Break­fast is peanut but­ter with a touch of hon­ey on a fresh­ly baked roll from one of the local baker’s ovens. They bake bread dai­ly in a REAL PIZZA OVEN WITH A WOOD FIRE. It’s total­ly mouth water­ing deli­cious when still warm.

7:30a.m. Car­l­i­tos Jorge, our Youth Pas­tor and my best “goat buy­er” calls say­ing he’s locat­ed 2 goats for a good price, and he needs some­one to trans­port them to our goat barns. Got that organized.

Final­ly get break­fast at 8a.m. (nor­mal time, but remem­ber, I’ve been hus­tling since 3a.m.) so am VERY hun­gry and get­ting a bit cranky. The chil­dren have just arrived at the Cen­ter and begin play­ing games.

8:30a.m. Kid­dy Clin­ic starts: A moth­er brings her child to me whose vom­it­ing and has a high fever, which is how malar­ia presents around here. (The Hos­pi­tal is once again OUT of med­i­cines entire­ly, so I treat this lit­tle boy or he is doomed.) He lost his first pills, so had to give him a sup­pos­i­to­ry before he could keep things down. Then took him and his Mom home, as he was too sleepy to walk the 500 yards/meters).

TRIPLET BOYS having a great time feasting at the party.

9:30 a.m. FINALLY I get to the children’s feast in time to play a few games, take a few pho­tos, and pass out the Christ­mas treats (cook­ies and can­dy). Rain storm hits, caus­ing every­one to scram­ble for cov­er, but thank­ful­ly, we have a HUGE class­room for the par­ty MUST GO ON! Yippee!

All 80 orphans showing off their cookies and candy and saying MERRY CHRISTMAS AND THANK YOU to our donors. They shouted it so loud, it hurts the ear drums.

The kids had a blast, as you can see from the pho­tos. All are super thrilled with the Cook­ies and Can­dy they received. If you are won­der­ing why no toys, it’s because they are hard to find and very expen­sive when you do find them. ($60 is a nor­mal price for a small beach set of buck­ets, shov­els, and a few plas­tic sand moulds.) This some­thing you’d get for $10 at Wal­ly World.

11:30a.m. Our lit­tle Mon­i­ca gets sick as the par­ty is end­ing (spe­cial needs 3 year old born with an enlarged heart). I took her and her Mom to the hos­pi­tal, found the Dr. and got her diag­nosed (upper res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tion). He told me what to give from my med­i­cines, since the hos­pi­tal had noth­ing to offer. Good thing I keep a good stock of meds, thanks to those of you who give towards this need, and I’m very grate­ful that the Dr. works well with me. Did you know you can make cough syrup from SLICED ONIONS and SUGAR? New one on me. Doc told me how to make it. Learn some­thing new each day.

Final­ly got back to my house at 1pm, to find a 3 foot (1 meter) SNAKE in front of the main door to my house! Yelled COBRA, and my guard came run­ning with his 4 meter snake stick mak­ing hash out of that slith­er­ing threat with 2 quick whacks! (You can still see the marks on the cement where the snake lay when hit.)

FINALLY got lunch at 1:45pm. (2 fried duck eggs that I chopped up and put into the dish of local­ly grown rice our cook had made for me). BIG RAIN STORM HITS and I’m thrilled! Cause it gives me a short time of PEACE! My day final­ly slows down so that I can write a few e‑mails!

4pm. Time to wrap up my day by feed­ing the guard dogs, make a quick sup­per, and fetch my sun tea and solar show­er bag from the “solar table”. That about wraps up my “par­ty day”.

Pic­ture me: Bun­ny with ears droop­ing, and shoul­ders slumped for­ward, drag­ging her­self in for a show­er and a bed.

Now you know why God made Moms with the abil­i­ty to mul­ti-task. I couldn’t do this job with­out HIS GRACE in that area of my life! Most of you “Moms” out there know exact­ly how this feels.

BALAMA DOCTOR VISITS TO “DE-WORM” EVERYONE ATTENDING THE THURSDAY FOOD GIVE OUT

Dr. Fumo, (means Dr. Smoke). He’s a great guy with a BIG HEART for th kids.

Feed­ing kids and not worms is my well known mot­to around here. Is great to have a lit­tle help from the local hospital.

My friends, I hope you all have a won­der­ful fam­i­ly Christ­mas and spend some time thank­ing our SAVIOR, JESUS for all He has blessed you with this year. Our chil­dren pray for you and send their THANKS for all you’ve done to help them this year.

Mer­ry Christmas!

Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma Staff