From: “Brenda Lange” Subject: Blog, Sept. 21, 2013

FLEXIBILITY: WITHOUT IT, NO MISSIONARY CAN SURVIVE FOR LONG

The week flew by as we jumped from one job to anoth­er, as pri­or­i­ties changed rapidly.

1. Manuel and his 2 man team filled the 7 ton truck and left on Mon­day for 2 full days of food dis­tri­b­u­tions in Melu­co coun­ty where we have 515 orphans in our pro­gram. The 64 Revia orphans and the 112 Ele­phant Vil­lage orphans live on the edge of the great Game Reserve, and no mat­ter how hard they try to defend their fields, the ele­phants and baboons play hav­oc with their crops. They receive enough har­vest to last a few months, but by Sep­tem­ber, they are hun­gry. As Manuel drove slow­ly with the heav­i­ly loaded truck on the rock based road that leads to our ware­house in Melu­co town, 1 of the new tires explod­ed. I PTL that he was only going 10 miles an hour at the time, or it could have caused him to lose con­trol. A rock had wedged itself in the tread caus­ing the blow out. The tires were still like new, but a sharp piece of gran­ite can do heavy dam­age. (we car­ry 2 spares, so they were still good to go). The dis­tri­b­u­tions went with­out inci­dent, and YOUR LOVE GIFTS pro­vid­ed these 176 kids with new clothes as well as food for the next 2 months. They returned on Thurs­day with­out fur­ther problems.

2. RAISING TEENAGERS is not an easy task. Here in Bala­ma, if you break the rules, you get to dig “Mama Bren­da” a new trash hole (6ft.X3 ft.X 6 ft. deep) (2 m.X1m.X2m. deep) You’d be sur­prised how 3 days of dig­ging dur­ing a boy’s “free time” (when not in school), can change a rebel­lious mind. Just the thought of hav­ing to do it a 2nd time keeps most of our won­der­ful teenage boys from future infrac­tions. This week one of the boys missed a manda­to­ry pro­gram and lied when we con­front­ed him with it. So he was dig­ging away when he heard a noise in the next hole over. Seems our trash holes have become per­fect snake pits!

The holes are right next to a stand of heavy woods, home to our local wildlife (mon­goos­es, fer­rets, rats, and snakes). The ADDER (Africa’s ver­sion of the rat­tlesnake) goes after a rat, as I’ve seen these lazy killers be quite active just after dusk. The rat runs up on the loose dirt mound next to the new­ly dug trash hole. The snake fol­lows, but once on top, his heavy body can’t get trac­tion in the fresh­ly dug dirt to stop his slide, and PLOP, he ends up in the bot­tom of the 6ft deep pit and can’t get out. This has hap­pened twice this month, and we are hap­py to be rid of these silent killers (God didn’t give them a rat­tler). The ADDER is a lazy snake, and loves to sit in the sun next to a walk path, and wait for its prey to walk by. If that hap­pens to be a per­son, so be it, as these nasty guys have a tal­ent, the USA rat­tler doesn’t. THEY CAN STRIKE BEHIND THEM and they give NO WARNING. Need­less to say, it gives the boys added incen­tive to DIG FAST, know­ing those guys are roam­ing the woods behind them. (not to wor­ry, as the boys make so much noise dig­ging, every snake in the area avoids that area in daytime)

 

3. BABY REPORT: Great to be able to say this week that ALL BABIES in our For­mu­la Pro­gram are doing well. The moth­er of the twins, whom I rushed to the hos­pi­tal last week, WALKED IN this week to weigh her live­ly twins. The moth­er was brought in by bicy­cle from Rovu­ma vil­lage, 5km (3 miles) out and was walk­ing slow, but steady after her trans­fu­sion last week for her life threat­en­ing ane­mia. BABY SARA from an area we call “Coconut Vil­lage” (100’s of coconut trees grow there), is also doing great, and gain­ing weight.

4. CONSTRUCTION: Our 3rd children’s com­plex is over 70% fin­ished. The children’s home is almost fin­ished and the men are 75% done with the fos­ter mother’s house. Then the slow­er fin­ish­ing work begins. We hope to have the chil­dren in this new home by November.

Construction in progress for children’s complex #3.

5. A per­son “in the know” about what inspec­tors are look­ing for, just hap­pened to drop by today to check on the improve­ments we made since our last inspec­tion in late July. SURPRISED and IMPRESSED were both words he used to describe what he saw. He has a few minor rec­om­men­da­tions, but stat­ed it looked like we were ready for the major inspec­tion. The inspec­tors were sup­posed to arrive this next week, but once again have delayed until Octo­ber. No prob­lem, as it gives me the time need­ed to TWEEK the few things he told us about. (The objec­tive for his vis­it today.) Our staff is most grate­ful to those who tru­ly care about the kids, and who will “walk the extra mile” with us to make sure our orphans have secure futures.

6.AMBULANCE WORK If all this wasn’t enough, our dri­vers have been kept busy haul­ing the sick to the Bala­ma and Mon­tepuez hos­pi­tals, as the Bala­ma ambu­lance broke down this week. Cape­na, our office man­ag­er, spent 5 hours Thurs­day night deal­ing with a call that took him 30 km (15 miles) into the bush to fetch a woman with a breach birth. The baby was lost, but the moth­er was saved after Cape­na drove them late that night to Mon­tepuez’ Region­al Hos­pi­tal which is the clos­est place for an emer­gency Cae­sare­an Sec­tion. On Fri­day, our Dri­ver Manuel was kept busy doing 2 runs into the bush for the bad­ly sick and an OB in trou­ble. He then took anoth­er OB in dis­tress to Mon­tepuez for an emer­gency C‑section. Both of these men are excel­lent dri­vers and we PTL for the time they give to help save lives.

Now it is Sat­ur­day after­noon, and time to take a deep breath and RELAX. Tomor­row is anoth­er day wait­ing to sur­prise us. Nev­er a dull moment with Jesus lead­ing the way.

Bless­ings to all of you for bless­ing us with your love and prayers. Bush Bun­ny Bren­da and the Bala­ma staff