From: “Bren­da Lange”
Date: May 2, 201
YOUR PRAYERS ARE WORKING!  KEEP THEM COMING.
Hard to believe I’ve only been here 2 weeks now, as we accom­plish­ment so much in that short peri­od of time.
With fac­ing a food short­age, assist­ing oth­er mis­sion­ar­ies in start­ing a new orphan­age in Tan­za­nia, and deal­ing with the dai­ly chal­lenges of our many pro­grams, it does tend to keep me off the streets and out of trou­ble.  The kids are doing well and our remote vil­lage church­es are grow­ing rapid­ly. Two of our BBC mem­bers (Bush Bik­ers for Christ) who evan­ge­lize the chil­dren in remote vil­lages, have offered to move into the 2 remote vil­lages where new church­es have been start­ed.  Pas­tor Alber­to, our Bible School teacher will men­tor them as they help him to get these new Chris­tians ground­ed in God’s Word.

We prayed for beans and the vil­lage farm­ers have respond­ed by bring in 3.5 tons one sack at a time, most­ly by bicycle.
Many farm­ers tell us that most vil­lagers can sell one sack  of beans, but few had a large harvest.
So we will fill our barn one sack at a time this year in any way God brings it to us.

Our Melu­co orphan­age with 400 kids and wid­ows is at crit­i­cal food sta­tus as their corn and bean fields pro­duced noth­ing.  Our Melu­co barn is almost emp­ty, so our plan is to trans­fer 12 tons of our emer­gency reserve food to them dur­ing May.  That will keep the kids fed till the new food is bought in June.

Eric informed me last week­end that new tires are a MUST before long dis­tance haul­ing is pos­si­ble.  It’s 9 hours one way by big truck to our Melu­co mis­sion base.
The only way to get good tires is to dri­ve 7 hours to the largest sup­ply city in North­ern Mozam­bique, Nampula.

Tak­ing off with a 2 page sup­ply list, Eric went to Nam­pu­la last Tues­day week with a pick up pulling a trailer.
He returned loaded with all the sup­plies, but not with­out hav­ing a lit­tle excite­ment himself.

BRAVE MOTORIST STOPS A ROBBERY IN PROGRESS
Eric and Cape­na were buy­ing sup­plies this week in Nam­pu­la, the largest city in all of north­ern Mozambique.
In this area, thiev­ing gangs are well orga­nized and work in broad daylight.
Capena’s friend was on guard in the back of the pick­up when some­one walks up to him, caus­ing a distraction.
With the guard dis­tract­ed, anoth­er man moved in on the oppo­site side of the truck, grabs a case of motor oil worth $145 and walks off unno­ticed by our guard.
The thief ran across the street in front of a car.  The Mozam­bi­can dri­ver sees the thief put the case of oil in a taxi parked in the mid­dle divider of a major 4 lane street. (The taxi dri­ver was obvi­ous­ly part of the gang.)

This huge Mozam­bi­can motorist, who nev­er gave his name, STOPPED HIS TRUCK in the street, and shouts “YOU”VE BEEN ROBBED” as Eric and Cape­na were com­ing out of the store.
Eric raced to the truck, while Cape­na and the guard ran to the taxi that the motorist point­ed out.

The 2 thieves scat­ter in dif­fer­ent direc­tions while the taxi dri­ver starts his motor and tries to pull out into traffic.
Our Brave Motorist steps right out in front of the traf­fic AND STOPS THE CARS from moving!
This kept the taxi blocked in, giv­ing Cape­na time to yank open the taxi door and grab the case of oil.

Need­less to say the 2 thieves were long gone, and Eric saw the taxi dri­ver slid­ing down in the seat to make him­self less conspicuous.
Noth­ing could be proven against the taxi dri­ver, so he was released.

Eric quick­ly orga­nized a 2nd guard for the back of the truck, as the mis­sion­ar­ies liv­ing there point­ed out that they don’t dare go to town with­out TWO guards on their trucks.
All of us are very thank­ful to our BRAVE MOTORIST who saved us from los­ing that case of motor oil.