From: “Bren­da Lange”
Sub­ject: Blog, Sept. 30, 2012
Date: Sep­tem­ber 30, 2012 7:23:17 AM CDT

THE “LEAST OF THESE” LEARNING TO WALK WITH JESUS

I went to Nama­ra today, and had a blast teach­ing about 100 kids that “Jesus is the light of the world”. Blind fold­ing one lit­tle boy showed the kids that those who don’t have Jesus lose their way.  That the “spir­i­tu­al­ly blind” can’t find the path that leads to heav­en.  Our orphan dra­ma team did a skit show­ing how Jesus healed Bartemaus of blind­ness. We end­ed by hav­ing the kids shout out what they see as sin­ful behav­ior.  The cutest lit­tle 2 year old girl on the front row had all the adults rolling in laugh­ter, as she shout­ed out every answer the kids gave.  (The adults like Sun­day school so much, that they all show up an hour before church in order to watch my team teach the kids.)  It’s great, as it real­ly helps the adults learn the sim­plest things about Jesus that they might be too embar­rassed to ask in “big church”. We prayed for the sick, led one 8 year old girl to Christ, and saved a 2 day old baby who lost her moth­er yesterday.

DOING WHAT JESUS WOULD DO

 
I’ve taught this con­cept to the Nama­ra church mem­bers from day one, and they have respond­ed with more love towards oth­ers in their vil­lage than in ANY oth­er church I’ve ever start­ed.  One of the women lead­ers left her fam­i­ly last week to care for a moth­er who got sick dur­ing the last days before her deliv­ery.  Mov­ing in with the fam­i­ly of the sick woman, she cared for her and helped bring the lit­tle girl into this world (this is the 2 day old that was orphaned yes­ter­day).  But the moth­er passed on with­in 24 hours, leav­ing the baby with no milk.  Sev­er­al neigh­bor women who are nurs­ing their own babies, helped  keep the baby alive by shar­ing what breast milk they had.  Today, this lit­tle girl (unnamed) was in church with her aunt and grand­moth­er who will care for her.  I brought them to Bala­ma after church, out­fit­ted them with baby for­mu­la, and all the “fix­ings” need­ed to care for the baby.  I sur­prised them with 4 sets of baby cloths as the aunt has a 2 month old baby who was also naked.  They were most grate­ful, as they waved and head­ed for Nama­ra by bicy­cle with the infant secure­ly strapped to the aunt’s back.

When I trav­el, many peo­ple ask me why I don’t retire, because they feel I’ve “put in my time” for Jesus.  (The aver­age career mis­sion­ary is only 8 years at this time).
That trig­gers many mem­o­ries, one of which will be the face of that baby girl when she “guz­zled” her first bot­tle of for­mu­la, burped in hap­py con­tent­ment, and prompt­ly fell asleep on her aunt’s shoul­der.  I have over 12,000 rea­sons why I won’t retire, and over 3,350 of them are eat­ing today because of what YOU  pro­vid­ed for them.  There is NOTHING the mod­ern world holds that can match what my heart feels after help­ing save a life. As for this Bush Bun­ny, I’ll keep hop­ping down the bush trails as long as Jesus allows me too.

Sun­days are nev­er pre­dictable for me.  I go into the bush armed with what I have so I can treat what­ev­er dis­eases I come across.  Many times, it’s just han­dling the lit­tle things, as I dewormed every child who came with a par­ent to church today.  When we dis­missed the Sun­day school kids, we told them to fetch a par­ent if they want­ed to get rid of their worms. Sad to say but only two moth­ers cared enough to bring their entire fam­i­ly of kids.  Next week, we hope that those 2 moth­ers will join us, and that the word will get around that I’ll have my bot­tle of “worm killer” with me.    Noth­ing earth shat­ter­ing about any­thing I did today, but I find it reward­ing to know that those kids will now get the full ben­e­fit of what they eat.  YOUR GIFTS pro­vid­ed these tablets, so you tru­ly are a “part­ner” with me in what we do here each day . FYI: Bless­ings Inter­na­tion­al in Tul­sa, is the “go to place” if you are a mis­sion­ary with a need for med­i­cines in your work.

ZITO is still exer­cis­ing but his good leg is still a bit wob­bly when he tries to walk with his crutch­es.  We gave him lots of encour­age­ment to keep work­ing on it when I showed him his new red Hot­wheel sports car!  That put a big smile on his face!

Veron­i­ca, the women with the burned foot, has only 3 toes not healed yet.  We hope to have her up walk­ing with­in 10 days.

Leona and Saman­tha are now part of Eric’s “fan club”.  Eric spent Sat­ur­day morn­ing mount­ing a 5 inch square “com­put­er fan” over the bed of each of these won­der­ful ladies.  Sam also got a 12 volt read­ing light at the head of her bed (Leona already had one).  So both are VERY hap­py as they slept much cool­er last night.  These tiny fans hard­ly pull any­thing off a car bat­tery, so can be used most of the night if need­ed.  It’s get­ting HOT (as I sit her in mid­day heat, sweat­ing to write this letter).

Tune in next week, as we face 2–3 more days of corn weigh­ing and stack­ing, as well as a food dis­tri­b­u­tion this Fri­day in Mavala. Thanks for your prayers and ALL THE HELP in pro­vid­ing the CORN that will feed over 1,500 kids in the next few months. Words hard­ly seem ade­quate for what I feel about how gra­cious­ly you gave so these kids might live. God’s many Bless­ings to EACH OF YOU!

Love in Christ,
Bush Bun­ny Brenda