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