| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
BUSH BEAT: June 2006BALAMA'S FOOD BUYING BONANZA BEGINS! Orphans Unlimited received 102 TONS IN THE FIRST 5 DAYS thanks to our new truck. The second week netted 59 tons of corn and 9 tons of beans. GOD IS PROVIDING HIS FAVOR and we are seeing a food miracle that rivals Joseph filling his silos for the Egyptians. June means the harvest is in, and a heated buying spree begins in Balama between our ministry, the exporters, and local businessmen. We have never tried to buy 200 TONS of corn in one season. EIGHTY TONS over 10 weeks is our yearly norm. Never, ever have I seen corn flow into our ministry at a rate of 20 tons/day? Our goal of buying 200 TONS of corn & 50 TONS of beans this year will allow us to bring the Love of Jesus to 1,100 orphans. Supplies are dwindling fast, so we pray we will reach our goal. WHAT MADE THIS POSSIBLE? 1. The speed and high tonnage comes from C.A.R.E. International's village farming co-ops. Each co-op brings in their excess harvest to their village weighing center. C.A.R.E.'s representatives organize contracts with buyers who will furnish transport. The corn is easily available in the village center to whoever gets the contracts. I made a deal with C.A.R.E. last year that gave us first option for their 2006 Balama contract. I stated that if C.A.R.E. would form agricultural coops to help the widows & abandoned women in each village, we would promise 2 things: A. To provide the women with a hoe so they could farm. (The C.A.R.E. program only provides seeds to those that join the agricultural groups.) B. To buy the entire orphan's corn from C.A.R.E.'s co-ops at the government rate. The village co-ops managed to raise almost 200 tons of corn this year. (Is it coincidence that they raised exactly the amount could afford? I don't think so!) Orphans Unlimited provided the hoes and the women went to work. The first all widow's group brought in an excess harvest of 6,391 lbs of corn. REMEMBER, all this farming is done by hand with nothing but a hoe & a lot of back breaking work! 2. Thanks to the Lord providing the 6 ton truck, our tractor crew had the necessary help with this year's massive goal of 250 TONS of corn and beans! To buy this much before it was all sold with only the tractor and 2 ton trailer would have been impossible. WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO PROCESS THIS KIND OF TONNAGE? A lot of man power! Our crew of 50 men show up at 5:45am to praise the Lord & hear a brief Bible message each day. Four Processing Teams spread the corn on tarps to check for quality, bugs, and then they re-sack it in 110 lb feed sacks. The Sewing Team, hand sews the bags closed. The Transport Team carries the sacks on their head, the African way, into the warehouse and stacks them 13 rows high on heavy duty wooden pallets that we make ourselves. Each set of pallets holds up to 35 tons and is named after a different mountain for easy recognition. We have Maku (tallest in Balama), Mt. Kilamanjaro, and are now building Mt. Everest with the final 50 tons. Our men know in their hearts that Praising the Lord in song brings strength. Whenever they feel tired, they break out in a "Jesus song". That is the secret to processing 20+ tons/day BY HAND with only 50 men. Their voices make a powerful force, & it is wonderful seeing the local villagers stopping at our fence to listen. JESUS uses our workers to impact others while we work. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN TO OPERATION RESCUE? The accelerated food buying means we can start the outreach to the starving orphans in Meloco County much sooner than our proposed date of August 1st. There was little we could do to help them until we were allowed to buy food. Social Services is presently making arrangements to help us get started by mid July. ELEPHANTS TO THE WEST In May, I told you of the elephants 6 miles to the east of us. Last week, our Pastor Fred, was in a village 14 miles WEST of us, helping C.A.R.E. get the corn organized for a rapid pick up. As Fred rode his bicycle down a dirt road, an elephant lumbered into view just 50 yards in front of him. Fred slid to a halt and froze. The animal moved on, but Fred says the site of that huge beast sure made his heart race. A woman just up the road suffered the consequences of the beast's visit, as the animal destroyed and ate her entire crop of corn which she had stacked in a bamboo silo outside her mud hut. Six months work was gone in an hour as she watched the great brute gorge himself and then walk away. UP CLOSE & PERSONAL WITH BALAMA MISSIONARIES Andy Gonzalez, a 20 year old Bryan College, TN Communication's Major, came in May for a 5 week stay. Raised in Mexico by missionary parents, Andy is totally at home with our country life style of no running water or other modern conveniences. He has been an AWESOME help with building the huge barn for our corn, as well as unloading, processing, and stacking the 161 TONS of corn that came in the first 2 weeks of June. I doubt things would have gone so smoothly without his help. Scheduled to leave the end of June, we were ecstatic when he agreed to extend his stay till Aug. 1st. Andy is a natural missionary to our orphans, has a great heart for Jesus, and a contagious laugh. Our teenage orphan boys love him and his strange "critters". He does lots of spontaneous teaching with them, as Andy's specialty is reptiles. His room is a reptile refuge with 4 colorful chameleons, many lizards of all types, and for a one night stand he had a 2.5 foot African Puff Adder (rattlesnake without the rattle) in his bathroom. That adventure ended when Mama Brenda found out about it the next morning! So he settled on letting it go, taking photos, killing, skinning, and planned to roast and eat it, but he didn't. He'd caught it in my guard dog's pen saving my dogs and the guard from a possibly deadly evening. For that I am truly grateful. Stay tuned for the further adventures of Andy and his rambling reptiles! Eric Dry, my associate Director, spent 2 weeks in June picking up 12-18 tons of corn a day with our new Nissan 6 ton truck. On June 8th, the tractor crew came in from a run saying the break lights on the trailer needed Eric's attention immediately as the cops were out in force giving tickets. Eric had installed new lights, but lacked the proper plug to finish the job. I drove out to the village he was presently working in, and FINALLY GOT MY CHANCE to drive the new truck! My Dad knows how to roll those 18 wheelers, so I grew up around those huge trucks. I managed to pick up a full 6 tons before Eric returned to ruin my fun! It was back to the barn to weigh & stack the corn. Boring, but very necessary. SAND PITS TRY TO SWALLOW THE TRUCK On our 9th day of hauling, Eric found out that 5 tons of empty truck is too much for Ntete Village. This village looks like a beach with no water & is notorious for swallowing trucks in its ever shifting sand pits. With 10 men, shovels and the tractor, we managed to get it out after 5 tries and 3.5 hours of work. Needless to say, we will only send the tractor to fetch their corn in the future. Blessings, Bush Bunny Brenda Lange Eric Dry, Associate Director, The Balama staff Send LOVE GIFTS to: Or donate online now.
Website by Digital Picnic. © 2008
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
