Remember that scene in the movie Hildalgo??? The hero was racing along in the desert on horseback when all of a sudden several other racers are hysterically passing him. He looks back and sees... a wall of sand heading towards him at an incredible speed. He just makes it to an old building and is nearly smothered in sand but survives. We have these Hildalgo type sand storms here and in Arizona.   They are an incredible sight to see. The above photo  is a few weeks old. Its from eastern Chad. The next one below was taken just a few minutes later. The wind had passed, but the volume of dust still falling was very thick. A similar sand storm hit us a week later. It was as dark as night at noon.

In Arizona we call them Haboobs.

The photo below was taken a few days ago in Phoenix, AZ. You can Google "Phoenix dust storm" and get a lot of cool pictures. I think its wild how God put us in Tucson, AZ as preparation for going to Chad, Africa. The two locations have so much in common, they should be sisters cities...

Judy working as the housing hostess has a lot of variety in her job. This photo shows her sewing curtains for some of the apartments. She works hard to and make these temporary homes as comfortable and user friendly as possible. The SIL center here has an old shipping container that has all kinds of housing goods, like pots and pans, cutting boards, cutlery, linens, pillows, bathroom supplies, and a whole lot more.

This is a recent photo we got off the Internet. Its Jordan helping fight the New Mexico forest fire. Its kinda cool to see a photo of him in action.  He sent us a few of his shots of just the fires, those are quite something, but somehow, its always better to see an action one of him at work.

Jody, Caleb and Violette camping. Yes, she has gained a bit of weight, but it is normal for being six months pregnant. She is due the first part of October. Judy hopes to fly out there to help for the month of November. Jim will be at home in Chad eating dry bread crust and water, because he has forgotten how to cook. Where's fast food when you need it?

This photo of Josh should be enough incentive for aspiring new teachers to want to dive right in to teaching English as a second language to 2nd and 3rd graders in South Korea. "Can you say spoon?" If you follow his Face Book page, he seems to be having a good time over there.

You get to caption this next photo. I really can't remember why I had that face.  I think it was just a snap of the camera at the exact wrong time. But it is funny looking. It was a good fish dinner, that a Chadian friend made for us.  I don't normally like fish but I ate two whole ones that day.

What should we call it?

Here is our little darlin...  1st grandchild Violette munching away on a fruit smoothie. She loves fruit, all kinds of fruit.

We are coming up on four months here in Chad. That is hard to believe for us. The time is flying by. We are going to be really hard pressed to get everything done we would like to get done during our two years here. We have had to back off a little. These old bodies just couldn't handle consistent 60+ hours a week, six days a week. Again, no one is pushing us to do this, its just a natural by product of seeing a need and trying to meet it. We are working on a better balance to maintain our longevity here.  

 We are in great shape for the shape we are in. Keep praying for Jim's shoulders, hands, knees,  just the whole body and Judy's feet, knee, and elbow too. We do a lot of walking but no regular exercise program. That could help!! Sounds too familiar doesn't it?