Life in Chageen
Daily life in Chageen - apart from ministry, means all kinds of things for Mark and Diane - washing the accumulation of dust off of the solar panels that supply our home with electricity, Diane taking a quiet break with our beloved cat Patches and her guitar, or (back to ministry) sitting at her desk working on new lessons to open the women's minds
Harvest time
During the month of February the Kwong harvested the millet which is their staple food. Once again the village is full of food and laughter and the hunger and privation of just a couple months ago is forgotten. Mark went out to the fields with Old Moses to see the harvest, and also visited the ladies winnowing Benoit's grain for him behind the village.
Beauty
You have to look for it in Chad, but beauty is there to be seen by those who would seek it. We visited our fellow missionaries Rich and Anne Hoyt 50 miles to the south of Chageen (a 2 1/2 hour drive) and had a lovely picnic beside the Logone river, where Mark photographed the dugout canoe. Diane photographed the grass against another stunning sunset a few weeks later.
The prairie we live on is routinely burned by the local people every year in the dry season, leaving only the thorn trees like this acacia rising above a scorched landscape. In one of the truly marvelous wonders of nature, a species of yellow flower somehow springs up out of the hard, burnt, dry soil immediately after a range fire passes over it. The Kwong don't seem too impressed, but we think it is a most wonderful God-thing.
