Investigates the restoration and safeguarding of endangered adobe churches in New Mexico, USA. Outlines a church preservation programme organized by the New Mexico Community Foundation in 1987; this programme has helped stabilise and restore hundreds of these important earthen churches that otherwise would have disappeared. The Foundation, in collaboration with the Historic Preservation Division of the New Mexico State Office of Cultural Affairs, has surveyed approximately 600 churches though the final number will be more than 700. One church of particular interest, the San Jose Mission Church in Upper Rociada located in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains about 80 km north of Taos, and its deterioration and restoration are described. Other examples of church restoration, village action, and perspectives for the churches are also reviewed.