From my house I can drive to the grocery store in five minutes on a variety of routes, and I have many restaurants within minutes of my home. I can drive to any number of malls and stores to buy my clothes. In fact, the only real issues I have to deal with when I drive involve traffic and the cost of gasoline.

In northern Sierra Leone just one road exists for several thousand people - one road to bring in staples such as kerosene and salt, one road to export food products for sale, one road to bring in building materials, cement and plastic pipe.

In the 1980s this lifeline of a road was bad - so bad that we only averaged about 10 mph. There were some improvements as villagers began to realize that road repair was one thing they COULD do to improve their lives. Thus, work crews leveled rough stretches, removed rocks and rebuilt palm log bridges. Culverts and cement for bridges would have been nice, but it was unavailable.

More than 20 years have passed and believe it or not, that main road has gotten worse. The ten-year civil war disrupted the entire society. The population was scattered and many people were killed. In many villages the chiefs no longer have the influence they once had and even where they do, many of the young men have left to work on the mines. Therefore, the rare times villagers get together to do road repair, the damage done during the war is beyond their capabilities to fix. You see, this area of Sierra Leone gets over 120 inches of rain during the six-month rainy season, and that volume of water rushing down streams and eroding roads makes road maintenance a huge challenge. (Denver gets about 20 TOTAL inches of moisture a YEAR.)

So what is at stake? Virtually everything! Without a good road, commerce is almost impossible. Nothing comes in; nothing goes out. For our team next December just getting to the work site, not to mention getting materials in to repair the water systems, will be a major challenge - and a major expense. For the people who live there, the road remains the biggest obstacle they face. Any suggestions??