Lending a hand in Peru: Locals aim to rebuild with more than bricks

A woman from Peru holds Le Mars student Ellie Hemmingson's face in her hands. Hemmingson and other locals, including Doug Carlsen, traveled to a mountain village in Peru to help them rebuild after a 2007 earthquake and share their faith. [Click to enlarge]

A 2007 earthquake rocked the mountainside village of Lucumo in Peru.

Homes and lives were shaken apart, and the local church was reduced to a pile of rubble and a tile floor.

That collapsed church is symbolic, according to local student Ellie Hemmingson.

Members of the U.S. team, including Doug Carlsen, of Le Mars, helped rebuild and repair part of a canal that brought water to the Peruvian village of Lucumo. The canal, originally built by the Incans, was damaged in a 2007 earthquake. [Click to enlarge]

"There's a lot of abuse and immorality -- people worshipping ancient Incan idols," she said.

The Le Mars Community senior spent a week in Peru with a mission team, including Le Mars resident Doug Carlsen, to lend a hand with rebuilding.

Lucumo is three hours from Peru's capital Lima, and it's devastatingly poor, Hemmingson said.

(Photos contributed) Locals who traveled to Peru to help with earthquake relief worked hard, but maybe not as hard as this donkey, loaded with cornstalks to carry to town. Hemmingson said the donkeys knew the way to the village and didn't have to be directed by people. [Click to enlarge]

"Most the houses are straw and dirt with dirt floors," she said. "And after the earthquake, they're having trouble with their water."

The 13-member team helped work to stabilize the canal that supplied the village's water.

The people of Lucumo, Hemmingson said, are extremely hard working. The mission team wanted to earn their trust -- so they rolled up their sleeves and began working alongside them.

Carlsen was one of the people laboring in the canal.

"It was very physical, very demanding work," he said. "The incline we were working on was quite steep -- probably a 40 degree slope. The canal is actually built by the Inca Indians."

The materials they used were rock and aggregate from the side of the mountain.

"We had to backpack that to the specific work site," he said.

Hemmingson spent some of her days in a mountainside cornfield, preparing it for the next crop in the continuous growing season. She pried corn stalks from the ground, shook free the dirt to save it, cleared out rocks and pulled weeds. All under blazing sun.

"It was horrible -- it took forever," Hemmingson said with a laugh. "I'm a city girl. I've lived in town my whole life. I've never done labor like that. The hardest thing I do is scrub toilets at camp."

She spent another part of her time weeding in a mountainside vineyard.

"It was kind of scary -- you're standing on a terrace on the side of a mountain overlooking a river," she said.

Other team members worked to clean up rubble around the village.

Their aim is less about rebuilding a church or any other building as it is about rebuilding faith.

"Work is the way to get your foot in the door," Hemmingson said.

This is not the first trip teams have taken to this village. Hemmingson and Carlsen heard about the opportunity at Grace Lutheran Church from a speaker who has taken two trips with his son, a missionary in Panama, to the village.

Each time they accomplish more of their ultimate reason to be there -- build relationships and share their faith.

"Every trip we talk more about Christ," Hemmingson said.

This was Carlsen's first mission trip out of the United States.

He was motivated to go by the "desire and need to do it," he said.

The trip was deeply fulfilling for Carlsen.

"I would go back in a heartbeat - it was very rewarding," he said. "Their desire to learn about the Lord, it's hard to even describe."

The people's eagerness to communicate -- despite a difference in languages -- rose above everyone else, he said.

"People are the same regardless of where you're at in the world," he said. "Children are children. Children's faces react the same way even when there's language barriers."

For Hemmingson, a high school senior, this trip doubled as an unusual sort of internship. Her goal is to become a missionary in Uganda.

"In 10th grade I did the 30-Hour Famine (a 30-hour event where students are invited to fast and learn about world poverty and how to impact it) and the country we sponsored was Uganda," Hemmingson explained.

In Uganda, children hide out in cities rather than being forced join a rebel army. After college, Hemmingson wants to be in the middle of that, to work with those children.

But the trip to Peru was her first time out of the country.

"The scariest thing is I had no contact with home -- I couldn't talk to my family, my boyfriend, my friends. There was no communication with the U.S. for a week," she said.

Now, a week later at home in Le Mars, Hemmingson hopes to return to Peru.

She plans to stay in touch with Fabiola, a 23-year-old mother she met in Lucumo. Fabiola has to drive one-half hour to get to an internet café but she still wants to be Hemmingson's pen pal.

Hemmingson also wants to get other people interested in helping in Peru.

"It's extremely physically demanding, and emotionally demanding, too," she said.

But the take-away value is worth it, she said.

"People are so happy, and they have nothing," Hemmingson said. "Fabiola's sister has a baby that died of bronchitis. Just bronchitis. I mean, I have bronchitis every year, and I'm fine. And still she was so grateful."

The day that stands out to Hemmingson is the day Fabiola decided to have her two children baptized.

Her father, Don Pablo, greeted them in a bright white shirt and clean jeans.

"He looked so proud," Hemmingson said.

They baptized the children in a pan of water in the house.

And Don Pablo presented them with jars of honey from his beehives.

"He told us 'All we have to give you is the beauty of the land,'" Hemmingson remembered. "They honey was the best they have, and they gave it to us."