Two ISU students and two University of Northern Iowa students recently spent 10 weeks in Thailand helping people recover from last December’s tsunami.

Jonathan West, UNI student, Luke Jensen, UNI student, Colin Madden, ISU junior in horticulture and Nicholas Jensen, junior in construction engineering, flew out on Jan. 21, less than a month after the tsunami hit, with the help of their churches — Cornerstone Church, 56829 U.S. Highway 30 and Harvest Evangelical Free Church, Story City — and an anonymous donor who gave $12,000.

“One of the reasons I went was seeing the pictures and images of what happened on TV and realizing how many people were affected and all the lives lost,” West said. “That really impacted me. And the least I could do is help out for a few months.”

West, Luke and Madden agreed their faith in God helped influence their decision to go.

“My faith is really strong and I felt like God wanted me to do this,” West said.

When they left Iowa, they had some idea of what they would see and experience, but they tried not to think about it, West said.

“I was trying to go over there with no expectations,” he said. “The stuff shown on TV doesn’t do it justice.”

For the first two to three weeks, the students worked for a relief effort called Tsunami Volunteers building temporary homes, West said.

“We worked on a construction crew in a fishing village that lost like a thousand people,” he said. “We would build 10-plex units with one room per family in two days and the next day people were already moved in.”

Luke said the people were living in camps, tents and under tarps before the temporary houses were built.

“The temporary housing wasn’t made very well,” West said. “We were told it just needs to get a roof over people’s heads.”

When the students left for Thailand, they had no idea where they were going to stay, West said. They ended up staying at a hotel in Khai Lak, an area surrounding the villages they helped to rebuild.

“The hotel we stayed at was damaged in the tsunami, so we got good room rates, like $6 a night,” Luke said. “We had regular toilets and showers and clean sheets every night, which was nice.”

West said that it was nice to come back every day to air conditioning after working in 100 degree heat.

“A soon as you walked outside you started to sweat,” he said.

They learned how to handle the heat and take breaks after watching the Thai people, West said.

“Thai people took full advantage of their breaks. At first it was frustrating because you are thinking we have to get this done and fast,” he said. “But if you push too hard in that heat you will make yourself sick.”

For the last seven to eight weeks, the students worked with the Mercy Foundation to build 50 permanent concrete houses, Madden said.

West said they had to mix concrete on-site by hand because they didn’t have cement trucks or power equipment.

“Just getting a good hammer was hard. You could walk around and see broken hammers all over because they broke so easily,” he said. “We also had to dig holes for the houses about one meter to two meters deep into really hard dirt. We used picks because normal shovels bent right away.”

The students said the most rewarding part of the trip was forming relationships and friendships with the Thai people and the many volunteers from around the world.

“We met people from all around the world — Europe, America, Japan, Australia,” West said. “We became good friends with them working side by side.”

Luke said the Thai people were eager to learn English and, in turn, they even learned some Thai.

“We couldn’t understand them at first and they couldn’t understand us, but body language and smiling — universal languages — helped,” Madden said.

Three more ISU students left for Thailand on May 23. Aaron Nelson, senior in mechanical engineering, Andrew Chalmers, junior in mechanical engineering and Grant Lovin, junior in construction engineering, plan to help build a church, an orphanage and more houses during their time there.