August 18, 2010
Extending Help, Hope to a Guatemalan Valley
By Jennifer Taylor School “˜Project” Most people in the Ulpan Valley of Guatemala live in poverty. Many can”t read. Surprisingly, a small team of engineers from middle Tennessee is changing the situation. Engineering professors and students from Lipscomb University (Nashville, Tennessee) have volunteered on short-term mission trips to Central America since 2004. They help with disaster relief or by building bridges and water towers. But short-term missions have limited value, according to Kerry Patterson, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Lipscomb, in a recent Tennessean article. “You are there for a week or 10 days, and then you are gone,”
