CNN iReport

Close your eyes. Picture an emergency rescue team in your mind. What do you see?

Masculine-built firefighters?

Uniformed cops and military forces?

Or doctors and nurses wearing a red-cross sign?

The team shown in the photos is nothing like your typical rescue workers.  They are not pro. They are even not amateurs with training. Instead, they are farmers – ten farmers living in the Shandong province, nearly 1500 miles away the epicenter.

They learned about the earthquake from the Evening News on May 12th, 2008. On the next day, when the degree of devastation started to emerge, they decided to do something unimaginable.

They decided to go to Sichuan and join the rescue effort, by riding their three-wheeled vehicle.

To say the least, it is not a practical idea. After all, this is a vehicle that is not allowed to go onto the highway system because it can not meet the minimum speed-limit requirement. They would have to drive along the secondary roads in the countryside where tolls are heavy. In addition, this vehicle has only two front seats. Eight of them would have to squeeze into the cargo area. Being farmers, they are not rich either. They can not afford a night's stay in a motel or dining along the bumpy ride. It looked so impossible from an outsider's point of view.

Nobody believed they could make it; but they did, after three days and three nights on their three-wheeled "pickup". They did not make one rest stop or spend one dollar on food or water. But they made it.

Upon arriving at the epicenter, they started working. They were not trained to rescue people. So most of the time they worked in the sideline. They helped moving debris, transferring the injured, setting up camps and temporary housing… Whenever manpower was needed, they would offer their helping hands. Nobody interviewed them. Nobody broadcast their heroics. Very few people knew about them. Not that they cared.

When these unsung heroes were asked what they wanted, they did not say anything so spectacular that you'd think it was scripted. They simply wished that when they are on their way home, their tolls could be waived or reduced. After all, they are just farmers who can not afford a motel.

We are not going to remember their names. But please remember their love and compassion. Love is the universal language of mankind. It is what makes the world a better place, for all of us.