Editor's note: Ann Blue is a member of North Leo Mennonite Church. The Your Neighbor column is written by a member of a local nonprofit group and appears frequently in Neighbors.

This is a mission project that is near and dear to the hearts of North Leo Mennonite Church.

If you have driven by our church, you will see the two-by-fours are finally getting off the ground. Just so you can understand our excitement, let's begin at the beginning.

The Mennonite Church is aware of the continued need for housing in the Gulf region and elsewhere in the United States and Canada. Mennonite Disaster Service is the disaster relief arm of the Mennonite Church, and it does the leg work of organizing church/community relationships. It develops contact with disaster victims who need safe, hurricane-resistant housing but have few resources to accomplish this.

Two years ago, MDS developed the Partnership Home Project, which matches a party in need of housing (wherever it is) with a willing and able Mennonite church. From this union comes a house that is framed, usually in the church parking lot of the hosting church.

Because only a few people can leave their homes and head to the Gulf for a week or more, framing locally allows the project to be shared by everyone in the congregation and local community. Oct. 31 was a good example of what happens when everyone is invited. We were thrilled to have seven other churches, neighbors, friends and family excitedly joining our efforts.

The house is constructed so it will come apart in 12-foot panels and can easily be taken down, loaded into a semitrailer and shipped south for permanent construction in Erath, La. The site there is being prepared now with dirt work (4-foot earthen berm), septic and underground plumbing so it is ready for us.

Our congregation is blessed with many skilled and generous construction types, which paved the way for us to say “yes” to this ambitious project. We have adopted the slogan of MDS and work at being “the hands and feet of Jesus.”

If you could use a break from the cold north, we could use more help (skilled, semi-skilled and cooks) in Louisiana in January to February. Call 627-5408 for more information.

We also have much more to share about the recipient of this home and the plans for moving the three-bedroom house 1,000 miles south.

The best part of this project is that the house will go to a man who has been a paraplegic his entire adult life. Craig Trahan, whose mobile home was flooded by Hurricane Ike, is living in an electric wheelchair, and we are pleased to build a home that has adaptations for his special needs.

We have met him, and he is a positive soul who is very excited to have this chance. We are excited as well to make his wish a reality.