From the loading docks outside the exhibition hall, Mennonites with hammers in hand will help a family rebuild their lives in Mississippi.

Youth groups and congregations are helping Mennonite Disaster Service build a house there that will go to Kristy Barnes, a single mother with three children whose house in Delisle, Miss., was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina.

Throughout the week volunteers can sign up, in groups of up to 15, to work specific time slots between 10:45 a.m. and 5:15 p.m. There are plenty of slots available. Jerry Grosh, director of field operations for Mennonite Disaster Service, said that no previous construction experience is necessary, “just willing hands and hearts.”

The goal of the house project is to get people interested and involved in M.D.S. “This house demonstrates what a congregation can do to build a house,” Grosh said.

Congregations can do similar building projects at their home churches, through the Partnership Home Program.  Instead of the entire congregation traveling to a disaster site, they can build the home at their church, ship it to the location and reassemble it.

“If a church does this in their parking lot 100 people can hammer a nail in,” Grosh said. “This is a way to let a lot of people know what M.D.S. is in terms of responding to disasters.”

Only about 10 percent of the house will be built at the convention. Group volunteers will work with six skilled workers — who are devoting the whole week to the house — to build its shell. “The goal is not efficiency; the goal is to connect people with home owners … and allow people to participate who wouldn’t have the time to go to California to build a house,” Grosh said.

The shell of the house is expected to be completed on Friday. There will be a dedication at 11 a.m., on Saturday, at the house site outside by the loading docks. Following the dedication the house will be put on a semi-truck, bound for Mississippi.