CHALMETTE, La. -- Jared Olshove's no stranger to basic construction chores, so the Traverse City Christian School sophomore jumped right into the fray at a church tattered by Hurricane Katrina.
Jared helped install air ducts and plumbing at the First Baptist Church of Chalmette, one of the chief reconstruction projects for 123 students and dozens of parent volunteers from Traverse City who traveled 22 hours by bus to embark on a weeklong relief mission.
"I'm excited that we've got five days left," said Jared, 15. "I'd love to see what the church looks like when we finish it."
Elsewhere Monday, students installed drywall, cut wood into beams and prepared exterior walls for siding, among other projects. On the church's third floor, older students assembled a wall for what's likely to become the pastor's office.
Older students did much of the construction work, while seventh and eighth graders assisted with cleanup in a nearby lot, where they tore rusted nails out of rotted wood and carried pieces to a Dumpster.
The pile was much larger when the students started Monday morning, said Ann Bartleson, a parent volunteer.
She smiled. "It's amazing what a lot of hands can do."
Students and parents will spend the week rebuilding parts of Chalmette, a town that has yet to recover from Katrina. The students' work is part of a schoolwide mission trip, the second of its kind in school history.
School members went to Moss Point, Miss., in early 2006.
Chalmette, an unincorporated town in neighboring St. Bernard Parish, is about seven miles from downtown New Orleans and east of the city's devastated Ninth Ward. The entire parish had nearly 67,000 people prior to the August 2005 storm, according to its tourism director. About 25,000 have returned.
The group is staying at the Oak Park Baptist Church across the Mississippi River from Chalmette, a church that converted former meeting rooms into dormitories for visiting workers. The students' main project this time will be to help rebuild the First Baptist Church of Chalmette.
A short Bible verse -- "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." -- Philippians 4:13 -- is inscribed onto a wooden bunk bed in one of the girls' dorm rooms at the church. Its author, Andie S., likely scrawled it long before this group of girls entered the room that serves as a temporary home for hurricane relief workers.
They might not have noticed it Sunday as they lugged suitcases and blankets into the small room. But that simple message just might describe them.
For the next week, these students will replace their semester exams with a different kind of test, one that will require them to be prepared physically, mentally and spiritually.
"I think it will draw me closer to Christ, just being out here," said Matt Galla, 13, a seventh grader visiting the region for the first time. "A lot of the houses were really torn up."
Students will be divided into teams of at least eight people, Principal Patrick Rode said, and will be assigned specific tasks. The work will be appropriate for each age group, he said.
As the group's buses rolled through New Orleans on Sunday, freshmen and sophomores aboard one of them excitedly talked as they gazed out at the bustling city. But the conversation became noticeably quieter when homes, clearly affected by Katrina, came into view.
On some streets, visible from the city's two main expressways, a number of trailers were parked in driveways. Telltale markings of search-and-rescue missions still could be seen on a few homes, at once both real and unbelievable.
"It was kind of different seeing it in the city," said freshman Meagan Van Til, 14, who made her second school trip to the Gulf Coast. "But a lot of the damage was still the same."
For those who had gone before, the effect might not have been as jarring as it was the first time around. But others, making the trip for the first time, didn't know what to expect.
"That used to be someone's home, and they lost everything in the storm," seventh grader Jacob Sollose, 13, said. "It was sad."
