For many, it will be the hardest work they ever loved.

On May 23-27, Father Henry Hildrebrandt will lead a mission to Grants, New Mexico, where participants will help repair, beautify, and generally fix-up Casa San Jose, a home for pregnant teens run by the Sisters Adorers of the Blood of Christ.

Some participants will run a large garage sale to raise funds for the sisters, and some will spend much of the week in the kitchen, cooking for everyone else.

The trip is open to all ages, Catholic and non-Catholic, and to those in and out of the diocese. There is a variety of work for men and women, old and young, adults and even young children.

"The youngest worker we ever had was five years old. He sat on the roof and handed me nails all day," Father Hildebrandt said.

For more information, call Father Henry at (785) 798-3195, or email hhildebrandt@dcdiocese.org.

For the past eight years, Father Hildebrandt and his team have spent a week each year pouring cement, renovating rooms, hooking up phone lines and electrical wires, planting trees and beautifying the grounds at the Casa.

The home is located in the Diocese of Gallup, the poorest diocese in the nation.

"We poured lots of concrete," Father Hildebrandt said in an interview after an earlier mission. "We made one-half of a basketball court. We created a one-eighth mile walking and exercise track. We renovated two rooms and ran heating ducts into a room that had never been heated or cooled before."

One year’s mission group spent much of the trip zeroscaping, or designing the landscape to be attractive amid very little or no rainfall. That year’s group also renovated the Casa kitchen.

"One particular joy," Father Hildebrandt said in the earlier interview, "was seeing the people cooking in the kitchen, which we renovated last year. This year we got to see the finished kitchen."

The mission is not an easy one; they start with a 10-hour drive from the Dodge diocese, work for three days in the New Mexico heat, and then drive another 10 hours back home. But for several youth on the trip, the mission couldn’t have lasted too long.

"As I was driving back, several kids implored me to do it again before school starts," Father Hildebrandt said.

Helping the residents and staff of Casa San Jose is only one of the benefits of the trip.

"This trip takes people who, under normal circumstances, might never have occasion to become friends," Father Hildebrandt explained. "They work side by side on a good and praiseworthy project for five days, and come away with a friendship that lasts forever.

"When they come back to the parish, there’s a connection between the old and the young, and between whites and Hispanics, that forms communities. And that is the lifeblood of the Church."