HOW appropriate the 11-strong Faith In Action team which recently went to a Fijian village to tear down two humpies and replace them with a comfortable home for an extended family, had a Nathanael in their midst.

The name Nathanael comes from the Hebrew meaning "God has given" - and that's exactly what Nathanael Barnes and his fellow Christians did on their maker's behalf in the crusade to Lami, a small village on the outskirts of Suva.

On this particular crusade though, the crusaders didn't have to storm the battlements of a castle and cross swords with the Moors.

But Nathanael and his fellow crusaders did it nearly as tough.

Only two days after Nathanael starred for Tweed Heads Seagulls in the Queensland Rugby League Intrust Cup grand final loss to Wynnum-Manly, the classy winger was straight into "pre-season training" for next year.

The Faith in Action group, which included tradesmen and women and labourers such as Nathanael who is the chaplain at Elanora High School, had to manually transfer all the building materials from a spot just outside the village to the building site which was 800 metres away.

The final part of the journey which took them through the village and along a muddied, treacherous track beside a mangrove swamp, was up a flight of 70 large stairs to the top of a very steep hill.

"We had to do it all by hand - moving all the tools, the bags of cement and gravel, timber - everything you need to build a small house," Nathanael said.

"Let me tell you, nothing the Seagulls fitness trainers threw at us could compare to the hard yakka we had to put in in getting all that stuff up to the top of the hill.

"If it wasn't for a few of the young men in the village also bending their backs as well, the building would never have been able to get under way as quickly as it did.

"I'll have nightmares thinking about lugging those 50kg bags of cement up that hill!"

Nathanael returned home last week in time for the recommencement of the school term but during his time in Lami, he and his fellow navvies managed to dig the deeps holes for the pole home, lug the poles into place and mix and pour the cement.

"By the time a few of us had to fly back home, the floor framework and wall frame had been put up in preparation for the roofing to be installed," Nathanael said.

The new home, which is a 10m x 6m rectangular building split into three separate rooms, replaces a 2m x 2.5m one-room shanty and a similar rusty, corrugated iron building which was only slightly larger.

Both buildings were home to two elderly women, a husband and wife and their young child.