Dec 9, 2005

By Gary D. Myers  

NEW ORLEANS -- A timely gift from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention in 2001 helped New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary build the school’s first new housing in 30 years. Now Texas Baptists are working to restore these buildings following Hurricane Katrina.

The seminary administration was ready to start construction on the four-bedroom Manor Apartments back in 2001 but faced one obstacle -– they needed $150,000 in cash to begin the project. That same year, the SBTC took up a special offering for SBC seminaries and entities.

After the offering, SBTC Executive Director Jim Richards presented Kelley with the check for exactly $150,000. The gift helped NOBTS complete the much-needed new student apartment buildings and one of the buildings was named Texas Manor in honor of the sacrificial gift.

When Texas Baptists heard about the efforts to clean and repaint the second and third floors of student apartments, they acted to help restore Texas Manor, hiring a professional painting company to repaint the apartments.

After the repainting was complete, Texas Baptists decided to do more. They contracted the same company to repaint second and third floor apartments in the other two Manor Apartment buildings -– Providence Manor and Wood Manor.

The company repainted a total of 24, second- and third-flood apartments.

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