Where it all started...

Fall-ing leaves at SBTS

Back in 1980, a young couple lived on the campus of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He was working towards getting a Masters of Divinity, and she was in her third trimester - pregnant with their first child.

I loved the window in the bell tower.

Things were very tight financially, so this couple got resourceful. He worked odd jobs off-campus, such as raking leaves and doing some construction work. She tapped into their green side and started gathering and recycling aluminum cans, which she traded in for cash.

It didn't take long for people to notice this woman walking around in a very maternal way collecting cans. So they started leaving their cans in plastic bags hanging on the door handle of their apartments. Then she could just walk by and pick up the bags rather than digging through the garbage. (Okay, I may have embellished that part.)

At THE recycling bin

One of the librarians even offered to put a bin by the vending machine so that people could leave their cans for her to collect.

And so this couple paid for their baby girl's hospital bills in aluminium cans. And then they brought her home to live on the seminary campus for a couple months. Years later, they made a stop at the campus as they drove from Tennessee up to Indiana. They spent the morning walking around, admiring the buildings and the colorful leaves, telling the Aluminium Can Baby stories from their first years together.

Our first home -  a teeny tiny apartment on campus

One of the courtyards

Trees on the lawn

Chapel steeple

Beautiful trees

The chapel

It's a beautiful campus.

Where it all started.

Place your bets: is that KJV or NIV?