Life

Volunteers, donations will build Fruitland Bible's new family housing

Fruitland Bible Institute President David Horton addresses the crowd at a groundbreaking for new family housing.

By Bill Moss, Published: October 23, 2014

Students, faculty and friends of Fruitland Baptist Institute gathered on Thursday at the seminary's campus to break ground on a new family housing quadplex that one speaker said would be "a laboratory" for Christian witness and fellowship.

The crowd gathered on the sun-splashed lawn of the 68-year Bible college to praise God, celebrate a spirit of volunteerism and recognize a Burke County family's generosity. The Jacumin family of Icard has donated money to buy the materials. An army of volunteer contractors and church workers from across the Carolinas has signed on to do work for free on the four family units, called the Nancy Nell Jacumin Student Family Apartments.
"I stand here today overwhelmed having watched what God has done to bring this project to a reality," said Fruitland President David Horton. "It really is a God thing. It's a work of God that he has brought all this together and enabled us to build this building and go into it with no debt."
Through their relationship with a product of Fruitland Bible Institute's first graduating class, A.V. Ledford, Jim and Nancy Nell Jacumin became acquainted with the Bible college and agreed to donate money to cover the cost of materials. Mrs. Jacumin died unexpectedly on June 9 at age 78.
"The wife I had was the greatest blessing God ever gave me I guess other than salvation," said Jimmy Ray Jacumin, a former state senator. "If she was a construction worker, she'd be digging the footers. ... I learned early on that tithing is probably the best blessing a Christian can do to have it paid back many times over." A friend and mentor started out tithing 10 percent and at the end of his life was tithing 90 percent and keeping 10. "I'm working my way toward that," Jacumin said.

After graduating as valedictorian from Hildebran High School, Nancy Nell Jacumin graduated summa cum laude from Appalachian State University. She taught in North Carolina public schools for over 16 years and served as a volunteer in civic affairs and church work. At Icard First Baptist Church, she served as organist and pianist for more than 40 years.

The Jacumins' son, Marty, pastor of Bay Leaf Baptist Church in Raleigh, said the family was happy to become aprt of the college's goal of educating ministers to spread the Gospel and bring people to Christ.
"We feel blessed to be a part of what God's doing here," he said.
Bobby Garrett, the director of campus facilities, said contractors donating work include Mountain High Plumbing, Smoky Mountain Mechanical and electrical contractor Pete Summerfield. The Carpenters Hands mission group from Mud Creek Baptist, Fruitland Baptist, West Point Baptist of Landrum, S.C., and hundreds of individuals will be volunteering as well.
"We want to get it in the dry by Christmas in order for hundreds, literally hundreds, of volunteers who will be here the week after Christmas to be able to do the work to finalize it," Garrett said. The goal is to have the units ready for occupancy in March.
The quadplex is made up of two three-bedroom units of 1,100 square feet each and two 800-square-foot two-bedroom units. The homes will face Huckleberry Mountain.
The housing will be "a laboratory" to carry out Fruitland's mission of fellowship, family growth "and most importantly teaching students to share the gospel and become disciples who will make more disciples," said Brian Davis, from the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.
Founded in 1946, Fruitland Bible Institute is on land originally bought by the Baptist church's International Mission Board in 1896. The property served as a school before Henderson County founded public schools and was the site of a summer camp with barracks and a swimming pool where many youngsters in the apple country learned to swim.
"This has been God's plot since 1898," Garrett said. "One fourth of all the Baptist pastors in North Carolina and South Carolina are graduates of Fruitland Bible Institute. That's how far-reaching it is."