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Lisa and Jonathan Hill have served as house parents
with Good Samaritan Urban Ministries for nearly a year
now. Through the Hill's faithful service and their impact
on the families residing in Hannah House on Forest Avenue,
Good Samaritan staff recognized the value and benefit
of a fulltime presence in its transitional housing buildings.
As a result, the Hills were recently joined by Les and
Greta Gunn, who felt God's calling upon their family
to labor in the same capacity at Ruth House on 9th Street.
(Lisa and Greta have been friends for a couple of years
through the homeschooling network.) Both families share
an intense desire to give themselves over to Christlike
love to families less fortunate than themselves.
The basic role of the houseparents is to provide encouragement,
support, and comfort to the families in our Family Growth
Program, by building relationships, demonstrating the
love of Christ, and living an example of a Christian
family. Their duties are to assist Good Samaritan staff
in maintaining the structure of the program, which includes
enforcing curfews, performing apartment checks, and
executing a chore system to ensure good stewardship
of the housing facility. Modeling Hebrews 13:2, "Let
brotherly love continue; be not forgetful to entertain
strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares",
they will also invest their lives in the residents (neighbors)
through developing personal relationships. This might
take the form of fun game and pizza nights or monthly
fellowships, such as the upcoming scrapbooking afternoon
in June.
The Hills have three boys, Justus (5), Jerod (3), and
Jayden (18 mths.) with a baby girl due in October. In
her spare time, Lisa loves to scrapbook and sew, and
will homeschool their children. Jonathan, a recent addition
to the Good Samaritan Board of Directors, is an engineer
with HyVee. They attend All Things Common Church of
God where Jonathan's father is pastor.
In addition to home schooling their two children, Tamar
(12) and Grant (10), Greta takes pleasure in playing
the piano, reading, sewing, and their two cats, Meko
and Malik. Les enjoys the freedom he has as a city bus
driver with a split schedule, allowing him to work in
the ministry both with Market Place Ministries, serving
as a chaplain in a couple of businesses locally, and
with Heartland Church of the Open Bible as an associate
pastor.
We are extremely blessed to have these two families
in our midst and praise the Lord for his servants.
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