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If anyone is qualified to deal with people’s hurts, hang-ups, and habits, it’s New Chapel Baptist Church’s First Lady Donna M. Hill, The Vine’s April 2010 First Lady of the Month. Her mother always thought her compassion would lead her to a career as a veterinarian or a nurse.
“…People who are hurting or sick and need to be healed, that’s just always been a passion within me,” said Hill. “ I know what it’s like to be poor. I know what it’s like to be brokenhearted, when you watch your mother suffer and go through a bad marriage. So I know what it’s like to grow up hurt.”
When she graduated from high school, Hill, a native Prince Georgian, left her troubled home to visit a friend who’d relocated to California. She stayed away for seven years. During that time, at age 19, she was baptized at Corinthian Baptist Church in Oakland, CA. “I feel like that was the time that God prepared me spiritually for what I’m doing now,” said Hill.
In 1990 she returned home and to her high school sweetheart, Dr. Kerry A. Hill, then a deacon in his father’s New Chapel Baptist Church. They have been married now for 19 years.
Even when they had met at age 14, Pastor Kerry said, he knew she was the one for him. He rose to become assistant, then pastor of New Chapel and he works closely with his wife.
“God has allowed us to have such a strong history,” he said, “that now we’re able to work through a lot of things. It has really been a blessing to work with someone who really understands, so it’s easy for us to relate to other people and encourage others while we hold hands and go through life together.”
In 1996, Donna Hill earned a master’s in counseling from the University of Maryland and six years later she completed training for the American Christian Counselor’s “Caring for People God’s Way,” program.
“That’s what really helps people is when you add the spiritual component, because Christ is really the one that heals. I can learn all kinds of theories and formulas, but at the end of the day, Freud and all of them --- None of them can heal, set free, and deliver like Jesus can,” Hill said.
In 2005, she submitted a proposal to Pastor Hill for a support group at New Chapel. She and 80 volunteers visited a Columbia, MD church where a similar group was operating and soon she was launching the Celebrate Recovery (CR) program that she still runs.
CR meets Fridays from 6:30-9 p.m. with childcare provided for parents who need it while they attend groups. Many facilitators in the program are recovering from problems themselves. For example, Nina Patterson has survived domestic violence and Tonya Dorsey, author of “From Crisis to Purpose,” is recovering from depression and loss. Facilitators receive 90 days of training based on the seven principles of recovery laid out by Celebrate Recovery Founder, Rev. John Baker of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA.
The principles are: (1) CR is based on God’s Word, (2) CR is forward-looking, (3) CR emphasizes personal responsibility, (4) CR emphasizes spiritual commitment to Jesus Christ, (5) CR utilizes the Biblical truth that we need each other in order to grow spiritually and emotionally, (6) CR addresses all types of habits, hurts and hang-ups and (7) CR is a leadership factory.
“Once you go through CR and start receiving the Word and start giving the Word, and then you can be a true leader,” said Hill who is the CR training coach.
Weekly meetings which include up to 30 people begin with praise and worship. Then breakout sessions address such life-controlling issues as food and drug addictions and compulsive and dysfunctional behavior.
More groups are added quarterly as needs arise in the church and community. An ex-offender group is in the works, as one example. One young woman started coming out to New Chapel Friday nights but never went to a group. When Hill asked if there was something in particular she was looking for, she said yes, food addiction. A group dealing with that issue was added and soon the young woman was sharing her experience of turning to food to make up for a verbally abusive home life. Her addiction got so bad that some days she would miss work to buy food. With
help from CR she is doing much better and no longer dwelling on the past.
Another young lady came to the domestic violence group timid and afraid and kept looking behind her as if waiting for someone to creep up or to walk in looking for her. She has gone from that to the freedom and liberty of raising her hands in the air, praising God.
A trusted member of her husband’s Pastor’s Council and director of the Counseling Ministry, Hill is also advisor to the Women’s Ministry at New Chapel. The Hills and their teenage son Keon Dakari live in Suitland around the corner from their church.
“…Just to watch her grow and become this awesome leader in the ministry has been very great and me as a husband, it’s very rewarding on the other side that I can support her like she supports me through everything else that I do,” said Pastor Hill. New Chapel Baptist Church’s Celebrate Recovery Program is held Fridays at 5601 Old Branch Avenue, Temple Hills, MD. For more information, call: 301-899-0877 or visit these websites: for the National CR program : http://www.celebraterecovery.com. For the Maryland CR: http://www.MarylandCelebrateRecovery.org. |
