Karen's Thoughts

I was born on an Army base in Columbia, SC. My father, who was a Sergeant E7, pulled his eleven years and decided to move the family back to Lerona, WV when I was two years old. He bought a farm that joined my grandparents.
My whole life has been centered around church and serving the Lord. Growing up in church, I started singing at an early age with the youth group and graduating to the church choir called the ''Circle of Friends."
As a child, I have fond memories of being in the youth group and singing. As a teen, I was President of the charge MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship) planning and organizing events.
I attended and graduated from Athens High school where I joined the choir and sang all through my high school years. After graduation, I attended Concord College but not graduating.
At this time, my father was pastoring a church and I worked with him starting a youth ministry program.
I have worked in the medical billing field for the last 14 years at a local doctor's office. I recently graduated (12/05) from Concord University with a Regents Degree. My field of studies was Early Childhood and Special Needs.
I have one daughter, Kayla Jean, who is now 12 years old. She is a faithful participant in our youth program at our church, varsity basketball player, member of National Honor Society, and a live wire who loves to giggle. She also likes to perform and sing in our church youth program. Kayla is an inspiration to me and helps me with all aspects of the youth program. God blessed me with a wonderful daughter and I thank him daily for giving me such a wonderful, beautiful, talented and healthy daughter.
At our local church, Lerona United Methodist, I am Education Superintendent which involves being in charge of the youth program, Sunday school program and filling teacher positions. We have a wonderful youth program that leads the worship service once a month.
We usually have a Spring and Christmas production where all the youth perform in singing, dancing, and skits. We have had several wonderful productions like the "Hallelujah Hop" where we sang songs of the 50's and 60's that had been changed to talk about Jesus. The girls wore poodle skirts and the boys wore jeans and sunglasses. We were invited to perform on our local TV station, local school and a Friday night gospel sing.
Another outstanding event we participated in was a three day Youth Rally. We had over 100 in attendance each evening. Friday night was a "Praise and Worship" service followed by a guest speaker which was my brother, Ron, from Myrtle Beach. After the service we camped out. On Saturday, we had another guest speaker from Natural Bridge, VA along with breakfast and then that evening we had a concert by "Corey Brooks" from Fairdale, WV. We ended on Sunday morning with Youth Sunday.
I thank God for allowing me to work in this youth ministry and that my church family is so supportive of our youth and their needs. I feel that our youth program is by far one of the best in the area.
I feel privileged to sing with my father, who is a talented song writer, musician and singer. We have been singing together for ten years in local churches, family reunions, and gospel sings throughout the area.
Our new recording project, "Yesterday, Today and Forever," was awesome. I thank God for allowing me to be a part of this project. Many of the songs were wrote about people who are now deceased and gone on home to be with the Lord, like: my mother; Norma Jean Jones, my grandparents; George and Annie Myrtle Jones; church members who were dear to our hearts; Wayne Hopkins and Frances
Reed.
The other songs were inspirations of childhood memories, songs about Heaven and songs of today. My favorite is "Talking About Heaven," because of the catching beat and just what you imagine Heaven being like.
I hope you enjoy the CD and that things my father wrote about will be something that is dear to your heart.
God has blessed me and my family greatly and I thank him for giving me devout Christian parents, grandparents and a wonderful church family who truly is like family.
May God Bless you and yours!

Karen Jones Hill

Psalm 95:1 0 come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.