Jeff and Shawn Hile met while working at Bashor home in Goshen, and have been married for 13 years. Soon, Jeffery (10), Brian (6) and Benjamin (1) joined the family. These days, the family enjoys camping together at State Parks. Jeff says, "I like to camp in a tent-Shawn doesn't so much. The kids like to camp in the backyard all the time." Jeff also enjoys playing video games with the boys and Shawn likes to read when she can.
Jeffery and Brian, as we mentioned, love video games. "They are addicts," Jeff laughs. Jeffery loves Pokemon. "He's got all the cards, characters, McDonald's toys. He's got a shrine." Another favorite game is Warioland Shake it for their Wii. They look for deals on eBay for cheap games. The older boys also enjoy biking around the neighborhood, playing Legos. Shawn says, "Benjamin likes to act like and follow his big brothers. He likes to draw and act like he is playing on the computer, and talk on the phone. He loves to get his picture taken and smiles real big."
Jeff and Shawn still work at the same place, though now they're both employed by Elkhart General Hospital. Shawn also works seasonally as a tax preparer with H&R Block. A former Board Member, Krystal Anderson, encouraged the Hiles to apply for Habitat. They were accepted in 2009, and began their Sweat Equity right away.
The Hiles have chosen a lot on Concord Valley Drive, off SR 19. The whole family dreams about what their new home will mean. It will allow the kids to stay in Concord Schools-Jeffery will enter the new intermediate school, and Brian will be in 1st grade. For Jeffrey, it's his own room, as he's had to share with his younger brother for the last 6 years. He can't decide what theme to use-"I'm hooked on Legos, but I'm not hooked off Pokemon!" Brian would like to have "a very colorful room with a gold ceiling, blue wall will have his dresser by it, red wall and black wall will have his bed by it." Shawn and Jeff have something a little less colorful in mind. "Once we build our house, we want to just get settled into a better routine," Shawn says. "It'll help just knowing we're in a place that's not going to get sold out from under us."
"I like the Habitat program because it's definitely a 'hand-up', not a hand out like a lot of people think. I run into a lot of people who think we're getting a FREE house," says Jeff. "I enjoy explaining the program of how we have an actual mortgage and earning the sweat equity hours.
The program was a real answer to our prayers. It's helping us realize that the 'American Dream' still exists."
Shawn agrees. "I can honestly say I was not really thinking when we applied we would get accepted into the program," Shawn says. "I want to publicly thank Krystal Anderson for giving me the encouragement to apply. The process to apply was fairly easy and the whole program itself has been a journey of patience for me, but also journey of finding a program that helps people become homeowners... Our family is very much looking forward to owning our home. I like the fact we will working on our own home with our own hands too... It's awesome!"