Member Spotlight: Kevin and Jessica Holst—Stewardship for family, farm, and Samaritan

Kevin Holst knows that he needs to be a good steward of the things God entrusts to him.

He does this in the care of his growing family and their farm.

The Eldridge, Iowa, man and his wife, Jessica, have five children with another due in June. Kevin’s a self-employed farmer on land that’s been in the family for 122 years. On their 650-acre farm, he raises corn, soybeans, and alfalfa hay as well as 200 head of cattle.

He’s now putting the stewardship lessons he has learned as a provider and farmer to work for Samaritan Ministries as one of its new members of the Board of Directors. Kevin was one of two elected to the Board this past winter.

“I hope I can contribute a perspective from being a self-employed farmer with a family that relies on my income 100 percent,” he says. “I can contribute knowledge I’ve gained over the years about financial matters, children, and families, especially families who need to watch every penny they spend.”

Kevin also brings leadership experience and service experience to the Samaritan Ministries Board of Directors. He was a state director and treasurer with the Gelbvieh Breeders of Iowa, a state-level cattle breed promotion organization. He was a Big Brother in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program for eight years, and served for nine years as a County Committee member for the Farm Service Agency, holding positions over the years as chairman and vice chairman.

He also has been leader of his own family.

His wife, Jessica, he says, is “intelligent and lovely at the same time.”

“She’s a hard worker,” Kevin says. “She loves being with our children, including doing the very best possible job she can teaching them and disciplining them. She stays busy, stays involved socially any way she can. She has such a passion for life and for children that people have told her that they want to be like her and follow her around and learn from her. She’s kind of flattered by that, and I guess I am, too.”

Jessica works in the child care ministry at their church, Heritage Wesleyan Church in Bettendorf, Iowa, teaching and setting up classrooms. She also started a mom’s group at the church so that mothers would have a place to meet and talk about things that moms need to know regarding child rearing and household management.

On her Farm Fresh Iowa blog, she describes herself as a “Disciple of Christ, Wife, Mama, Friend, Daughter, Sister, Giver, Prepper, Scrapper, Creator, Maker, Photographer, Reader, Writer, Mailer, Subscriber, Dabbler, Crier, Laugher, Chocolate Eater, Coffee Drinker, Cook, Baker, Not much of a Cleaner.”

“I started it so that family members who live far away could keep up,” Jessica says. “It began like a personal ‘This is how I do my day’ thing. Now it’s been a way of encouraging other people, showing people what farming life is like. A lot of people really have no idea what it means to be a farm family. I try to be really transparent. If I mess up something, I write about it, and God uses it in amazing ways.”

She’s been able, for example, to help other people as they try to improve their eating habits. She also still shares photos and news of the family, a family that Kevin is very proud of.

Their oldest child, Aviana, is 10 and is doing “spectacular” in homeschool, he says. “She’s ahead in every subject and loves to read,” Kevin says. “It’s really fun teaching her and helping her.”

Brielle is their 8-year-old, following in her sister’s footsteps with her own love for reading. Kevin says Brielle is “very active, dominant, likes to be in charge of everything, and notices everything that goes on.”

“You can’t get anything by her,” Kevin says.

Their son Cadrian, 6, is a “typical 3-year-old boy who likes to bother his sisters and stick his nose into everything.”

Their 4-year-old, Denton, “has been a real blessing.”

“He has a personality that draws everybody,” Kevin says. “He made us want to have more children, and now we have the blessings of Elivette (2) and another one on the way. They are all such a joy to be around.”

Jessica expressed joy at Kevin’s election to the Board of Samaritan Ministries.

“I think it’s pretty exciting,” she says. “We’re really thrilled that he decided to go ahead and do it. He has many leadership qualities.”

He also has a creative streak in him, she says. For instance, he turned an old auger into a delivery system for the corn they use in their home’s corn-burning furnace. Now, instead of hauling heavy buckets of corn to the house during the cold Iowa winters, they’re able to flip a switch and have the corn dumped into a bucket located closer to the house.

Kevin flipped the switch on his faith in Christ when he was 5 years old. He came to know the Lord while attending a Good News Club hosted by a neighbor who is still running that group. He now lives out his faith in community at Heritage Wesleyan, where he met Jessica 14 years ago.

That church, he says, “excels at evangelism.”

“We love to invite unchurched people to church,” Kevin says. “We’re very open to meeting anybody wherever they are on their spiritual journey and helping them move forward.”

He’s involved in a weekly men’s group at Heritage “where we share life struggles and joys and dig deeper into the Word of God and strive to become a Godly influence in our families and communities.”

In the past, Kevin has volunteered in the church’s tech department in the congregation’s Rock Island, Illinois, location, providing audio/visual support for three weekly services and other activities. At one time, he and Jessica worked together in the preschool Sunday school classroom, teaching 3- and 4-year-olds.

Today, though, he devotes the bulk of his time to his growing family and his farm, in that order.

“There’s a time for serving,” he says. “At this time, I feel it’s time to cut back a little bit in other areas so I can be there for my family. Life’s a lot simpler when you’re not involved in too many things outside the house. It’s important to limit what you’re involved in.”

He does, however, have time to fit in serving on the Board of Samaritan Ministries. And, for that, we’re grateful.

Why SMI?

Kevin and Jessica Holst were disappointed with their private health insurance.

To begin with, it was expensive, and the premiums kept going up every year—sometimes more often than that.

There was also frustration with how their health insurance wouldn’t pay as much as they thought it should when a claim was actually made.

“Paying all that money for a premium, you’d think we’d get something out of it,” Kevin says.

After hearing about health care sharing ministries, Kevin was skeptical at first, Jessica says. As a farmer, he sometimes still follows the “way it’s always been done,” she says.

“This is something completely different,” Jessica says. “It took a while to get used to the idea.”

The Holsts settled on Samaritan Ministries after a friend recommended it.

“We really like how Samaritan does their sharing, praying, and the notes—sending the share directly to the other people in need,” he says.

“It was a step of faith. I’ll admit I was more reluctant than my wife at the time. It’s one of those things where you jump ship and you can’t go back easily. We put it in God’s hands that this would be a good move—and it has been.”

So good, in fact, that Kevin felt led to run—successfully—for a new opening on the SMI Board of Directors.

“It’s a friendly organization,” he says. “The people are really easy to talk to. You can get a person on the phone, which is a nice benefit. With insurance companies, it seems like you can’t talk to anybody you need to or anybody with decision-making ability.”

The Holsts also like that their home births are shared 100 percent.

“It was amazing,” Jessica Holst says. “With our previous home births, it took over a year for health insurance to pay them. That was after repeated filling out of forms. We ended up getting $400 from insurance. Being with Samaritan was like night and day. People sent notes ahead of time saying they were praying for the baby.

“God’s people can come together and do amazing things with God’s help. Samaritan Ministries helps you to do that. You wouldn’t know how to help somebody with health care needs if it wasn’t for an organization like Samaritan.”