Shock a church with trials of the heart in a Hillbilly's home (10)
I believe the answer is:
appalachia
'a hillbilly's home' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.
'shock a church with trials of the heart' is the wordplay.
'shock' becomes 'appal' (synonyms).
'church' becomes 'ch' (common abbreviation).
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'trials of the heart' becomes 'ia' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'appal'+'a'+'ch'+'ia'='APPALACHIA'
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for appalachia that I've seen before include "US mining area" , "US mountain region" , "Area of eastern US" , "American region" , "Mountainous region of eastern USA" .)