By Lindsey Ackerman
A year ago, our family walked into Mount Carmel Christian Church carrying hurt from a previous church situation. We have lived in Cincinnati for 6 years and, at the time, had no local family. We felt extremely isolated and alone, but we knew God had a plan for our family. So we kept showing up each Sunday, praying God would make it clear we were to stay at Mount Carmel.
After a few weeks, we met Collin Guernsey while waiting to pick up our kids from the Mount Carmel Kids Christmas song practice. He could tell right away we were new and made sure to make us feel welcome. We connected that our sons were the same age and in the same kids class, and for a brief moment, our family felt God elbow us to affirm He wanted us at Mount Carmel.
We knew that in order to really get involved and meet new people, we needed to start with a small group. My husband reached out to Aaron Adams, and we made another connection with whom we now call our Mount Carmel family. We showed up to that first small group with our hurt still feeling so fresh. However, we were met with a warm welcome, and people who genuinely cared about who the Ackermans are.
For me, the moment I knew God had brought us to the right place and the right people was when our kids were upset to leave small group meetings or randomly asked during the week when the next small group would be. Steve and I hadn’t just made new friends in our group, but our kids had, too! As a mom, the best feeling is knowing that my kids are excited and desiring to be around other believers.
Now, here we are a year later, and we can excitedly say we have found our place and family at Mount Carmel. Steve and I are now serving in MC Kids and get to watch our kids grow in their faith right alongside their friends. My favorite moments from this past year were getting to lead our small group’s kids at Vacation Bible School and later spending a day with our small group family at Young Jersey’s Dairy Farm. We are blessed with a small group that we can look to as our family and do life with. Tribe Simeon for life (it’s a VBS thing)!
