Tammy and Jeff’s Story: Flourishing in Community

Hello there. I'm Jeff Riddering. This is my wife, Tammy. We came from St. Louis, Missouri in June of 2020. When we came, it was during COVID, and everything was shut down. And so as church started to reopen again, we realized we have been so isolated, and we don't know anybody here except our kids. And it was going to be super important to get connected. So we realized we're going to have to put a little effort here to meet people and connect. So we decided to start a home group. Part of what we were hoping, too, is that the people that would come into our home group would be from Michigan, would help us feel acclimated to a new city, a new place, tell us where to eat and where to go and so forth. But what happened was, the Lord uniquely set us up. And no, our whole home group was a home group of transplants. And we had basically all moved within just a couple months of each other. And so we were all feeling that, you know, that uprooting and leaving family and jobs. And, you know, for decades, we had deep roots in community. And suddenly we didn't know, you know, anyone outside of immediate family. And we were able to really encourage one another in that season. Because all of us had similar things that we were going through. But also, everybody had a similar desire to connect relationally.

And it was just a thing where we were like, God, thank you so much for bringing us together and for, you know, just handpicking friends for us. And these are some of the friends that we, you know, have had three years later after the beginning of that group. And the yes that we had was not necessarily a natural yes. We didn't just desire it internally. We knew that it was probably the thing that God wanted us to do. Because he wanted us to get connected to people. We were able to see right away why, what God was thinking. And why God wanted us to be in community. This is how the kingdom works. That we have to be connected one to another. You know, I'm glad you nudged me. And I'm glad for these relationships that God sent us. Well, we trusted that the Lord had provision. And we knew that we had to be obedient in this. And God was faithful to come through. And now we look back and we say, thank you, God. Yeah, yeah. We can walk into church and somebody knows our name.

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