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So I started playing Redemption right after Cloud of Witnesses came out. I was a pompous little kid who struggled to open up to anyone on a personal level. I joined a church in my area that a cousin of mine went to, called Meridian Baptist. There, I got associated with there youth group. It was fairly large at the time, but I struggled to click with a lot of the kids. The group recently had a change of church leadership and had an interim youth pastor. This was a man named Chris Fachman.
One thing that Chris would often do after Wednesday youth group was host Redemption games. I didn't know what the game was at the time, but I played Magic the Gathering, so it piqued my interest. Chris taught me the game with the IJ starter decks and told me about the competitive scene. Being fairly adamant about playing, I found myself with a twenty dollar bill flipping through Chris' inventory to build my first ever T1 deck.
I didn't realize at the time that this game was going to bring several blessings into my life. From the outside, it looked like a way to make church tolerable, even exciting to go to. We'd play after every service. It got to the point that Chris began taking me home so that my family didn't have to wait up on me. These car trips trapped me in conversation with Chris, which brought on growth in my spiritual and personal life. I was playing red warriors and Demons at the time, and each drive home led to me asking about the characters on my cards I was growing fond of. While I increased my biblical knowledge week by week, Chris began trying to show me what kind of man God wanted me to be.
As time pasted, I got better and better at the game, traveling with Chris to other tournaments, meeting my future Redemption family.  I began opening up to those around me, no longer afraid to embrace my new nerdy hobby.

I'm 20 years old now, and still playing Redemption. This game has brought me into circles with people who truly walk with God and mentor me to become a better man every day. And though this is my Redemption testimony,  it wouldn't be complete without crediting my beloved mentor and friend, Chris Fachman <@460882537045295113>

I don’t have an extensive background in card games. Granted, in elementary school I collected Pokémon cards like everyone, but I never learned to play the game. In middle school, I dabbled with Yugioh as I did like the show at that age. I learned the basics from a starter deck and attended my only tournament of my youth when I ran into a grown man playing a blue eyes ultimate dragon deck. If you don’t understand that, just know, he had a 3 headed version of my best character. I got destroyed. I remember walking away wondering what a grown man like that got out of picking on kids with decks like mine. I suppose this was Yugioh’s version of an RLK experience, haha! Shortly after that, I gave my cards away and my time with trading card games was over for quite a while.

Sometime after I got married, my newly minted brother in law got into playing Yugioh. I had money and figured I could avenge the defeat of my youth. I built the best dragon deck money (within reason) could buy. I went to a regional and played decent and placed in the 30s of a field that had over 100 players. Not great, not terrible. After that, I didn’t play that much, just when my brother in law would come over. After a few more months, I lost enthusiasm to play due to game changes and also the conviction I had over some of the themes of the game and its characters. I ended up putting my cards away for a while before eventually giving them to my brother in law. At this point, I was sure I was done playing card games.

After quite a few years, my wife and I started attending a new local church. The youth pastor there was looking for volunteers to help with the youth group. Having previously served a stint as a volunteer youth pastor, I felt like God put me there to help serve, so that is what I did. One summer night, on a youth outing after service to the local Chick-fil-A, this youth pastor asked me if I had ever heard of Redemption. Clueless as I was, I left that conversation that night and made a plan with this youth pastor to meet at our local Lifeway store that was going out of business. Lo and behold, Lifeway had I/J and G/H starter decks along with loose booster packs from Angel Wars. Now, if you know anything about me, you know how much disdain I hold for the Angel Wars set. This almost turned me away from the game immediately as it presents the game as a cheap knockoff type game versus something with real merit. But, thankfully I stuck with it.

By now, you may have guessed, but the youth pastor in this story is none other than my good friend Brad Gaillard - the first co-host of The Threshing Floor podcast. 

Brad and I played endlessly after that learning the game. At the same time, I was testing my wife’s patience by aggressively building my collection with new card purchases from Derek of Your Turn Games who was a tremendous blessing as I was starting out. He volunteered time and effort to help me understand the game and asked questions about the collection I was building and offered suggestions that were mutually beneficial for his business and my growing competitive-ish deck. This time of learning the game and developing a deeper connection with Brad while playing was such a fun time, even if it did cost me a Bluetooth speaker and a toolbox. Ask Brad about that one, ha!

In August of 2019, I connected with Jay Chambers on Facebook. We planned a day and I showed up and met him and his brother Jeremy to play some games. This was the first time I had met anyone else in the Redemption community and it unlocked quite a few things for me. I got to see awesome Nationals promos, completely built competitive decks (even if they were built by Jay), along with understanding that the players of this game differed from all the ones I had encountered previously with their level of hospitality and their stories of this wonderful community. I thought maybe Derek was just friendly because it was lining his pockets, but I learned from this experience that his actions were genuine. From that day on, I was plugged in!

This is the legendary Kitty Jones that Marc has mentioned in his Redemption homecoming testimonial:
https://www.cactusforums.com/off-topic/the-dragon-who-became-a-scout/msg604485/#msg604485

Marc, I share with excitement a page from Kitty's book and a letter written to her by one of your youthful playgroup members you indeed had planted not just the seeds of Redemption into but have blessed him with God's love!

As a person that loves to play many different kind of games, I've always been drawn back to collectable card games. As I searched for a game that I would really love to play and have others to play with I went down the road to playing Magic like so many of our community has. I know that we have many who still play the game and may not be convicted as I was in putting my money and my spiritual life into the game, but something just felt off to me. I was reminded of the verse in Galatians that talks about the works of the flesh and one of those things was sorcery which is what the game of Magic draws on. I was in a struggle for doing what I felt was right spiritually by not giving in to my fleshly desire to play a game that just seemed so appealing to me. I mean, what could hurt? It's only a game, right?
For me the answer was no! There is a spiritual battle here and I couldn't allow my mind to be driven by what Magic was introducing. One day my wife and I were in a heated discussion about me having the game in the house and then it hit me, she was right as always, and Holy Spirit was speaking to me as well. I decided that I was going to throw the collection that I’d just spent hundreds of dollars on away, not sell because I didn’t think others should own these cards either.
After this event I was speaking to a good friend of mine and he said, “Well if you’re not playing Magic any more but are looking for a similar game, have you tried Redemption?”. “What is Redemption?”, I asked. He then proceeded to tell me about this wonderful game that has become my most favorite game to play. This person, a lot of the community that has been around for a while will know, is Mark Underwood, a former elder of the game.
Since then, I have been telling everyone that I know about the game and have even got a small playgroup together, with the help of Stephen Brooks, that meets on a weekly bases and is the first regular meeting Redemption group in the history of the game to meet in Arkansas. We meet each week on Thursday's at Stephens house and run an average of 14 players a week. With the blessing of the Redemption elder team and after only three years of me finding the game, we are hosting the first ever National Tournament in Arkansas on the 30th official year of the game.
It has been quite a journey these last couple of years and I’m anxiously awaiting to see what’s next for this game that our Lord has blessed Rob Anderson with the creativity to design and to those who give countless hours to keep the game fresh and relevant while sowing seeds of scripture to those who play.