So my really good friend Micah from one of the Christian clans that some of us know has the flu along with his son and wife. Apparently this flu is no joke and seems to be pretty bad, but the worst thing is his wife is pregnant and in her second trimester and she has the flu. They have already had complications with the pregnancy before the flu. I pray that his family is healed and that this pregnancy goes by smoothly.

I have two prayer requests today.

1. Please pray for my brother (Matthew). He is in the hospital with pancreatitis. His doctor was treating him for a chronic case of sciatica when the meds he was taking triggered an acute case of pancreatitis. He is recovering well, but it slow going. This is his first stay in a hospital.

2. We are trying to sell our current house. We have seriously outgrown it and the neighborhood is in a serious quality decline. We need something larger and we need the entire process to go smoothly.

Thank you for your prayers!

John's Wife, ( jahwarrior), Cindy. Cindy's dad passed away. Forrest Burford.

Please pray for Cindy, her mom, and Cindy's family.

I would greatly appreciate it if you all kept my Uncle in your prayers. Our grandmother (his mom) recently passed away and we're not exactly sure how he is taking it. After both our grandparents passed away they left their house to him and now he just got up and left to go work at a medical marijuana farm and we haven't heard from him since. He has a history with illegal drugs and running away.

If you could all pray for my family, our cousin Bob Forsch passed away. If the name sounds familiar, he pitched for the Cardinals and won the world series.

Please pray for Josh, we were told that we might get a phone call if a recruit is feeling depressed and well, we got that phone call.

I got some discouraging news coming into work tonight. My department, part of an emerging business unit for Cargill, is being shut down. This does not mean I will lose my job, but it does mean I will be sent back to a generic utility crew until something opens up... which could take months to years. This is a union facility, so we have bumping rights. This means I can take the job of anyone lower in seniority than me. However there are 13 of us that will be displayed. Each person that gets bumped can bump other people under them. This chain reaction includes time to train replacements before you can move. Consequently it could easily take 2 to 3 years before I know where I'm going. Since I will not be working our current 7 day schedule or making operator pay, my income is likely to drop. Having just bought a new house this naturally concerns me.

God has always taken care of me, and I have no reason to doubt He will do so again now, but there is a lot on the line for me after all the work that has gone into rebuilding my credit and getting back on my feet. Please pray I will be able to move into as good or better of a situation in a timely manner.

Thanks all.

Okay, so I know that I've been posting A LOT since I came back lol; but idk, there's just been something that has really been hurting me a bit and I know you all will support me with prayer. This prayer request involves me and my family, and while I'm sure I'll be posting more of the topic for awhile, I won't go into an incredible amount of detail for your sakes lol. Sorry in advance if this is a bit of a lengthy post.

About halfway through my last semester, my mom moved out of my dads house. To put it simply, my mom has a lot of family issues from her past that she has been trying to work through, and because of just the hurt from it, it put a strain on my parents marriage because my dad hasn't really been a good supporter of her in this issue in the past. So she moved out because she thought it would help her to be able to figure things out easier without constantly feeling like my dad is in the next room mad at her for next spending time with him. My oldest brother lived with my dad during this, and over the summer had some job trouble and my dad was stressing him out a lot, due to this my brother moved in with my mom about a month ago; and now my dad lives alone in a huge house. My mom has told my home church (my dads church) about what's going on, and no one ever checks in with her and they all have basically shunned her from everything, so shes been going to a different church. And then on top of that, my dad's side of the family has seemed to disown her as well and keeps telling my dad to divorce her. This situation has caused a huge strain on me ever since my mom moved out, but it's been really bad lately.
I grew up....independent of my family I guess you could say, I always avoided them and never involved them on anything going on in my life. My parents worked till about 7 or 8 at night every night, so I worked through my own problems with God. Once I was called to be a pastor, it took me two months to tell my mom (who was the first person in my family to know) and my dad didn't find out until I announced it to the church. Ever since then me and my mom have grown really close because we talk to each other about God all the time, and through that we've established a bit of a friendship. Now I told that to say that because almost everyone has abandoned her, I'm the only one she trusts to talk to about this situation from a spiritual perspective; which, I'm incredibly thankful for, but at the same time it puts a huge amount of pressure on my shoulders. Two weekends ago I went home for the first time, spent two days with my dad and then the other day with my mom and brother, and it was just incredibly weird... It was the first time I told my friends at my college that I was staying at my dads for part of the weekend, and then going to go to my moms, and it hurt a bit.
This entire semester, I've had the hardest time focusing on anything because of this...school, Bible Study, ministry, relationships, all of it has been put on the backburner and I just want to escape from it all so I tend to watch movies or play games a lot. I've also just been struggling with my relationship with God lately, not because I'm angry at Him or anything, I'm actually thankful towards Him because I know He's there for me, comforting me. But for some reason I can't bring myself to face Him.

Please prayer for me, for my family, for us. Thank you my brothers (and sisters?).
-Botal

So last night was the night Josh finally left for Boot camp. Just keep him in your prayers and if any of you want his mailing address to send him letters. PM me and I will give it to you when I get it the address.

I'm in my third semester in College, I played BF2 with you guys back in middle school....that's crazy to think about lol. I'm writing this because I feel like it needs to be said, and because God used you guys as a gateway to do great things in my life. Back in middle school I got into fights almost everyday, I was a very angry and depressed kid and I didn't know how to control it. The summer before my 8th grade year was the first time I got to go to a church camp, and while I was there God really turned my eyes towards Him. While I was more aware of God's existence after that, I still had no idea what my life was supposed to look like. I was really addicted to video games back then and during the 8th grade I started playing BF2, and then I met you guys. I don't recall an incredible amount of detail on what you all said to me, or who I even knew back then, but what I can remember is I enjoyed hanging out with you guys; and it's because of all of you that I wanted to be a better follower of Christ, and finally I knew what it looked like to be a Christian gamer thanks to all of your examples. After my 8th grade year I moved to Texas, and once I moved I tried my hardest to follow Christ with all of my being, and while I stumbled in a lot of ways, got worked within me and through me in incredible ways. Almost immediately after getting serious about God once I moved to Texas, my anger disappeared and I haven't had a problem with it since, and God showed me how to handle my depression and that He is the cure to it. As I said earlier, I'm now in my third semester at college, God has called me to be a pastor, he has used me in many ways to be a witness and example to the friends around me, and I'm now a leader in two great ministries that God has allowed me to be a part of. Until recently when I told my testimony, I couldn't explain how it is I changed so quickly after moving to Texas; but when I stumbled across this website again after thinking about BF3, I was reading through my old posts and remembered what actually happened. Your community made me want to be a better Christian, and showed me all the incredible things God can do. I skipped over a lot of stuff that has happened in my life, a lot of very important details, but this is enough for now. I thank you all so much for your love for people, one another, and most importantly God. Thank you for letting Him use you in my life, as well as many other people's lives.
-Botal