As Britta said, the Alstads were introduced to Redemption back in 1997 when a friend of ours gave Justin a starter deck. Since he wanted someone to play with, he and I played a few games. We brought the cards to Minnesota when we moved, and we discovered that they were sold at our Church bookstore. Eventually, we taught a bunch of our friends to play, amassed fairly large collections, and Redemption started gaining ground at our church. The movement started to die down when there were some complaints from parents that it was making their kids too competitive or something, and so it mostly just remained with us and a few of our close friends for awhile.
Then around 2001 (I think?) we heard about Redemption tournaments. Justin and I were helping our pastor with moving into a new house for the first one we heard of (hosted by Chris Bany), but Jonathan and a neighbor of ours went. We eventually started going to some more tournaments, and learning more about the game. Then in summer of 2003, we saw an add for a Redemption mini-camp hosted by a guy named Bill. We decided to meet with Bill, and offer to help with the camp, since we were fairly experienced players. He and his son Nathan came over to our house and we had a great time playing, and making friends.
From then on, Redemption started growing again at our Church, though it was targeted more towards the younger crowd, as the mini-camps, and eventually Redemption Summer Sunday School, became part of our Children's ministry. There was still enough interest from some of the older crowd, but the influx of dozens of younger kids into the Minnesota led to the legend of RLK's (Random Little Kids) that frustrate even some of the most experienced players in the nation (ask SirNobody).
2004 was the year that Alstads first became known on the national level. We went down to nationals in New Orleans, and discovered a whole new level of playing, and a whole community of great people playing the game. We went on to attend the next three national tournaments, but as a result of various things in our lives (a wedding in 2008, and too long of a trip in 2009), we have not been back for the past two years. Hopefully we will be able to help bring Nats back to Minnesota (where it belongs).
