Episode 46 Aaron continues to share his testimony.

On today’s episode, Aaron opens up even deeper about the battles he faces—emotionally, mentally, and in the everyday tasks most people take for granted. His honesty pulls you right into the heart of the struggle, but even more, into the hope that rises from it. This is a raw and inspiring look at what it really means to walk through tough seasons, confront your own weaknesses, and discover the strength God builds in the middle of the storm. Aaron’s journey reminds us that the hardest moments often become the very places where faith grows roots and resilience is born.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

We'll see. We'll see how he feels.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Hey! Welcome to Battleground Believers. So thankful that you're part of this audience. We want to remind you that we're on all kinds of streaming sites. YouTube, Spotify. See, this is not scripted. You can tell. Come on, Brad. Apple Music, all kinds of uh streaming sites. We do have a TikTok and a Facebook page and an email address at Battleground Believers at gmail.com. Please uh feel free to reach out to us. Uh we really enjoy the interaction. We have people comment and um talk to us, and uh that's probably one of our favorite parts. Um but thank you so much for being a part of the audience. Again, uh so so thankful for the two-bar blues. The S is on blues, not on bars. Two bar blues studio, and Randy for being our producer and and uh taking care of us and making us look oh so beautiful. And uh I missed the table. The last one I shot I watched and I thought, whoo! I missed that table. It used to be here and it used to block all my my fat. But anyway, again uh back in studio, Aaron Rep Logal. Uh he was here last week and uh had a really good story. I kept me on the edge of my seat waiting to hear what happened. Uh, but he's back, and uh he's gonna continue to tell his story through your story. And uh when we left, uh your your your beautiful daughter was just born and uh went through some serious surgeries. But it came to a point where it's uh it's time to move from Maryland back to Indiana, and that's where we left off. And so we're gonna pick up and let you continue the story uh from there. So go ahead, Aaron.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Thanks, Brad. Okay, so when we left Maryland, um left a lot of good people um that I hope to see again. Some of them I have seen, but a lot of good people, by the way. And uh some of those relationships are very strong and still going on today, thank God. Um, but so we went to I got a job at the largest landlocked naval base in the world, I believe it is.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

They haven't I didn't know they had a landlocked naval base.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Yeah, Crane, Indiana. Uh 45 minutes southish of Bloomington, Indiana. Is this place called um the the place I worked at was called Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane. I believe the base is just called like Crane. Um they have uh an army outfit there. I literally drive by that almost every Sunday night and a Monday on that dog room that I do. I never knew what it even was. Like it just says crane that way. Yeah. It's got big hair. Yeah, Crane, Indiana is a little small town outside a base on the west side. Never knew that that's what it was. I just never knew that's what it was.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

I know I didn't, I didn't even know.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

I mean, there's a lot of traffic that goes there in the morning. People going to work for the DOD. And I that's what I did there. And um, you know, my we got a a really beautiful home. It's one of our favorites, and our daughter was young, and I met good people in a church there. And I even got clean on alcohol for a time, several months. Um and I I looked good, like I started running again. Um didn't last super long. Um and so Was gambling still involved during this time? Not as much, not as much. Uh I went through sp spurts where I didn't do that as much. Um when I got hooked up with some good people there that helped me out, took me to church, you know, cared for me, I was able to put some of that behind for a while, which was great.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

And, you know, my wife, um, she was um in childcare for a family, um, that we we had a good relationship with, and you know, but again, we never really we didn't really get plugged in. Um, you know, I wasn't spiritually or emotionally immature yet. I just wasn't. And um yeah, well, I'm still not today, but whatever. We're getting there, right? So um we're working process process. That's right. And so what happened is basically that I got jaded at work and decided I would take this job with Harris Corporation in Florida. And so my wife's like, okay, let's move to Florida. So we got a beautiful house with an acre with palm trees and grass and a beautiful pool and a and a um what do they call it? Like a cage, like a meshed cage, so the gators and the lizards can't get in.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

It's called a Lanai. I learned that from HD TV. Oh, that might be true. It's what it's called. It's called a Lanai.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

So the little lizards got in anyway. And the dog would chase them and eventually occasionally get one, and my wife was like, oh. But I remember that our our daughter, our beautiful little girl, loved to there was a little like shallow area, just like a pad on the pool. And she'd stand in that. She wouldn't get in the water too much, but she'd stand on that pad and wade in and just she had this little sun hat and great stuff.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

This place sounds amazing.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

It was. Oh yeah. The real estate went up a lot too since we sold it. But anyway. Yeah, I guarantee it. Anyhow. Um, this was the time. This we were only there a year, and this was the time that my wife decided she wanted to go to school. And would you believe it? She, I think she had already kind of decided she wanted to go for cardiac echo, which is the very process that helped us learn about Scarlett's um heart anatomy in time for her to, you know, for us to know and get to the right place so she could be born in a safe, you know, kind of environment and ready for the things. Um, like the emergency C and the surgery. So Vicky decided. I'm not sure exactly when, but she started taking classes around 2014 when we were in Florida and um at Kaiser, I remember.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Is that that's that's the name of a college? Yes. Kaiser I know her.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Kaiser University, I believe it's called. She took some online courses there. Um and she was again, she was working for a family. Um beautiful little child hanging out with ours, and they had some good times and pool dates and all that.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

And um did you guys connect in any churches at in Florida?

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Not really. Um the blessing for that time was that we had family in Florida, and we got to see them. Um I got to see my mom's father, so my Grampy. Um, I believe it was that year. Um and it was I didn't know how important it was at the time, but it was important.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Was he a believer?

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Oh, we could talk for he he wrote a book, it's on my on my desk at home. On my table in my office that I sit at in the mornings when I light the candle and read. Um it's called It's called Um His Desire. It's um a book, his name's Jim Hubble. It's a book that you can actually buy on Amazon, by the way. His Desire by James W. Hubble. Maybe it's Jim W. Hubble, you have to check. But it's um it's like his the Holy Spirit through my grandfather talking about um how Solomon through the Song of Songs is talking about Christ. Christ and the church, his bride, you know, so or what what all of that actually means according to the Holy Spirit through my grandfather. And so yeah, so that was um 2014, kind of same thing. I was caught up in self. I felt like the company wasn't treating me well and they weren't treating engineers well, and all this, so I'm like, okay, honey, I want to quit. And she's like, oh, oh god. You know, at this point she's like, What oh god, really, probably, right? Like, what's happening? What's my husband doing? What where are we going next? Yeah. And she's not wrong. So I took a job with um, I took a job with the United States Geological Survey Survey. And um when I met the the manager there, I'll never forget, I can I can see I can see the place we were in. It was this little um this little shop at the at the falls in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. They have this little house where you go and you can get coffee and stuff, and it's like part of the park area when you go to see the falls themselves. We were sitting in there and he had bought me lunch because we were talking, you know, in context of the job, right? And um I told him, I was like, you know, we really, we really feel like at this point we want to get back to Indiana, you know. And he's like, okay. And I remember him saying, give me two years, and I said, Okay. You know, in the context of maybe we could work something out to where I could work from home after a time. So I took the job in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It was like um, sort of like a systems engineering IPT leadership type type role for the Landsat 9 ground systems.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

So you moved from Florida, now you're moving to Sioux Falls, Island.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Sioufalls, South Dakota. South Dakota! Why though? No, no, you're not, no, you're not.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

My my geography is way off.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Uh yeah, it's out west in the plains, but um yeah, so we now looking back, a lot of great people in this place, and they helped me through more than they even know. Um one of the engineers there that I became close friends with, who mentored me at work as well, during the time we were there, ended up coming down with severe brain cancer and ended up passing away. That was tough. That one was really hard, like such a beautiful life. Why you know, why God? Why? Why? And he had such an impact on so many lives there, and still does today, he has an impact on me, and I often think of him and his family. Uh, he's from Alaska. Um, and so watching him work and be um kind of taught me what a lot about what leadership really is. You know, and um, like I said, I've even gotten uh phone calls and advice from some of the guys there who are who are in leadership roles that you know they kind of train me up a little bit, like, hey Aaron, if you're going into an interview, here's maybe how you should approach it, kind of thing. And and that kind of advice from a guy like that. Can't put a price on that.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

I mean, the man is already working overtime and he took half an hour, 40 minutes to just to talk to me on the phone. So that's the kind of people they are, and um, it shows, you know. Um and so, similar story, you know, we had the well, this is around the time, this has been 2016. Uh, my wife got pregnant with our second child. And um I was still kind of me. Still doing the alcohol thing enough, you know. Um and uh I got scared, you know, I got antsy. I got again, right? Like, probably, I don't really know, but maybe we're having another kid kind of got scared, you know, hey, I really do want to go home. And I I pushed really hard, harder than probably any man should ever go to his boss and push. And I did. And he finally one day we were sitting in my office at work. I had a walled office in this place, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Didn't deserve one, but I did have one. And um he got up out of the chair in my office, went outside, walked to the other end of the building into the office of the guy who um is in charge of like the the contractor side of it, like the government and the contractor side, you know. And I don't think it took very long. Um, I heard back from them within a day saying, yeah, you can you can work with us and you can go work from home. And uh I was like, okay. And so called my mom, called my dad, yep, we're moving back to Indiana. Um so this is now This is now summer of 2016. We got into the house in in the Wakarusa. Oh, I don't think it was very, very long before. Um second daughter was born. She was born at Memorial in South Bend, C section, but not emergency. Again, what a blessing, you know. How good is God? Um and uh she weighed a little bit more, you know, her heart's all good, like the anatomies. She's um well, her middle name is Joy, and uh it's apt. It's apt. She's she's so bright, she's such a blessing. They both are, both my daughters.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

And um, the Lord was with you this whole time.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Without a doubt. Without a doubt, and that's that's really what I want people watching this to get from it. Is even when I didn't know or believe or I was angry or I thought he was gone, that's not the truth. Truth is Man's forgive me. He carried me through this through this time. Uh if you've never heard of Footprints in the Sand, it's one of my favorite uh poems. It talks literally about that very thing. And um, and so yeah, I worked from home. I set up a bar in the basement, I got bourbon when I could. I would have a few beers and watch TV before I went to bed in the night in the evenings. My wife would make me breakfast and I'd sit in the basement and work. Excuse me, man. Uh, from home, and she you know, had a new baby, and she decided to go to school for real. So she was driving to like an hour plus away to um Newcastle area for school. Um what was it? Saint something, I think. I forget the name of the school. Um, but she was going to school for echocardiography, cardiac echo. So she was doing that and taking care of the kids, and actually her sister came over and helped take care of the kids some. But I was doing the poker thing. I'd go out to the casino, hang out with my buddies, look for excuses to drink, you know. I did those things. And so, you know, um family was close by, that helped. You know, we had some good times. There was a Halloween where I dressed up as Harambi, and my brother-in-law was the the zookeeper with the ape that got killed. Oh yeah. That's it was a mercy killing, my brother says, and uh Oh, good old Harambi. And anyway, there was this we were walking down the street, so I'm dressed up like an ape, and he's got the zookeeper hat and the BB gun, the fake gun, you know. And uh there was this one young kid at at a house we were getting candy from. Oh, and I forget what he said, but it was such an epic reaction. He said something, and then um he just started clapping, you know. Like it was worth it for us to to do this and then be idiots and dress up. This kid got such a kick out of it. Oh, it was fun. And we have there's a YouTube video somewhere maybe we could dig up, but uh good times. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

I'll look for that later.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Yeah, well we could maybe we could maybe send you a link for that. But um, yeah, so around summer, like spring 2018, so we'd been there roughly two years, not quite, you know, and um I got a notification or a message from my boss at work, like, hey, they were having trouble, they weren't like it wasn't working out great. They didn't love I was doing okay, but they didn't love having me fully remote. And they kind of said, you know, hey, not sure how much longer you can work with us fully remote. So I'm like, okay. So I ended up getting a job in Fort Wayne at um Raytheon. And that took us to Fort Wayne, and it was around that time that my wife had completed her schooling. And we got a house um in a neighborhood called Bridgewater, uh, southwest Fort Wayne, not far from the Whitley County line, not far from the chapel.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

I I go in Bridgewater. My job, I go, I have to go. I've been in there many times.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Okay, so yeah, we were actually at 2411 Stonebrier Road, right there off Stonebriar. Um, beautiful property on the on the pond. Um, nice fence. Uh wonderful place, right? Beautiful. And uh we had great neighbors there. Um I could probably I could go into so much depth about that. Um really good neighbors there. I had I had the full range, right? I had a good example of what a father and husband should be. I had um a wise older man who would literally take care of me, let me come into his house and do whatever I do, would sit and talk with me. And I had another good example of a father who loved his family so much and was willing to just be. Let me into his house and just be. And we had such good talks. I I mean, oh man. With all three of these guys, and I didn't know at the time how important it was, but they that's how God carried me through that time.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Were they men of faith, or was it was that not really the discussion, or I think they are.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

I think they are in their own way. Yeah, and I think that well, yeah, and so one of them has already started helping with the ministry stuff. He's got me, he bought me this, um, this beautiful um drawing, like a a replica drawing from a famous artist of an eagle, you know, because I'm a big uh eagle guy, you know, and you'll learn that more as we talk, but um so yeah, just a great group of neighbors, and then I didn't even mention another neighbor next door who was like a father figure to me, you know. So a lot of family close by didn't have the same last name, they weren't blood relatives, but they treated me like family, you know?

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

And it mattered, it helped a lot because I didn't have that. Like I need that. I wasn't I wasn't close enough with the Lord to be able to maybe walk a little bit without it, you know? And so that's how he decided to provide me family at the time. And of course I had my real family too. They were an hour and a half away and they were there enough, but you get the idea.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

So we were we were there, I was working for Raytheon, my wife had got it, she had gotten into Parkview, into um the cardiac echo uh department there, and um things were things were okay. I was doing well, I was drinking a lot less. Um you know, I was I'm bipolar, by the way. So I was um, I mentioned the psychiatrist, but I was speaking with the psychiatrist, I was on the medication, everything was cool, right? I was things are going well at work, I'm getting, you know, hey, good job, here's a bonus, like we like what you're doing here. So right around the time that COVID hit, Raytheon Corporation, you know, Raytheon's a big defense contractor, and they they had a big uh merger going on with United Technologies, both multi billion dollar corporations, huge merger, and we start to hear about it, right? And eventually we start to hear that because United Technologies has um uh I think it was called Rock. Rockwell Collins at the time eventually became Collins Aerospace. It's a big um radio developer for like defense, like military applications primarily. Raytheon had one too, largely based in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And the government was like, hey guys, we can't have both. Yeah. So when the merger happened, Raytheon was required to divest, and they chose to divest the airborne radio group at uh Fort Wayne. It was primarily housed in Fort Wayne. And so part of that decision was that a hundred engineers were going to go with the business. Because they they had to make a statement, right? They they had to show that they were following what the law was, the rule, the laydown of the federal government was like, yeah, you gotta do this. So uh we were told we would we could um we had a job, you know, at the new company, which ended up being BAE Systems, and they built a beautiful facility that's still in Fort Wayne. BAE bought the radio group, and um we were told you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. You can take this job at BAE, or you know, if you want to come back to Raytheon in the future, that's fine, just not for a year. And so um COVID had hit basically right at the same time, and oh man. Oh man. So it hit me hard.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

So you got COVID?

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Well, no, uh just the whole thing, the whole everything happening, the isolation, the the fear, um, the worry. Yeah, and so I was isolated, I had to work from home, it was a new job, it was a technically difficult job. I just completely, completely lost it. Like, over like overly stressed out, could barely function, could couldn't do the job at work very well, um, would reach out to my wife via phone call multiple times a day crying out for help. I would the doctor started to take me off medication, started to mix and match and change and change way too soon. It was a complete mess. Like my wife has a journal she was writing in to try to talk about how she would help me or or what may have helped, but uh, we came to find out later that I had thought that um I had like a little bit of tremor. And so I had told the doctor and we had agreed that maybe the lithium was causing it, and lithium is what I now know to be a gold standard for someone who's like a manic, a bipolar one type, manic type. But I was off lithium for like I turned I ended up being off it for like four years, and you'll hear as we get into more of the story that That was a big deal. That was a big deal. But so anyway, during this time, I was a complete mess. I I ended up having to I went on short-term disability for mental emotional health reasons. I I was able to drag it out. There was a guy at work who basically held my hand through that year, and he he doesn't maybe know, he knows. He knows, but he doesn't know um how much of a blessing to my life he was because I was able to draw that salary another year because he literally held my hand via instant message to keep you on task and take keep up. Well, he did the engineering. Yeah, like I couldn't do it. He did the engineering and I was able to do just enough to keep my job for a time. Um but it was around June of 2021 that I finally decided I had to I had to give it up. Like I went to them and I was like, hey guys, can I have less hours? Like, can we what can we do? Like I I'm you know, I can't handle it. And they just they weren't able to. They had a a requirement, you know, they needed a guy there 40 hours a week. And so they couldn't do it, and I I just had to resign. I had to, I just I couldn't continue.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

No, I totally understand that. And uh we're we are running out of time for this episode. Uh so we're gonna kind of wind down right there on this point, and then when we come back, uh the next time you're here, we're gonna talk about uh where you went from there. Okay. Again, thank you so much for being part of the uh the audience. We really uh really do appreciate you guys. And and uh if you if you like our stuff, uh make sure you like, share, subscribe. Did a lot for the channel. Uh we're actually this is we consider this a ministry. This is not we're not trying to get famous, uh, we're trying to build a ministry here and uh hopefully serve the Lord uh through this. And uh we thank you again. Thank you, Aaron, so much. And and being willing to open up and and being vulnerable and and and share you know things in your life uh means a lot because there's somebody out there that's going through the same thing you are and is gonna hear the success side of this story at some point and say, hey, if if Aaron can make it, I can make it. If Matt can make it, I can make it. Amen, brother. So again, thank you so much for being here. Remember, all that call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Battleground believers, out