Gary Hogman / Cindy Hogman Prayer Request
Email prayer request from Gary Hogman (or 'Gary Hogan') on behalf of his cancer-stricken wife, Cindy Hogman (or 'Cindy Hogan'), is a corrupted version of an authentic but outdated message.
Description: Prayer request
Circulating since: 2001
Status: Outdated / Some versions contain factual errors
Example #1:
Email contributed by L. Skidmore., Feb. 15, 2002:
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Subject: Fw: I need your paryers This is a prayer request from a guy that works at First Union in Walton County, GA. Everyone please pray for his wife. My name is Gary "Nick" Hogman, Some of you receiving know me, many do not. My wife Cindy is 32 years old and has just been diagnosed 3 days ago with stage 4 cervical cancer and her chances for survival according to doctors, are very slim. She was pregnant with our second child and had miscarried at 5 months and now we know why. This is a request for you to forward this email to everyone you know asking for prayer. The more people that pray for her to be healed the better. Pray and forward. It only takes a second to hit forward. Please do it and don't just delete this, our prayers could save her life. Please pray and ask everyone you know who loves God to pray for the HEALING of Cindy, removal of all cancer in her body so she may enjoy all that life has to offer, and to continue to be a wonderful mother to our 5 year old son Michael. The power of prayer is unsurpassed. Unsurpassed. I want the whole world to have her in their prayers the next few weeks. God will hear our cry. Please do not be offended by my plea. This is only a humble request for your help. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this and helping with our request for healing, no words can express how much power we have when we do a little extra to come together as one in spirit. Regards, Cindy's in-love husband, |
Example #2:
Email contributed by J. Wheeler, June 14, 2002:
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My name is Gary Hogan, Some of you receiving know me, some do not. My wife Cindy is 32 years old and has just been diagnosed 3 days ago with stage 4 cervical cancer and her chances for survival are very slim. She was pregnant with our second child and had miscarried at 5 months and now we know why. This is a request for you to forward this email to everyone you know asking for prayer. The more people that pray for her to be healed the better. Pray and forward. It only takes a second to hit forward. Please do it and don't delete this, your prayer will save her life. Please pray and ask everyone you know to pray for the HEALING of Cindy, removal of all cancer in her body so she may enjoy all that life has to offer, and to continue to be the wonderful mother to our 5 year old son, Michael. The power of Prayer is unsurpassed, unsurpassed. I want the whole world to have her in their prayers the next few weeks. God will hear our cry. Please do not be offended by my plea. This is only a request for your help. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this and helping with our request for healing. No words can express how much power we have when we do a little extra to come together. Regards, Cindy's in-love husband. Gary |
Update: A variant of this message circulating since 2004 falsely implies that "Gary Hogan" is a U.S. soldier stationed in Iraq.
Analysis: Do prayers still work when they're made on behalf of the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time? I don't know; perhaps it's a question only a theologian can answer. What I do know is that an awful lot of prayer time and energy has been expended in the name of cancer victim "Cindy Hogan," wife of "Gary Hogan," neither of whom, strictly speaking, exists.
Cindy Hogman exists, however, and this chain letter asking for prayers on her behalf was started by her husband, Gary Hogman, in 2001 after she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. They live in Ft. Worth, Texas.
Errors and lies
The trouble with chain letters, especially email chain letters, is that much in the same way information gets lost or corrupted when a sentence is whispered from ear to ear in the children's game of Telephone, the contents of a forwarded email are subject to error, random change and falsification as it passes from inbox to inbox to inbox. In the case of Gary Hogman's message, by mid-2002 the couple's family name had been shortened to "Hogan" and their alleged city of residence seemed to be whatever suited the current sender's fancy.
Here are actual examples from versions of the message forwarded between June 2002 and June 2003:
"This is a prayer request from a young man that works at the First Union bank in Orlando, FL. Everyone please pray for his wife." "This is a prayer request from a guy that works at First Union in Walton County, GA" "This is a request for prayer from a family at Riverpointe Church in Sugar Land, TX." "My name is Gary Hogan, member of Christ the King parish in Topeka" "This plea for prayer comes from a young man at the North Point Community Church of Atlanta, GA." "My name is Gary Hogan, some of you receiving know me, some do not. I live in Eden, North Carolina and I attend the Osborne Baptist Church."
Of the dozens of copies of the message I have on file, only one, the earliest, has the family's surname right; none give their correct location. No fewer than 10 different cities and towns are named, the most recent (as of June 2003) being Macon, Georgia.
And what of the real-life cancer victim, Cindy Hogman of Bedford, Texas? According to an update I received from Gary Hogman in December 2006, Cindy's cancer was in remission and she was doing well.
Which doesn't, of course, mean she couldn't still benefit from your prayers. You just might want to make sure, in case it matters, that you're praying on behalf of the right person.
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Last updated: 01/02/10
