Jason's Report:
Mark and I started off by having our weekly chat with Tom, one of the parking attendants in Deep Ellum. He is a Christian and he shared with us a great story about God's provision. Earlier this week he didn't know how he was going to be able to afford gas because most of his income is currently going to pay off some debts. A day or two ago a friend just randomly showed up at his door and offered to fill his car and pay for half of it, (i.e. a$1.5o a gallon for gas). The friend had no previous knowledge of Tom's financial situation nor that Tom wouldn't have been able to afford a full tank of gas. (Which he desperately needed) Tom was beaming as he shared God's provision with us. Mark and I were, of course, greatly encouraged by this.

We stopped outside of a restuarant to talk to a guy and his friend David. I gave them some tracts and used the optical illusion tract to strike up a conversation. It became apparent that David was a Christian (or professed to be - he had a beer in his hand and I couldn't tell if he was partly drunk. Whenever people I talk to people who profess to be Christians, I've learned to withold judgement, because often later in a conversation a person will let off a string of profanities when we start talking about sticky things like the ten commandments, or they'll intently oogle every scantily clad female that walks by during our conversation without any qualms of conscience at all, which isn't strong evidence that God is living in them.) David was, however, extremely receptive to what we had to say, and agreed with just about everything we said, and all the scriptures that we shared. He acknowledged the need for a Christian to share their faith as much as possible, and mentioned that he shared his faith with all his friends. The guy with David had to leave in middle of our conversation but I managed to get several tracts in his hand and took him most of the way through the good person test.

I approached Stephanie, a girl who was sitting outside of one of the novelty shops and started up a conversation with her using the curved illusion tract. The tract really broke the ice and then she agreed to go through the good person test. She answered yes to the four questions I asked her (Have you ever told a lie, have you ever stolen something, have you ever looked with lust and committed adultry in your heart, taken God's name in vain and hence admitted to be a liar, theif, adulterer, and blasphemer according to God's standards.) Stephanie had strong convictions against stealing from someone she knew, but had no qualms about stealing from a store where no one was directed affected personally. I reasoned with her about God being a righteous judge and used the analogy of her standing before a good judge who was bound by the law to inflict the punishment the law demanded, which really made sense to her. She seemed somewhat relucant to talk more after going through the Ten Commandments but when I described what Jesus had done for her, comparing him to a friend who had come into her trial and sacrificed everything he had in order to pay her fine, her demeanor changed and I noticed that her eyes were beginning to become teary eyed and when I asked if what I had said made sense and if she understood. I encouraged her to read the Bible and see if it backed up the truth of what I was saying.

The most incredible conversation of the night was with Jamal and D'shane (I think that's his name, but we'll just call him "D"). They were sitting at the side of the street just hanging out so I approached them with the curved illusion tract which was a big hit which allowed me to get into a great conversation. I made the point that our senses and our eyes can be fooled by little things like optical illusions, but none of us want to be decieved about big important things, such as what happened after we die, to which they agreed. I discussed with them how the scriptures talked about mankind being deceived, and how so many people believe that they are good enough to go to heaven or good enough to earn God's favor, and then went right into the Ten Comandments and the good person test to show them that as Scripture says, "there is none good, not one" and that Jesus was the only perfect sacrifice to pay for their sins. It's an apt descritption that the eye is the window to the soul because the change in D's eyes halfway through the conversation conveyed that the Holy Spirit was using our words to have a deeply profound impact on him. A person's eyes can convey so much of the temperment of their heart. Often when I' witness to people and conviction sets in on the person, they start to divert their eyes as much as possible because their conscience is shouting at them and it makes them uncomfortablebeing that vulnerable. I can often sense, however, that something is happening in addition to conviction when their eyes lock on to every word you're saying and they convey in a way that can't be described with words, that they're really stricken and sobered by the truths that you're presenting. (the more scripture I use, the the more often this happens ). D seemed so humbled by what we were saying and when we offerred to pray for him, he was more than willing to comply. I just poured out my heart right there on the street for God to reveal himself to D that night and grant repentance and change D to make him a new person in Christ. Please pray for him!

Mark and I also talked to two black guys, one of whom had quite an extensive Christian background (Baptist) . We actually got in this conversation somewhat by accident, since just prior, Mark had been across the street from me talking to some people near a couple of the clubs that were blaring realy loud music . When we re- joined ranks he was describing to me how he had to basically shout at the people he was talking to because of the music was so loud. He then imitated how loud his voice had to be. This distracted the two black guys in front of us, who thought Mark was shouting at them. I guess we figured they might already be mad at us so we hurried to catch up to them, quickly apologized saying we weren't shouting at them, and then asked if they wanted to see a magic trick, which they did. I showed them the curved illusion tract, and they loved it, so then I brought up Christianity by asking if they had a Christian background, and this opened up the opportunity for us to share for about 5-10 minutes with them. The one who had an extensive Christian background was familiar with all the scripture that I mentioned, and he told me flat out that he knew it but was not living it at all. It was like he knew the truth, but woudln't come to terms that the truth really could and would set him free from his sins. He was very open to everything we said, I think God had done ALOT of sowing in his life, since he certainly had a certain amount of respect for the word of God. I encouraged him as much as I could to sell out all to God, since he agreed and admitted to us that he was in the luke-warm category. Iterestingly enough God put him in our path because we passed him on the street about 3 more times during the night.

Wow. What a wonderful night, I'm really in awe of God's faithfulnness. Thanks for praying!