Jan. 9

So, I fulfilled some of yesterday's goals. I learned the Delirious song Touch and ollied out of the ramp onto a piece of plywood. Didn't work on Taj Mahal though, and I went witnessing with Colten today instead of yesterday.
The streets of usually boisterous downtown Ft. Worth are quite and sparsely populated on a Sunday afternoon. The city gets its day of rest along with the people. Two young men walk out of the looming parking garage that rests on the East side of the city. One of them is 18 yrs. of age, short in stature, and overall, young looking. The other has breathed, without stopping for any extended period of time, for some 16 yrs., is thin, and towers over the elder by some 9 inches. They're on a mission. They drove just under hour to these quite city streets for one reason, to tell others about Jesus. To bring conviction and sight to the hearts of numb and blind people is their goal. The walk blocks searching for someone to talk to, but there are few people to chose from, and the few that are there are already engaged in a conversation or hurriedly walking by. Both of their hearts are flutter a little when they see a lonely black lady walking toward them, first opportunity of the night. The opportunity jumped at them. The lady asked, "I'm trying to get enough change to get on the bus, could you spare any?" Haveing been witnessing before Josh knew to leave any money he didn't want to give away in the car, but he brought one dollar just for such a thing as this. He gave it to her, even though her eyes were so bloodshot it was unlikely she would use it to get on a bus. "Excuse me mam", said Josh, "Do you know the ten commandments? "Well I know them, yes, not in order though," the lady said. "Well do you believe that we are all sinners and need Jesus to save us from our sin because we've broken his law, such as the ten commandments?" Josh continues. "Yes I do", she responded. "Do have the ten commandments in one of those?" she asks, addressing the stack of gospel tracks he is holding in his hand. "We'll I might", he responded he gave her three different ones, hoping that one of them did and Josh and Colten walked on.
This first encounter wasn't ideal, but it was a start. Josh should have dug a little deeper. Next opportunity. A man walking alone. Colten and Josh hastily approach and catch him right as the pedestrian sign turns to "walk". In the middle of the street while they're walking Josh asks, "Do you believe in God?" "What?" the man inquired. "Do you believe in God?" Josh repeated. The middle age man snickered, looked at the two as if to say "idiots", and said, "I believe I'm hungry." He made a sharp left turn and took off double time. The first diss of the night.
Then there was an older black man sitting down, just wasting time on a city. A golden opportunity. Colten takes advantage of it, "Excuse me," Colten says while easing himself onto the bench next to the man, "I heard a statistic the other day that ten out of ten people die. What do you believe happens to you when you die?" Awsome. Josh sat next to Colten and let him do the talking. Only a minute later a homeless man, but not quite so desperate looking as most walked by and was eager to talk to me when he got wind of what we were doing. Mr. L, (I forgot his name, but it starts with an L) was a struggling Christian. He seemed a Christian in the things he said and the insite he showed into his understanding of Christianity, but he needed strength. He told Josh he had a situation; his mom had died and he needed to get back to New Mexico. Heard it dozens of times before, oldest story in the book. But, when Josh told him he'd just given the rest of my money away, he said, "Oh, no. I don't want your money. Some people think it's all about money when the greatest thing is the Word." Sure he wouldn't have minded some money, but even after he found out Josh didn't have any he still seemed hungry, for the Word. Josh shared with him some encouragement, and then prayed with him. First time Josh had prayed with someone he'd witnessed to. He started crying and seemed truly grateful. Hopefully he will pursue after God harder now. Now Colten is still carrying on with this other man, whose name is Chester. The man had just said something and there was some dead air for about 5 seconds. "What's that?" Josh said. Chester and Josh were soon deep into it. Basically, Chester believed in God but couldn't believe that Jesus was the only way. Josh addressed some other issues and made some headway on those, but honestly was stumped on Chester's objection. Josh just said, "Well I can't prove it to you, but that's were faith comes in." It went on, a kindly and interesting conversation. Josh was thinking, "I can't argue with this guy, I just need to tell him the message and what I know, the rest is up to the Spirit." Once he had, Josh said, "Well, I hope you're not wrong." Chester said, "So do I." They shook hands and Josh and Colten were on their way home.