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Post by Jeffrey Olver on Jul 26, 2005 12:28:52 GMT -5
Last weekend, myself, LauRen, Hendrik, Latoya, Bryce, Trent, Jesse and Krista went to Deep Ellum in down town Dallas, TX. It was a saturday night. Usually one of the busiest nights for this night club district.
Something was different though...The lines which often curled around buildings and down the block rarely extended past the buildings themselves. And then we really fully noticed something. Club Hush - where I had most of my experience preaching - which usually had a line extending down the block, for the past several weekends, never had a line that went past the end of building. Indigo, a restaurant and bar that Jesse and myself have preached in front of by the hotdog vendor has been shut down for some time. The Curtain's lines never really seem to stretch very far now. And Club Nairobi's line hasn't gone around the corner of the building in a while!
Additionally; the police officers haven't had a single word to say to us - even when an irate hotdog vendor called them over to get Jesse to stop preaching, they just asked that Jesse not scream at the top of his lungs, and continued on their way to protect people from real crime.
We rejoiced to find that there was no decent crowd of people to preach to! So, we gathered on a street corner to pray while some of our group handed out tracts and envagelized one on one.
God is answering prayers. Please continue to pray that God would dry up that pool of sin and people would turn from that lifestyle to Jesus. Fruit is being produced! Harvests are being reaped! Rejoice!!!
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Post by Jesse Morrell on Jul 26, 2005 22:13:41 GMT -5
This is what I wrote for my journal:
Desolate Deep Ellum Saturday July 23, 2005
The west end of Dallas has a perfect place for open-air. Amidst all the tall office buildings there is a small plot of land which is similar to a green or a park. Hundreds of people go there every day, resting in the shade of all the trees, to catch either a bus or a train.
I was cautious about this area because the cops have threatened me with arrest multiple times in the past there. The first time I attempted to preach in Dallas after coming back from Connecticut this was the spot I found and preached, and almost was arrested because "someone complained". But there didn't seem to be any cops in sight this time but there were plenty of people to preach to.
I stood in a spot where everyone could see me and said "I've come out here today to share a message with everyone. It's a message about life, and a message about death. It's a message about Heaven, and it's a message about hell." As I noticed a good amount of people positioned themselves to listen to what I was about to say. They continued listening as I elaborated on 1 Corinthians 6:9, explaining the deadly works of the flesh and how one can receive eternal life. I would say this 20 minute open-air went rather well with no hecklers yet a nice size attentive audience...and I wasn't arrested!!
Later I connected with a team of seven people that I've been taking out from Teen Mania all year to Deep Ellum. I had already been in Dallas, on a date with Krista, and they met up with us for late night ministry to the clubbers.
Deep Ellum, the club district, was rather desolate. We arrived early of course, but it didn't seem to pick up until around 11:30pm. Because some of the interns had curfew we had to leave to get back by 2am. However while we were there we were able to have a prayer meeting amidst all the vile sin, give out tons of tracts, as well as talk one on one to people. A simple tract or a simple conversation can carry more weight then we expect some times. Eternity will show what the fruit of our labors really did.
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