University of Texas Outreach Ministry Report 

(Texas vs. Oklahoma)

By Francisco Nieves

10/08/2022

I left my house at 430am to pick up Tom McLaughlin and then drive the three hours to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas where the Texas Longhorns were taking on the Oklahoma Sooners (side note: the Longhorns upset the Sooner 49-0!). 

After a pit stop at Buc Ee's, and a pretty intense search for parking, we arrived just outside of the state fairgrounds, where the Cotton bowl is located, and were met by our good friends Joe Hinson and Will Dieterich. They had set up at a pretty strategic location near one of the main entrances. They were already open-air preaching and handing out gospel tracts by the time we got there. They had a constant captive audience as people waited in line to go inside. 

At this point, we decided to divide and conquer, and Tom and I set up about a block and a half away at another main intersection. This too turned out to be a pretty strategic location. In God’s providence this was where the greyhound buses were dropping off droves of Longhorns and Sooner fans. As a result, we had a constant stream of foot traffic going through our location. We praise God for the thousands of students and fans who heard the gospel during this outreach.

One pretty cool thing that happened was that when I got up to preach, a man named Brian stood right in front of me to listen. He seemed to be under the influence of something, but he was still able to have a conversation. I told him that I was about to preach from Psalm 5 and asked him if he would like a Bible to follow along. To my surprise, he said yes, and so I gave him a Bible and helped him find Psalm 5. 

I preached the message and when I gave a gospel presentation, I looked directly at Brian. As I was proclaiming the gospel to him, I saw tears flowing from his eyes. I took my microphone off and got down from the step ladder and went over to him and had a conversation. I asked him if I could pray for him and he agreed, so during my prayer I preached the gospel to him once again and left him with the Bible and a gospel tract. Please pray for Brian!

Another cool thing that happened, was that when I was up to preach again, a butterfly landed on my shoulder and was sitting there for the entire time that I was preaching. People were looking over to see the man on the ladder with the butterfly on his shoulder and I pray that they also got a chance to listen to the message.

We packed it up at around 11am, right when the game started. But before we drove back home, we all went to cracker barrel for some legendary pancakes (as Will likes to call them) and some great fellowship. It was a great time of ministry. Please continue to pray for fruit from this outing.

https://sfoi.org/University-of-Texas