A Texas pastor attacked at a Houston rodeo is crediting his faith with helping him survive a brazen shooting.
Thomas Wilson, 61, suffered a pair of gunshot wounds when an armed gunman approached him and a friend walking back to their car from the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo the night of March 13, he told KHOU-TV.
Before firing shots, his attacker - dressed in all black - asked to use the pastor's phone.
"I told him 'no,' and he kept going on, and he even said these words, 'God is not going to bless you tonight,'" Wilson recalled.
Wilson and his friend got into their vehicle and realized it had been ransacked. As he tried to call 911, he said the suspect stuck a gun in his face and demanded his belongings.
"At first I was going to give it all, just give it up, but then he pulls the gun and it's pointing right here in my face, and I saw this guy has no intentions of letting me walk away from here," said Wilson, as he made the split-second decision to fight back.
"I reached and grabbed at the gun and tried to get it away from my face and it went off, hitting me in my shoulder," he recalled.
Wilson was struck twice by gunfire, but survived. His friend was physically unharmed.
"I thank God that I'm still here today, " he said. "To Him be glory, I've not had any real pain since the shooting."
The gunman fled with the pastor's belongings, but inadvertently left behind some of his own.
"A shoe came off, he dropped a phone, and there was a vape there," Wilson explained.
No arrests have been made and the investigation remains underway, KPRC-TV and KTRK-TV reported.
"I want this man caught; I want to protect others," Wilson told KHOU, admitting he feels no resentment toward the person who shot him.
He added, "He still has to take responsibility for what he has done, but in the midst of that, we still have to have a forgiving heart."
