Ezekiel from Kansas City, Missouri

Ezekiel, 36, is from Kansas City, Missouri, and while he has never been homeless, he has experienced everything the dark side of life has to offer. He has undergone severe poverty since his childhood and suffered physical and emotional abuse from family, friends, and peers. For a time, he was addicted to drugs and alcohol. This life of pain produced in him a self-loathing that haunted him for years, and it is only recently, through accepting Jesus as his Savior, that he has been able to break the cycle of poverty in his life.

After his family moved to Laredo, Texas, Ezekiel admits there were neverending difficulties. Both his mother and father were uneducated, neither could find work, and all they had was a cramped, rundown apartment. "It was like a half-bedroom," he jokes. He and his two siblings slept on a mattress outside of their parents' bedroom door. They couldn't afford heat, nor did their shower work, so their mother bathed them outside with water she heated up from the stove. They had to constantly borrow food from family and friends, and their mother would pick up clothes for them in the trash. For years, his parents would argue and his mother would threaten to leave the family. "We'd be screaming from the backseat of the car, our voices pleading with her not to leave," he says. "She couldn't leave because she had no place to go either." Essentially, Ezekiel lived in Depression-era conditions, except in the context of the late Seventies.

When his parents eventually found jobs, they had to find a place for Ezekiel to stay during the summers while they were at work. He would get dropped off at his uncle's house, but it wasn't the ideal place for a small child to be. "They would party and drink a lot and always have lots of people over..." At the age of 10, Ezekiel experienced abuse at the hands of his extended family. "At some point, I didn't know why or what was happening, but my aunt and some of my cousins molested me... I felt lost, I couldn't tell anybody. I mean, who would I tell anyway? This was part of my dad's family, I couldn't just say, 'Hey Dad, by the way...' you know?"

From kindergarten to high school, Ezekiel had to struggle with constant bullying because of his family's poverty. "I was the dorky kid everyone would pick on," he said. "They beat me up, they called me names, they would steal my lunch money – it's stuff you see in the movies, but it actually happened to me." It didn't help that basic hygiene wasn't taught to him. Because of his trashy clothes, he would smell. He also admittedly had bad breath and he earned the nickname "Skunk" during this time. More than once, bullies would take him to a back alley, beat him, and say, "'Skunk, you look a little dry' and then they would pee on me." Because of his lack of a support system, Ezekiel didn't know how to make sense of the bullying. "I grew up thinking, well, maybe I am ugly. Nobody liked me or wanted to be my friend."

On top of the bullying, Ezekiel barely continued forward in school. Near the end of 6th grade, he discovered that he would have to stay behind. "I didn't want to stay, I wanted to get better," he said, so he sought out tutors that helped him pass to the next grade. While he still had to take mostly special-ed classes in 7th grade, he was allowed to take a computer class with the "normal" students. It was in this computer class where a teacher first challenged his way of thinking about himself: "My teacher said, 'Ezekiel, why don't you look in the mirror every morning and tell yourself, you are beautiful. I don't know if she saw the bullying or anything, but I believe God sent her to me. I went home, looked in the mirror, and I couldn't see myself clearly. I hated myself. Finally, I got a good look and said it, said, 'You are beautiful.' I thought I was crazy." Soon after, he said this to himself again in what he thought was an empty classroom. Some kids overheard him and made fun of his admission. "After that, the negative feelings came back. I felt like I was back at square one."

While Ezekiel had given his life to Christ at age 16 at youth camp, he says, "I didn't really know what it meant. I went up to the front because everyone else was doing it." He had no mentor or pastor to guide him into a life with Christ, so he continued to do whatever numbed his internal pain. High school came and went without him graduating, and as a result, Ezekiel says, "I turned into a lazy bum." Feeling directionless without a job or school, he began to hang out with "the wrong crowd." "My friends liked to party, drink, do drugs. That's when I started doing all of that stuff. I liked it so much, those same friends thought I needed help! That's how bad it got. For awhile, anyway." During this time, his father enrolled him in a private Christian high school – something he worked extra hours to maintain – but the only thing Ezekiel took away from there were two Christian friends he made named Jeremy and Charlie. For the first time in his life, Ezekiel felt like he had met people who genuinely liked him for who he was. He ended up not finishing at the private school and instead, obtained his GED through a program at the local community college. Nevertheless, his time with Jeremy and Charlie would influence his direction towards Kansas City, Missouri and his eventual salvation.

Soon after getting his GED, Ezekiel wanted to move out of Laredo, Texas. Jeremy and Charlie had moved to Kansas City, Missouri and had invited him up to move in with them. They were insistent upon him coming with them. "My dad got frustrated because they would call me every morning. Seriously." Eventually, his dad gave him some of his own money for a bus ticket and he left to go live with his friends. "I didn't have a plan or a future, but I was out of Laredo."

Ezekiel saw Kansas City as a means of escape from Laredo and the negative influences in that town, but he continued to struggle with his life choices there. "I got into a gothic group called 'The Crow,' after the movie. We would drink and take drugs, but they were also into really perverted stuff, like making out with each other. They also pretended to be vampires and sucked on each others' blood. It was unbelievable." During this debaucherous period, he was pulled over several times for having no car tags or insurance. Eventually, he was arrested and had to go to jail for a couple nights before he could go to court. It was here that he began to be serious about his faith: "I was trying to get help [in jail], but no one was helping me. There was no way out. So when I was there, I cried out 'Lord, if you get me out of this mess, I will do whatever you want.' Of course, anyone would say that, but I know now that the Lord held me to it.'"

After his brief stay in jail, Ezekiel became plugged in with a church in Kansas City, Missouri named Solomon's Court. It was here where he met his mentor, the head pastor named Mark Schmidt. Pastor Schmidt even allowed Ezekiel to stay with him for awhile because his friends, Jeremy and Charlie, had kicked him out over his lifestyle. "I didn't have any wisdom, knowledge or responsibility. The pastor took me in anyway. He saw something in me that I didn't see." Instead of allowing Ezekiel to linger on his couch, the pastor put him to work. Before church one Sunday, Pastor Schmidt brought him down to the church basement. "The janitor brought me a mop and he said, 'I want this basement spotless and clean before church starts.' I was complaining the whole time I cleaned, but I realize now that the Lord was teaching me discipline and responsibility." Once Pastor Schmidt saw that Ezekiel was serious about turning his life around, he enrolled him in some Bible classes. From there, he started working in ministries to feed the homeless, and has been engaged with the church ever since.

Today, Ezekiel's life has been completely turned around and he is using his own life experiences to bless others. He is the youth pastor of Restoration Church in inner-city Kansas City, Missouri; he is on the Healing Team at the International House of Prayer; and he's also on the staff at the Kids Center in Hope City, a homeless outreach. In regards to his youth group, where he says many leaders have simply left the kids because they couldn't handle the stress, he states, "I made them a promise. I told them I'm not quitting on them because I don't want to be one of those who has gotten discouraged and left. I just love them." In reflection upon his own life, Ezekiel ponders, "I feel like I was like an onion and God just had to peel off all my layers of hurt and pain. He had to break down walls.... Being connected with the International House of Prayer and Hope City and Restoration Church and now having friends from all around the world [through IHOP], I can see that the Lord has brought back what the enemy has stolen from me, and doubled it. Thinking of myself when I was younger and looking at myself in the mirror now, I can say, 'Yes, the Lord has made me wonderful.'"