Nowhere to turn
Kennith and his sisters were raised by their mom. He enjoyed school, playing sports, and getting good grades. Things took a turn for the worse, though, when his mother moved the family out of state.
Being in unfamiliar surroundings took a toll on him. “My confidence and self-esteem took a slide,” he recalls. “I didn’t know anyone, no one knew me. So, I hung with a crowd that was easier to hang with. And those were the guys that were drinking and smoking marijuana … that started my journey into drugs.”
Kennith’s journey into drugs led him to three stints in prison, multiple times in jail, various treatment centers, and homelessness. “Homeless on the streets, I would find myself living in a car, or somebody else’s car, or in hotels, or just walking the streets all night, or somewhere in an old abandoned house.” He shares that living on the streets was, “Lonely. Nowhere to turn, nowhere to go. Helpless, hopeless. And yes, hungry. And cold.”
Kennith says, “The lowest point for me, I would say, was I really couldn’t see any way out of what I was doing. I didn’t want to keep doing what I was doing, but I didn’t know how to do anything else.”
His mom offered him contact information for the Mission, but he refused it at first. “But things got real, real bad,” he says, so he asked his mom for the Mission’s number and called.
A new life at the Mission
When he first came to the Mission, Kennith says he felt “safe … I had a bed to sleep in. I could shower every day, I could eat every day.“ During his time at the Mission, his life turned around. The biggest change, he says, was that he was “willing to allow God to work in my life … I felt like the things in front of me are the things that God put in front of me … it was His will.”
Kennith graduated from the Mission’s recovery program, then served with the Mission’s Christian Service Internship Program. He eventually earned two college degrees, and since has worked in various recovery-related positions.
Kennith says the most exciting thing about his life today is “watching men grow. I come to work; I watch guys get more life into them. I see guys start trusting in themselves, which is mostly trusting in God. They’re believing in something … they’re gaining hope.”
