Artie - Delivered from Hell on Earth

Artie spent his 20th birthday in a Chicago jail. By the time his 21st birthday rolled around, he was again behind bars, this time in the Illinois State Penitentiary.

“I was in a world where life was a struggle until you were killed or you overdosed,” Artie recalls. “In prison, I learned hostility, hatred, bad intentions, and a lot about bare-knuckle fighting.”

Once out of prison, Artie landed a job and married his childhood sweetheart. The marriage was short-lived, however, and soon he was drinking heavily and “running with a rough crowd.”

He joined a gang, working as a “debt collector” and applying the fighting lessons he had learned in prison. When beatings didn’t produce collections, Artie’s friends supplied him with a gun. “I was supposed to shoot a couple of people, but I believe God was with me, because I missed the first one and couldn’t get a clear shot at the other one.”

Artie finally left Chicago “to get away from my lifestyle” and moved to Kansas City. But his drinking and drug abuse only increased. His penchant for violence resulted in prison time in Missouri. He had five years added to his original sentence and spent much of that time in isolation for assaulting other inmates. “I was labeled a dangerous offender because I didn’t have the courage to back away from a fight.”

Back in Kansas City after completing his sentence, Artie was living alone in a downtown apartment – “miserable and not really caring whether I lived or died.” He had just learned of the death of young friend who was “living the same lifestyle as mine.”

That prompted Artie to come to the Kansas City Rescue Mission. In February of 2005 he entered our Christian Development Program for recovery, and over the next six months “my inclination to harm other people was removed. I know I’m still less than perfect, but God has removed any desire to injure any human or any of God’s living creatures.”

Today Artie works at KCRM's shelter, assisting clients who, just as he once did, turn to the Mission for help.

“I had to be purged of all the hatred and violence so God could do His work,” Artie says. “Truly He has delivered me from hell on earth.”