Keith Easley’s full blooded Cherokee grandmother taught him to love God and she prayed for him always. However, Keith, like most of us, had his own ideas. He wound up addicted to drugs and holding a leadership position in a gang.

In 1999, Keith had a dream in which God told him to leave the gang because He had something for Keith to do. The message in the dream was so real that Keith went and told his fellow gang members that he was leaving.

Two weeks later on July 18, 1999, one of Keith’s former associates walked up behind him and shot him in the head. The bullet tore through the entire left side of his face and his throat.

People got Keith to the emergency room and the doctors were working on him. Then he flat lined and he heard a doctor say: “There’s nothing else we can do; it’s between him and God now.

At that moment, Keith found himself in the presence of five beings. One of them told him to “sing to God.” Keith remembers beginning to sing. The next thing he knew, he woke up, saw his wife, and started crying. He thought he had died.

Keith required much reconstructive surgery for his face to be rebuilt with metal plates. As he was recovering, however, he found he still was dependent on drugs.

The next years he struggled with his addiction, unable to get completely free. Then one day in the summer of 2008, something told Keith to go for a walk and as he passed by the newly opened Berry Street Worship Center a few blocks from his home, something told him to go inside.

Keith was warmly received and shared his story. He said that he couldn’t stop using drugs, no matter how hard he tried. Keith was offered prayer, which he received and God did a miracle. From that moment on, he has not used drugs again.

Keith began to attend The Salvation Army Berry Street and gradually got more involved even becoming a solider. He started getting more and more in love with Jesus. Today he is a strong spiritual leader.

Every winter since his surgeries, Keith has had severe pain because of the plates in his face. Last November, when the pain was so bad, he was prayed for in a Berry Street meeting. The pain left and has not returned. His doctors were amazed.

When asked how he has changed so much Keith replies: “I have experienced freedom in the Spirit at Berry Street as people come together and share heart-felt testimonies of how God is working in their lives. Every week you can see Christ actually changing people’s lives. It’s real and powerful. I love my church!”