From pauper to prince to preacher

From pauper to prince to preacher

By Mark Ellis, Senior Correspondent for ASSIST News Service

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (ANS - June 30, 2016) -- After his father was murdered his mother slid into drug addiction. In and out of shelters and foster care, he received the Lord at six-years-old and immediately began speaking in tongues and preaching the gospel.

“Dad was an auto mechanic and ran his own business,” says Bryce Popken.

“Mom was a beautiful model and it was love at first sight,” he recalls. “But dad had a problem with alcohol that consumed his life.”

When Bryce was 18-months-old his father and a friend got drunk, belligerent with one another, and began to argue over a property line. “One thing led to another and my dad’s best friend shot him eight times with a shotgun.”

Bryce’s mother “went off the deep end,” and became mired in addiction. She lacked discernment regarding men and often attached herself to other addicts or drug dealers with abusive tendencies.

“My little sister was in the arms of my mother and a guy knocked my mom’s teeth out. That same guy was doing drugs. My mom tried to get clean, tried to get us into a shelter. She tried her best to take care of me. I could tell she had a problem.”

Poor choices caused a downward spiral of impoverishment. “I remember being a little kid and not having food in the cupboards, no pillows or blankets to sleep with, just a dirty sheet at the motel.”

“Sometimes we slept in cars, mostly motel hopping. It was a different place every week or month. It depended on how well mom did with panhandling or her boyfriend’s drug deals,” he recounts.

His mother sometimes used Bryce as a prop to ask people for money at gas stations.

Photo captions: 1) Bryce preaching. 2) Bryce and Janet were married in 2013. 3) Mark Elis with Dan Wooding after recording their "Windows on the World" TV show.

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About the writer: Mark Ellis is Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net), and also founder of www.GodReports.com, a website that shares stories, testimonies and videos from the church around the world. He is also co-host for "Widows on the World" with ANS Founder, Dan Wooding, which is airred weeekly on the Holy Spirit Broadcasting Network (http://hsbn.tv).

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