Father, pastor, westside shepherd: Ken Austin has never met a person he wouldn't help
Andrew J. YawnA small white bus grumbles down the street, splitting the predawn mist until it stops at the curb where the boy is waiting.
The doors on the bus don’t work. From the driver’s seat, Pastor Ken Austin waves, signaling the young man in the navy blue sweater to pull the doors apart with his hands.
Keilan Eagle, a second-year student at Valiant Cross Academy, climbs the steps and closes the doors behind him. As he takes his seat, a gospel tune on the radio ends and the voice of the host fills the cabin.
“You ain’t seen what God’s about to do in your life. No matter what you’ve done, how bad you’ve messed up, God is going to do something for you.”
Keilan has no idea how acutely that applies to the man in the diamond-stitch jacket who gets up at 5:30 a.m. every weekday to pick up students who otherwise wouldn’t get to school.
He just knows he once asked for a ride, and Ken Austin has been there for him ever since.
“My mom, she has two other (children) so it’s hard to get us all to school on time. So it means a lot that Pastor will take me to school early in the morning,” Keilan said. “Pastor is a loving, godly man who will do anything in the world for you.”
The pastor was only a few years younger than Keilan when his mother didn’t come home one Sunday after suffering a heart attack in church. Lunches went unpacked. Homework unchecked. Clothes unclean. Austin began going down the wrong path. He felt what it was like to be nobody’s responsibility.
That’s why, on a dew-drenched morning in February, the pastor is volunteering 90 minutes of his morning to fetch approximately 10 children from every corner of the city. If there was an efficient way to do it, it’d be done by someone else. These are the ones falling through the cracks. Austin is doing his damnedest to catch them.
“We don’t have another CDL driver in the community and we have these kids in the morning and 60 kids to pick up from school (in the afternoon),” Austin said, referring to the T.S. Morris and E.D. Nixon students he’ll pick up later and drive to Common Ground’s after-school program. “So until we find another driver …”
His voice trails off. He continues on.
The bus halts at a house on Oak Street, the final stop on his route. No navy sweater in sight. Austin beeps the horn and a boy opens the door in his pajamas, one hand rubbing the sleep out of his eye.
“Get your brother and get dressed. I’m going to come back for you,” Austin said.
The boy disappears inside.
“If I don’t come to their house and get them, what happens to the Valiant Cross opportunity?” Austin said as he pulls away.
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Austin, the Montgomery Advertiser's Community Hero for February, plans the rest of his day as he drives, a glimpse at the schedule of a man who seems to be everywhere, attempting to help everybody.
At noon, he’ll visit the food bank to stock his Mercy House, a place of refuge that offers food, showers and clean clothes to the needy in Washington Park, a neighborhood where 65 percent of families with children live below the poverty line.
Austin hopes to make it by before then to help serve lunch to the homeless.
At 1 p.m., he has a meeting at Common Ground, a youth ministry in the neighborhood where Austin helps steer children away from the streets and toward opportunity.
After the meeting, he’ll ferry the 60 or so kids to the after-school program before shuttling them back home later.
The day before, he delivered his Sunday sermon across the street from Mercy House at New Walk of Life Church. The church began with two families and a Bible study in 2004. It now has about 75 members.
"There are just things that need to be done. This is a hard community with not that much help. I just find myself being that person and doing it," Austin said.
That’s not to mention his service on the boards of Valiant Cross, the Mental Health Authority and House to House, which seeks to renovate blighted properties in Washington Park.
In recent years, Austin and his wife, Thomasina, have taken on a new responsibility. A member of their church facing health issues had to move back to the Bahamas and could no longer take care of her three youngest children. The Austins took the kids into the family, despite having already raised three of their own.
“He does a lot, and a lot of times I do worry, because I know he’s human, and he’s not as young as he used to be. But he just constantly goes,” said Thomasina Austin. “He genuinely feels this is his calling to step up and play an instrumental part in the community.”
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Austin is not the type of pastor who walks with pockets full of sunshine. He speaks directly and does not espouse baseless optimism.
So when asked what he sees when he looks at Washington Park, his answer was characteristically blunt.
“Victims,” Austin said. “I know if these same kids were taken home by someone that lived in Pike Road that was able to have them in the best schools, they would be the same as the Pike Road students. I think these kids are victims, that the wrong person brought them home from the hospital.”
Sometimes the call to serve comes in the middle of the night, as it did when 16-year-old Jaylan Saunders was killed by a spate of gunfire in the early hours of Jan. 24.
Austin, a member of Montgomery Police Department’s Good Shepherd program, was called to the scene.
“The detective told me, ‘Your pastor is here.’ And he was there through the whole thing. He never left my side,” said Bernadette Saunders, Jaylan’s mother. “And he still hasn’t left my side yet.”
Jaylan’s name has since become a cry of protest for a community weary of gun violence. But before that, he was a member of Austin’s church. He attended Valiant Cross and Common Ground. He was one of the kids on the bus.
"I knew him well, and to get the call that it was he that was killed just didn’t make any sense. Why would anybody kill him? And I thought at that point, 'Why did we allow this to happen?'" Austin said.
More good news:How a pastor improved his west side neighborhood one house at a time
Occasionally Austin has been known to chauffeur his cargo of kids through the drive-thru of the Day Street McDonald’s for an after-school treat.
If Bernadette Saunders was working that day and heard an order for 15 ice cream cones, she immediately recognized who it was. If he ordered an extra plain sundae, Saunders knew Jaylan was with him.
Since the loss of her son, Saunders said Austin has called her nearly every morning to check on her and pray with her. When she received $7,000 from the Crime Victims Compensation Commission for her son’s more-than-$8,000 funeral, Austin told her it would be taken care of.
“Pastor Austin is one of the greatest men I’ve ever met. And it’s not just me he does it for,” Saunders said.
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The week after the shooting, Austin organized more than 100 people to march from Common Ground to the house where Jaylan died.
The pastor walked arm-in-arm with Bernadette Saunders at the front of the procession. Behind them, chants of “No more gun violence!” rang through the winter air from a mix of Washington Park residents and city leaders, many of whom were there to support the pastor as much as the cause.
“Four weeks ago I was living on the streets, and that man changed my life,” said one marcher, who now receives the basic necessities from the Mercy House after someone told him to call Pastor Austin.
Jonathan Avant, president of the Downtown Business Association, stood in the cold watching Austin call for a communitywide rejection of violence.
In another life as an Air Force medical technician, Austin helped deliver a newborn Avant while working on the local base.
“This man literally brought me into this world with his hands,” Avant said. “He may be y’all’s Community Hero now, but he’s been doing work here for years.”
Keonte Davidson, a 14-year-old who knew Jaylan, readily admits that fights and bad behavior had him on the path to the local alternative school before Austin helped him enroll at Valiant Cross.
Keonte said his grades are improving now, his effort buoyed by Austin's reminders that an education can help him determine his own destiny.
“It makes me feel like I can do something with my life. Like I got somewhere to go,” Keonte said.
Almost two weeks later, Keonte is sleeping in his house on Oak Street when he hears a honking outside at 7:30 a.m. His brother Ke'Shawn opens the door in his pajamas and closes it.
Pastor Austin will be back in a few minutes.
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Austin sees education as the primary vehicle of change for Montgomery.
His church offers area students bonuses for good grades, $4 per A and $3 per B.
The morning bus rides are a literal push toward opportunity, but they also come with their own lessons.
“Close the door behind you,” Austin says to those who forget.
Translation: Leave things as you found them.
From the driver’s seat of the bus, Austin accomplishes what he can’t from the pulpit. He becomes the last voice each child hears before going to school and the first smile they see after.
In the eyes of every child who lacks a stable home life, Austin sees a reflection of his former self.
Austin, a Mobile native, found redemption and purpose as a 19-year-old when he drove his sister to South Carolina. A weekend trip turned into a five-year stay. There, a community of God-fearing men coaxed Austin away from “the wrong path,” and Austin met Thomasina. The two married. Austin joined the Air Force hoping to see the world. Instead, they were relocated to Montgomery.
“I know the influences of the streets are strong. I know the influences of peers are strong, and if there’s not another voice, another option, I feel strongly they would go that way. So I try to be the voice that guides them in a different direction,” Austin said.
Still, Austin never could have foreseen the man he would become. Even when he felt pulled to ministry, Austin questioned the calling.
“I didn’t know how to do it or if I wanted to do it. But I felt an urging in my heart. It was not something I wanted to do,” Austin said.
He has always had difficulty saying "No."
“He’s pretty much become the father in that community. People reach out whenever they have trouble. When they’re in those tender, difficult moments, he’s usually the one people call,” Thomasina Austin said. “He genuinely has the heart. He’s not in it for the money. This is actually who he is.”
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After the last child exits the bus — and pushes the doors closed — the pastor turns the wheel and accelerates away from downtown.
He has two more students to retrieve.
On the way, he stops outside an abandoned, white cinder block house, each window shuttered by plywood.
This used to be the Davidsons' home.
"This is where they used to live. It looked like a jungle inside, like something animals would live in," Austin said.
To help Keonte, Ke'Shawn and their mother, Austin started a pilot program last year that allowed them to move from the house the mother called "unsafe to stay in" and into one being rented by the church. The family is allowed to stay in the house for one year in the hope they find stable income and their own residence.
Austin started the program specifically for the family, and hopes to accumulate enough resources to expand the initiative, but as usual, his focus today is only on helping those within his reach, no matter how small.
He pulls in front of the Oak Street house for the second time that morning and honks. This time, two Valiant Cross students emerge in full uniform. Keonte follows his brother onto the bus.
"When we get out the van, he says 'I'm going to see you tomorrow now,'" Keonte said. "I say, 'OK, I'm going to see you tomorrow too.'"
News tips? Questions? Contact reporter Andrew Yawn at 334-240-0121 or ayawn@gannett.com.
Do you know a Community Hero?
To nominate someone for Community Heroes Montgomery, email communityheroes@gannett.com. Please specify which category you are nominating for and your contact information.
Community Heroes Montgomery
The 12-month Community Heroes Montgomery, sponsored by Beasley Allen Law Firm, will profile one person every month this year.
Every monthly winner will receive a travel voucher from the Montgomery Regional Airport and American Airlines, a staycation from Wind Creek, dinner at Itta Bena restaurant and a certificate of appreciation from Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange.
At the end of the 12 months, the Heroes will be recognized at a banquet, and a "Hero of 2019" will be honored.
The 12 categories the Montgomery Advertiser will focus on: educator, health, business leader, military, youth, law enforcement, fire/EMT, nonprofit/community service, religious leader, senior volunteer, entertainment (arts/music) and athletics (such as a coach).
