As a young child, David W. Houck’s middle-class parents had decent jobs that provided for the family. Then Houck’s father seriously injured his back on the job, underwent an unsuccessful surgery that paralyzed him, and could no longer work.

Practically overnight, the family ended up living hand to mouth in a trailer amid Florida’s massive Ocala National Forest. Houck’s father didn’t qualify for worker compensation, and pride kept him from seeking government assistance.

The family sank into abject poverty, subsisting on what they grew in the garden, hunted in the woods, and fished from the swamp. Houck learned to eat virtually anything that flew, crawled, or swam, including alligator.

Houck wore tattered clothes and hand-me-down shoes. Bowl haircuts and a short, pudgy frame added to his humiliation at school, where classmates bullied him.

However, Houck grew six inches his eighth-grade year and started fighting back. During high school, he was expelled twice. At 17, Houck fled to California to escape the environment he felt ensnared him.

Houck says after the move, the Lord spoke to him in an audible voice about getting his life right, returning to Florida, and helping people with similar backgrounds.

“I wasn’t even totally serving God yet, but He gave me a strong vision of all that I’m doing now,” says Houck, 51.

Kids from the forest routinely drop out of school in eighth grade. By that time, some girls have given birth, continuing a long-established poverty cycle.

The detailed assignment included starting a food bank. At the time, Houck didn’t even know such an entity existed.

“We ate out of the yard and canal,” he recalls.

Three decades ago, Houck started what has become Help Agency of the Forest. The nonprofit ministry includes SoZo Kids, a sponsorship program that helps children receive free food; Turning Point Mentor Centers, an afterschool and summer program assisting students with education and life skills; and Camp SoZo, a 72-acre plot where kids and teens can enjoy a reprieve from the impoverished and stressful circumstances of home.

There is also a food bank that serves 7,500 people monthly.

Houck grew up attending Forest Assembly of God in Silver Springs, Florida. His parents were faithful attenders and active volunteers, doing everything from mowing the grass to cleaning the toilets.

Returning to the church as a youth pastor, Houck received mentoring from AG minister Bruce Gunn, who encouraged him, prayed for him, and helped him pursue ministerial credentials through Global University.

Since 2010, Houck has been a fully appointed Assemblies of God U.S. missionary with Intercultural Ministries, serving the impoverished population of Ocala National Forest.

The nation’s second-largest forest at 430,000 acres, Ocala contains private land where 45,000 people live. Squatters in some shacks have no electricity or running water. Whiskey stills and methamphetamine labs operate in remote areas.

In 2011, Houck started Salt Life Church (AG) in Fort McCoy, Florida. Since 2021, the congregation has gathered in a renovated honky-tonk, aided financially by Church of the Heights (AG) in Palatka, Florida.

Prostitutes, drug addicts, and the unemployed and homeless frequent the church. In the early days, the offering box was stolen a few times. During his tenure as pastor, Houck has officiated 790 funerals.

Houck and his wife of 31 years, Tammy, have raised four biological children, adopted eight kids who came out of households in crisis, and fostered many more. Ten of their 12 children are college graduates.

“There aren’t any gated communities in heaven.” — David W. Houck

Kids from the forest routinely drop out of school in eighth grade. By that time, some girls have given birth, continuing a long-established poverty cycle.

Houck believes there are two keys to overcoming the despair gripping many forest residents: educational or vocational training and mindset reeducation. The latter involves showing kids a world beyond their current environment.

That might start as simply going to a sit-down restaurant — not necessarily a fancy one. Many locals have never been a part of mainstream society, so Houck tries to persuade them to take a missions trip that exposes them to a different culture.

Help Agency of the Forest has two full-time and two part-time mentoring centers, staffed largely by volunteers recruited from The Villages, a sprawling retirement community some 40 miles to the south. In addition to educational training, mentors help youth feeling trapped in hopelessness make better life decisions.

Individuals, churches, corporate sponsors, and a lawn care business Houck has operated for three decades support Help Agency, which has an annual budget approaching $1 million. In conjunction with other ministries, over the years Help Agency has operated a restaurant, culinary prep school, and dental clinic.

The ministry regularly distributes free underwear, socks, shoes, backpacks and haircuts to schoolchildren.

“We try to make sure these kids live as normal as they possibly can in their situations,” Houck says.

Amanda Sellers, now 36, says the ministry helped change her life.

“Pastor Dave is the key person who taught me about life,” Sellers says. “He taught me life skills, a work ethic, and compassion toward other people.”

At Houck’s encouragement, Sellers pursued an education, earning a master’s degree in human services and becoming a foster care social worker.

Now married with four children, two of them adopted, Sellers serves Help Agency in an administrative role from her South Carolina home.

“If we can speak Jesus into the lives of these vulnerable kids who have no choice in the kind of life they’re in, we can give them hope,” Sellers says. “We can influence them and instill confidence in them, so they know there is more to life than generational poverty.”

“No one — whether a drug addict, prostitute or criminal — wants to perish. No matter who they are, they are looking for hope.” — David W. Houck

Outside of his other work, Houck sometimes volunteers repairing roofs, floors and wells. This past summer, he renovated the dilapidated bathroom of a family that had been without a functioning shower for three years.

Houck, who stands 6 feet, 3 inches tall and weighs 250 pounds, occasionally wonders why he persists in such a difficult place, where he sometimes has to break up dangerous fights. He knows he could make a better living doing construction or operating heavy equipment. In fact, many of the young people Houck has mentored earn more than he does.

Then Houck remembers his calling and mission. He also wants to inspire others to reach out to overlooked, poor, and marginalized people in their communities.

“There aren’t any gated communities in heaven,” Houck says.

His driving passion remains representing the gospel to everyone he meets.

“They all have the breath of God in them,” Houck says. “No one — whether a drug addict, prostitute or criminal — wants to perish. No matter who they are, they are looking for hope.”

Despite living in a small cabin on leased government land, Houck doesn’t begrudge his circumstances.

“The roof doesn’t leak and the toilets flush,” Houck says. “I know what poverty looks like, and this isn’t it.”

This profile appears in the winter 2024 issue of Influence magazine.