KING

Bill Wilson was homeless as a child.

TACOMA - Standing in a church in front of hundreds of people and preaching is one of the last places 58-year-old Bill Wilson ever thought he would be.

"Because they look at me and say that guy is just ordinary … yes I am, yes I am," he said.

That's because Wilson never expected to be alive. When he was 12 years old his mother abandoned him on a street corner. He sat there for three days until a stranger helped him.

"He got out of his truck and he said 'Are you OK?' and I remember trying to say no and I just started crying," he said.

That was a turning point for Wilson, seeing an ordinary man helping a kid in need.

Now Wilson does the same. He established the Metro Ministries in one of the worst neighborhoods in New York City. Some 20,000 children a week are helped by him and his volunteers. Over the years he's been robbed, stabbed, even shot in the face.