In this story, my prayer is that it will Touch the Lives and Hearts of everyone that reads it, especially the one’s that are having problems now in life.

I will try to show you the purpose and the plan that God had in my life. Also God has a purpose and a plan for everyone.

I want to give thanks to my wife Dorothy and my daughter Brenda and her husband Tim and my second daughter Tina, for all the support, that they have given me, and the encouragement to write my testimony. Also thanks to a friend on the Internet which I have never met (Willow). She has helped me with getting my web site set up.

Fred’s side of Life: What I use to be: .

When I was about 5 years old, I noticed that when I talked, people would always ask me to repeat what I said. I didn’t know I had a speech problem, to me, my speech sounded as if I was talking as normal as all the other people.I began to realize, that I couldn’t talk plain. It really bothered me, especially when some of the kids started to laugh and mock me. Then I would get mad and start fighting them.

That’s where my problem began, because I didn’t like what the kids were doing.(Let me insert that all kids weren’t that way. Not all of them would laugh). But I began to draw away from all of them because I didn’t want to talk.

As I went through my school years, life for me was not good. Let me say that my older brother Herman would always be there if I needed him. Many times Herman had got into trouble because of me. It did not matter who they were, if he saw anyone mocking or making fun of the way that I talked, he would walk up to them and just kick their rear-ends, or hit them right between the eyes. (It’s a wonder that we both didn’t end up in prison).(**My Brother,Herman was killed in an accident, August of 1999**)

I had gone from the 1st grade through the 10th grade of school, in Cash, Arkansas. It was really a good school, they believed in teaching and discipline. Sometimes I think that I was in the principles office more that I was in class (LOL - that means I’m laughing out loud). Ha ha Herman was.

At the age of 14, my life turned for the worst. My dad bought a black and white TV. I was watching a TV evangelist and he made a statement, “If you would write a letter to me and let me know what your needs are I will pray and God will heal you.” So I wrote a letter explaining my problems to him (I was only 14 years old and television was something new to us). At that time, they may have recorded the programs in advance, but I didn’t know that then. I gave the letter time to reach him ( I thought). The following Sunday, I asked my mother if I could go home after Sunday school. I wanted to be there when the Evangelist read my letter. It was hard to get my mom to understand what I was trying to say, and finally she said just go on. I left the church that day and ran home.

We went to church at the Assembly of God, in Egypt, Arkansas, about 3 miles from where we lived. As I ran home, my thoughts were, when that preacher reads my letter I’m going to be healed. I was crying at that time, thinking when my mom & dad, brothers & sisters get home they will understand me when I talk to them (I was so excited about that). As I watched the program that Sunday, there wasn’t anything said about any letter, he only spoke of sending money, or he would have to leave the air when his program was over. I looked up toward the ceiling of our house and began to curse and I said, I don’t believe that there is a God in Heaven. That was a big mistake. I don’t think I will ever forget the feeling that came over me at that very moment. I felt like I was in a world all by myself.

From that moment, until I was 23 years old, I had hate in my heart. I had feelings for no one. I didn’t want anything to do with anyone.

Our family moved from Arkansas, to Riverdale, California in 1959. A new school and new people, but the same problems. When I started to school at Riverdale High School I was in the 11th grade. I was 16 years old at that time. My brother-in-law, at the time, Neil Goad, began to talk to my mom and dad about getting some help for me. They finally agreed to take me to a doctor. Mom and Dad thought I was tongue-tied but come to find out, I had just never learned to make my sounds.

That same year, a speech therapist from Fresno, California, came to Riverdale High School and began working with me, teaching me how to talk. Never, will I forget, the “Little Blue Back Book” she gave me. In it was a list of words that I had to learn to say, like mother, father, sister, brother, dog, cat, Jack and Jill went up the hill to get a pail of water.

We lived in town, so I would walk to and from school. Some of the kids would call me names and say, “Look at Fred, he never did learn how to read, so he has to take that little book home with him to learn how to read now Ha Ha”. Sometimes I would stay up almost all night learning those words.

My brother-in-law Neil and my sister Shirley, would help me learn them. They were a great help to me at that time. My younger brother Milton was aways there to help any way he could , he listened to me practice saying the words on the way to school.

The speech therapist would come to the school every week. One day, she told me that she was going to record my speech and asked for my permission to do so. I said yes. I began to say the words that were assigned to me with the recorder running for just a few minutes. Then she turned the recorder off and played it back. That was the first time I had ever heard myself. I didn’t even understand what I had said, it sounded awful. I started to cry and just got up and ran home. The speech therapist came to my house and told Mom and I,that she was sorry for hurting me. She never recorded after that.

When I was in the 12th grade I was introduced to alcohol. I was told it would make me feel good. I would find a way to get something to drink. I was still in a shell, like a world all by myself and I didn’t want people around me.

After graduation, I went to Bakersfield, California, and moved in with my oldest sister Marie and her first husband Herman Metheny. I moved in June of 1961 and Herman was killed in November 1961. During that time I didn’t drink. Herman was a Church of God Minister.

I even went to church with them at the Shafter Church of God. After Herman’s death, I stayed in the Bakersfield, Shafter area. That is where I met Dorothy, at the Shafter Church of God. We were married on June 22, 1962.

By that time my speech was a little better. I could cuss better and was starting to drink again. I started to drink more and more so that I could laugh and joke. Smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, plus cigars and chewing tobacco and still drinking every day. I went five years like this.

I began carrying a sawed off gun in my car, just daring anyone to laugh at me. Thank God I never used it. I sold the gun for $5.00 and bought beer (the man that bought the gun helped me drink the beer and went home).

That Saturday night before Thanksgiving, I was so drunk that I couldn’t see the movie at the drive-in-theatre. Then, on November 26, 1967, my life changed again. I was rushed to the Emergency Room with a ruptured ulcer. I went into surgery and had two-thirds of my stomach removed. The doctor told my wife if she had been thirty minutes later getting me to the hospital, I would have died.

Some of the people from the church would ask if they could pray for me. I told them they could pray all they wanted to but don’t ask me to pray with them; God and I were not on speaking terms.

God still had a purpose and a plan for my life, even with the hate that I had. While I was in the hospital, I quit smoking, drinking and chewing all of that I had no desire to do any more. (God had delivered me from that and I didn't even realized it.) Let me insert here, " even when you don't see the hand of God at the time you think you should, doesn't mean that He isn't there."

November 1967 through January 1968 I was off work. The week after I started back to work something began to happen. I was working on a farm between Shafter and Wasco. That Saturday morning I was wanting to see my other brother-in-law, Harold Metheny. He married my baby sister Barbara. Harold had the same problem , he could not talk plain either (which he later outgrew). We grew up together as brothers. His mother once told us to be quiet, God had not given her the interpretation of tongues. That is how close we were as boys. He only smoked one cigar, which I gave him. Boy, was he sick, I thought he was going to die.

God called Harold into the ministry and I had hate in my heart towards him because of what he had become.

Back to the field, on that Saturday morning I just wanted to see him. Dorothy, the girls and I, lived on the farm, in one of the farmhouses. I could see the house from where I was working. I could see a car parked in front of the house but could not tell what kind of car it was. When I got off at noon, I went home and Harold, Barb, and my Mom and Dad were at our house. I was so happy to see them. Harold asked me to go to church with them on Sunday morning. Without even thinking, I said yes. He never mentioned church again that day.

That was a Sunday morning, I will never forget. I did not get saved, but I got a hook in my jaw. There was no Sunday school that morning. The Holy Spirit was moving so mightily, people began to go to the alter and pray. Harold came back to where I was sitting and asked me if I would like to go and pray. I said no. Then he asked if I would kneel and pray. I said no. He asked if I would just ask Jesus to come into my heart. I said no. As he turned away, I felt that my best friend had walked away from me.

That afternoon, we were having lunch at my house. Harold said “I am very disappointed. God told me if I came to visit you, you would get saved.” Well, that made me mad. I told him “ You have no right to be disappointed in me, if you are going to be disappointed, be disappointed in God”. Shortly after that, they went home.

The Church was in a six-week revival at that time (Dorothy was saved and filled with the Holy Ghost that morning). That Sunday evening nothing was said about going to church. Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,nothing was mentioned about church. On Thursday afternoon about 4:00 P.M., I was running a D-4 caterpillar tractor, I heard a voice that called my name. Fred, Fred. I looked around and saw no one. It was then that I realized who He was. I started to cry because I had never heard a voice with so much authority and love, and He was speaking my name. Like Paul in the Bible, I said “What is it Lord?” I will never forget these words. He said, “Remember Sunday morning?’ I said, “Yes”, He said, “When your brother-in-law came back to you, you wanted to come to the altar and pray, but your legs wouldn’t move. Then he asked if you would like to kneel down and pray, you wanted to but you couldn’t bend your knees. He asked you to just ask Jesus into your heart, you wanted to but you had no voice. Satan had you frozen and you couldn’t do anything. I saw that he was going to freeze your heart, so I put my hands around it. I am now removing my hands. It is your choice”. God be my witness, I felt the hands of God as he removed them.

I asked the Lord then, if He would allow me to go back to church , I would give my life to him. I believe that, I could of got saved there in the field, but I wanted to be there in church where the people knew my life and could see what God had done.

The rest of the day was great. Remember Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nothing had been said about church. That evening when I walked through the front door of our house, my two daughters Brenda and Tina, were standing there, all dressed up. They looked like two little angels. They asked “Daddy, will you go to church tonight?” I said “Sure I will” That night of church changed my life

My family and I went to church that night, the service was great. All I thought about was when they give the altar call, I was going down and give my heart to the Lord. The minister begins to call people out and praying for them . My oldest daughter Brenda, which was about 4 years old at that time wanted a drink of water. The drinking fountain was on the out side of the church. I had taking her out to get a drink.

When I started back in the church, the devil spoke to me. " You don't have to keep your promise to God, He has let you down again. The preacher isn't a man of God, he didn't give the altar call, he’s just calling people out and praying for them." I told the Devil, that I was going in anyway. " He said, if you do the preacher will call you out also." I told him I was going anyway.

Sure enough, the preacher. Said the man with the red coat on, 'God sees your heart" will you come up and let me pray for you. ( I felt that was my personal invitation to the altar.) As I stood there. the minister told me that his prayer would not saved me, and he wanting to pray that it would be easy for me, when I asked the Lord to save me. ( What a night ) . On the way home, I stop at a pay phone and called my mother ( collect ) . "Mom guess what, she said I don't have to guess. I know what happen, you got saved tonight." Her prayer was answer. Harold's prayer was answer. Barbara's prayer was answer. My wife Dorothy her prayer was answer, My mother-in-law's prayer was answer. And God only knew how many more prayer was answer, when old Fred Whited gave his heart to the Lord.(** My mother died July 18th, 1972 **)

The next day , while I was working, I felt so good. I felt clean on the inside felt like a heavy load had been taking away from me. All the hate was removed, then I had good thoughts in my mind, instead of them dirty things that I had before.

The Devil ( my x-master ) didn't want to let me go, he asked if I was going to church that night. I told him that I was. " He said if you go, the preacher will ask you to testify on what God has done for you, and you aren't saved."

That night during service I was just setting there hoping that the preacher ( Rev. Gene Freeman ) wouldn't ask me to testify, and he didn't, but he preach on "unbelief", after he had finished, he said the man with the red coat on, you have unbelief. He started telling me what had happen that day out in the field,It was like he was reading my mind, he told me the whole conversation that I had that day with the devil. After that night the devil could never make me doubt anymore that I wasn't save. That was on a Friday night.

That was February, 1968. In July of the same year, I was filled with the Holy Ghost. Dr. T.L.Lowery, was the night speaker at the Bakersfield,CA Campmeeting. In August I was called in to the ministry. I had preach 12 times from Aug. 1968 to April of 1969.

Right after I started my ministry, Neil was killed. He was a great help to me.

April 1969, I began pastoring my first church. Here it is June 1999 and still pastoring.

God had a plan and purpose for my life. Here are some of the things in His plan.
At age eleven, I asked my Dad to buy me a set of carpenter books for $4.00 and he did. Twenty years later, I used the books to build the Mt. Zion Church of God in Oklahoma.

At age sixteen, my sister Barbara received a little white Bible for attending Sunday school for four weeks. I talked her out of it. She didn’t know that the Bible would become a part of my life. The Bible is forty years old and I still have it.

YEAR..........MILESTONE

February 1968...Saved

July 1968...Filled with the Holy Ghost

August 1968...Called to Preach...My First Sermon

April 1969-1971...Pastor-- Richgrove,California...My First Church

1971-1974...Pastor-- Shafter, California.... District Youth Dir....Shafter Church Of God

1974-1976...Pastor-- Mt.Zion, Oklahoma...District Youth Dir....Mt. Zion Church Of God

1976-1977Pastor-- Goshen, California...Goshen Church Of God

1977-1978...Pastor-- Selma, California...Selma Church Of God

1979-1999...Pastor-- McFarland, California...McFarland Church Of God

Jan.- June 1999... District Overseer of this district.

Dorothy & I have just been voted in at the Rogers Lane Church of God in Lawton, Oklahoma. We will start there in July 1999. My brother-in-law and sister, yes, Rev. Harold and Barbara Metheny will be our District Overseer. God help them!



Click here to view the Rogers Lane Church Of God web site

My kids and grandkids wish me the best of luck. They love me very much and are very proud of me. They think it’s MY turn for good things. After all, what goes around, comes around. .(Dad, you can delete this part if you want, I just had to let you know how I feel.)

I hope my life story will help and maybe be a blessing to you.

GOD BLESS YOU.




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