Friends, If you have not accepted the Lovely Lord Jesus into your life, please do so for remember, HELL ONLY HAS A ONE WAY DOOR. And when you enter, there is NO EXIT!!!!!!!

I was born August 15, 1942 to William Walter Whatley and Myrtis Gertrude Bowen Whatley, and was the only surviving child of my parents, they having lost triplet boys a year-and-a-half earlier.

At the time I was born, my parents lived in a small cabin much like the one below.

In 1944, my parents divorced, with both remarrying.

I grew up in extreme poverty in Smith county, Mississippi.

With very little to eat, and sneaking biscuits filled with either salt or sugar, I quickly became very ill.

I will here insert this story in my own words:

As a young child about five or six years of age, I was not allowed to have food between meals. But getting hungry as all small children do, I would slip into the kitchen and steal biscuits and fill them with either salt or sugar as these were the only two commodities which I could get ahold of that didn't seem to be missed, run out behind the barn and eat them. I had three choices in this matter and that was do it this way or do without or pay the consequences which I didn't like paying.

As a result of this, I became very ill, and began to swell up and continued to do so till I was quite large. At last Dad saw something was wrong with me and carried me to the Doctor which immediately sent me to the hospital several miles from where we lived at the time. Here it was discovered that I had a very large mixture of both salt and sugar in my system.

I kept going from bad to worse till I became unconscious and they didn't know just what to do with me. As I continued to get worse, the doctor finally gave me up as having no hope. Therefore they wanted some family member with me at all times. Dad would stay with me as much as possible but having to work, he was unable to stay all the time. His wife, who was my stepmother, had a small child at home so was unable to stay with me. My mother, who lived several miles could only get to me on the weekends, so Dad finally got his oldest sister, Aunt Susie Craft, to come stay with me. It was during this time that the thing happened which I would like to share with you. By this time all hope that I should recover was gone and I think that is the real reason Dad wanted Aunt Susie to stay with me as he didn't want to see me die. At any rate, while she was there, a strange thing happened. I was in a ward with several other children but due to my condition, they had me in a corner by my self. All at once one day a man came walking into the room. He never stopped to look around, but made a beeline to my bed. At this time he never spoke to my Aunt but just knelt down and began to pray. After he had prayed, he rose up, looked at my Aunt and said, "Sister, he'll not die, but live, for God has a work for him to do when he gets older" and walked out. Years later it was discovered that this man was a Minister who was with a Church Group that at that time did not believe that the healing power of our God was for this time. He had gone against his Church and his own belief to do what he did as he said there was some force driving him. I never meet the man in this life but have hope of meeting him in the After Life. So, Friends, today I am doing all that I can to fulfill the words that was spoken by that man, under what I truly believe was the inspiration of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I continued to help on the family farm, sometimes earning barely enough to feed the family, sometimes having to eat the horses corn to survive.

At the age of 15, I ran away from the cruel, abusive life I had. I went to Moss Point, Mississippi where my mother lived with her husband and young son and daughter which was my half-brother and sister. I had hopes that here I would be able to live as other young children my age. It soon became clear that this was not to be as my step-dad was just as bad as my stepmother had been.

While living with mother, I went to work on different jobs and didn't seem to be able to hold a job as first one thing and then another happened. One time I got sick for several days and upon returning to work found that I no longer had a job. Other times my step-dad got ahold of the people and told them that I was a thief so they fired me.

I finally went to work at a junkyard taking parts off cars for the man when something happened and, once again, I was without a job. Knowing I was going to get in trouble again over losing my job, once again I ran away from home.

For three of four years, I roamed around the country, finding odd jobs where I could. During this time I slept many times in the back seat of cars in used cars lots and many times the only sleep I would get for days on end was sleeping while riding with those who were nice enough to give me rides.

Often I have lain down beside the highway and went to sleep until someone driving by would see me and stop to check on me. Sometimes I was given a ride, sometimes I was cursed out and left standing beside the road, other times I was taken into a home for the night.

During this time I saw much of this country and met some really wonderful people. Many times Christian people would pick me up and we would talk about the Bible. I have been told many times that I must have had a very godly family to know the Bible as I did. (I always told people that my family was dead as I didn't want to get in trouble and be sent back home.) I had never had any Bible training, as my family never went to church. I only remember being in church 2 or 3 times in my 15 years of life. I can't tell you how I was able to speak as well as I did on the Precious Word of our God, but it just seems to be part of me.

At the age of about 17, I was in Los Angels, California, when I got picked up by the Law for not having a place to live. I was put into something like a "Boy's Home" while they check out who I was and where I was from and prepared to send me back home.

I was in this "Boy's Home" at the same time as Lana Turner's daughter, Cheryl Craine was in the "Girl's Home" for killing her mother's boy friend. There was a fence between the two parts of the Home. I never saw the girl but knew that she was there.

It was during this time while waiting to be sent home that I met at two men who were Christians, they came to the home to speak to us about our Lord. At least one of them had been on a ship when it sunk and he told of having been in the water while sharks were swimming about and taking some of his buddies down. This made an impression on me that I have never gotten over.

When California finally sent me home, I first jumped off the train in Houston, Texas where I had an aunt living as I still didn't want to return home. However she finally persuaded me to return home which I did.

When I got home Dad was in the field plowing so I got me a mule to help him out as I wanted to show him that I did want to live in peace. While plowing the old mule made me real mad so I yanked her back over the plow handles. I thought, "Boy, I have done it now". I just knew that Dad was going to beat the fire out of me, but much to my surprise he didn't. Instead he began to cry. I didn't know what to make of that so I left the field and went home.

That night I heard something I had never heard but one time before in my life and that was I heard Dad praying. (The only other time I had ever heard him pray was when he was sick and had went down into the woods and I was told by my stepmother to follow him. He was praying that he could die.) At any rate while Dad was praying that night, Something (I now know it was our Savior) got ahold of me and before I knew it I was on the floor trying to pray. I didn't know how to pray so I would listen to what Dad said and then repeat it. This was not a Church night but Dad asks if I wanted to go to the church and I said, "Yes". We started out and he asked if I wanted to stop a pick up a first cousin that was a Minister that I hated. Again I said, "Yes". We stopped but this boy was not at home.

While Dad was talking to his sister, I looked out the car window and saw another sister of Dad's that I also hated. But at this time Something was happening to me. Instead of me hating her, I somehow loved her and jumped out of the car and threw my arms around her. At that, I began to what was always called "Shouting" which is what is called today "dancing in the Spirit". I had no desire to dance but was unable to stop.

Leaving there we went on to the church and went inside after getting the key from the man next door to the church. He also went in with us and we began to pray, or at least they did. I tried. While we were praying several other people began to come in to see what was going on. After while this cousin came in and we had a time making things right between us. This was a small "Holiness Church" where my Dad was going. Everyone kelp telling me what to do to get "Right" with God. I kept trying but just didn't seem to be able to get through. Frankly, I didn't know what to do to get "right". We had been there for 3 or 4 hours and I was about ready to give it up. I was sitting on the Altar with one of the Elder Brothers when he looked at me and said, "Brother, have you give up everything to the Lord? Can you think of anything?" As I sat there I thought of the socks that I was then wearing. I said, "Brother, I stole these socks' and I pulled them off. Now I can only tell you what happened to me. The next thing I know I was dancing back and forth across the front on the church. I had my eyes closed and all at once it seems that everything went totally dark, much darker than just having my eyes closed. It scared me so much that I opened my eyes for a moment and then reclosed them and began to speak in a language that I had never spoken in before. They said that this was the "Receiving the Holy Spirit".

I had often told people that the reason I didn't go to church was that I knew I would have to Preach if I did. Sure enough not long afterward I felt the need to "Preach" and not long afterward, I did.

At the age of 18, I joined the army and was stationed in Korea. There I was employed in de-mining landmines after the war.

During my army years I got away from the service of our Lord and went back to a life of sin. This went on till after I got out of the army and for sometimes after this.

Finally, the Lord got a hold of me and turned my heart around. Although I was to slip and slide as all do, still God had a firm grip on my life.

In November, 1966, I met my future wife~a little waif of a girl named Eileen Lavina Poindexter.

This is the way I like to tell the story of our meeting and engagement.

"I was walking down the street in Memphis, Tennessee minding my own business when this little lady points a gun in my back...'Marry me or die!' she said."

"Lady," I said, "I don't want to die, so I will marry you."

Now, this is what really happened. (...And you may not believe this either, but it is true.)

I was working at a factory in Memphis. Some of the ladies discovered that I was not married and set about to get me married.

One of the ladies went to the same church that this little lady, Eileen, went to. She gave me Eileen's phone number and address. I called and set up a time to meet Eileen.

When I came to her house, she opened the door and I looked over her shoulder wondering where Eileen was. "At that moment, Something said, "There's your wife." We were engaged within two weeks.

We eloped January 27, 1967 to Mobile, Alabama where we were married February 1, 1967. The reason we eloped is because Eileen's mother did not approve of the marriage.

We traveled around the country, preaching, sometimes settling down for short periods of time.

In 1971, when our third child was on the way, we settled in New Haven, Connecticut.

We joined a little church and stayed there until August 1973 when the pastor was killed.

We once again traveled around the country, settling here and there until 1982 when God brought us to Wyoming where we have settled for good.

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Rev. Whatley