I grew up in a little village in northern Manitoba called Thicket Portage. There are no year-round roads into the community, but there is passenger service with the Hudson Bay Railway going up to Churchill. As a young boy, I would sit at the lake and look across into the sky, and I would wonder about this "God" that the minister was talking about.
When I was about 10 or 11 years old, I would go to church and the minister would get me to read the Scripture for him. There was a little box in the church that I would stand on to read. But I didn't understand what I was reading.
I had a Gideons' New Testament that I'd been given in school. I used to go out to the trap line with my uncle and aunt, and I remember bringing it with me. It was all I had to read while out on the trap line. I read verses in there like John 3:16, and others where the Lord spoke about salvation, but I didn't understand.
When I was very young I got real sick with the flu. I was delirious, and I remember looking under the bed and seeing people dressed in white. I learned later that I was possibly close to dying. That night I believe the Lord touched me. I fell asleep, and the next morning I was up and feeling well enough to play on the floor with my little car. The fever was gone!
That was probably the first time in my life that I had a close call with death. There would be more. I believe the Lord preserved me from dying each time because He had a purpose for my life. He wanted to use me.
I did learn more about the Lord as a youngster when I began going to "young people" meetings led by local missionaries. Most of the time, we would just fool around, though, as young boys do. In spite of that, we did learn how the Lord loved us and wanted us to be saved.
When I was in Grade 8, a new teacher came up to our community. Sitting on top of all the books that he brought with him to class was a black book, a Bible. He would read that to us every morning.
Through those daily readings, I learned what the Bible said-that all have sinned, that all far short. I knew that I was a sinner, and that "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life" (Romans 6:23). I realized that I couldn't save myself, and that Jesus was the only way (John 14:6).
By the end of the school year, the Lord opened my eyes to see that I could be saved. I asked this teacher how I could go about it, and he led me to the Lord. That is when I gave my life to Jesus.
During the summers, the teacher made it possible for me to go to a northern Manitoba community called Garden Hill for summer school. That is where I got my basic Bible training. Then I moved from Thicket Portage to attend high school in Niverville, a community in southern Manitoba, where I stayed with the teacher's parents.
There, I saw a culture that was different from my own, and I learned how to speak English well. At the beginning, it was like a culture shock, but I learned how to communicate with people, and I learned how to play sports. Even the clothes I wore were different. Instead of rubber boots and overalls all the time, I got to dress nice, and I got used to it.
After finishing high school, I returned home to Thicket Portage. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for me to get into wrong company, and I found myself going down. I'm sad to say that I wandered away from God, and that was the beginning of about four years of living back "in the world."
One time, there were several of us in a boat. We had gone to pick up alcohol at a certain location. We were on our way back to Thicket Portage, and we were drinking in the boat. Under the influence of alcohol, I couldn't sit still and was standing up. It didn't take much for me to fall into the water.
I tried to swim but was unable to keep my coordination because I was drunk. I started to sink.
I couldn't help myself, but one of my friends (I later learned) tried to reach down to grab me. He tried several times to reach me, but I was sinking. Then, he made one final attempt to grab me. His arm went down into the water as far as it could go, and he felt the top of my head. He grabbed my hair, pulled me up, and held on so that I wouldn't go under again.
As I look back now on those moments when my friend held me by the hair, I know it was the Lord holding me above water. The Lord was saying to me, "Fred, what are you going to do with your life now?"
God has His ways of bringing His children back to Himself. God spared me, and soon after this incident, I didn't feel like touching alcohol anymore. I didn't feel like doing the things I was doing anymore.
I told my friends that I was planning to leave Thicket Portage to get away from that kind of life. But as soon as I said that, I noticed that even the guys who didn't like me-even guys that I had fought with-all of a sudden, they wanted me in their company. They invited me to their parties, handing me bottles to drink. But I said, "No, I've made up my mind." I left my community.
I arrived in The Pas, Manitoba, where I got a job as an instructor in the community college. That's where I met Charlotte, who was one of my students in the math and science classes I taught.
She wasn't a believer, and I gave her gospel tracts explaining how to be born again. She soon began to understand that she needed a personal relationship with the Lord. I also introduced her to the missionaries I had gotten to know working around The Pas.
Charlotte later said that she knew from the start that I was different from the other guys because I didn't smoke or drink. She had grown up with alcohol abuse and had seen enough of those things.
We started going together, then I proposed to her. She accepted, and in three months we were married! My old buddies said, "Fred, we'll give you six months- that's as long as your marriage will last." But it's been 35 years now [at time of interview]. I think the difference is the Lord-the Lord straightening out my life, and the Lord coming into our lives and changing us.
In Thicket Portage they told me, "Fred, you're nothing but a drunk and bum. You'll never even have a good job. But I think of the Bible story of the donkey tied up to a post. The disciples were to tell the donkey's owner that Jesus wanted to use it. I was like that donkey-tied up, no good for nothing, lazy, stupid and I liked to buck. But through the ministry of my Grade 8 teacher, through restoration from being drowned in that water, the Lord raised me up!
After we got married, I worked at the old folks home as an orderly and Charlotte worked in the kitchen, before we had children. We started talking about going to Bible school. We thought it would be a good thing because we both wanted to learn more about the Lord and His Word. We attended Key-Way-Tin Bible Institute at Lac Lac Biche, Alberta, for three years. That's where I received my training for ministry, and it was a big blessing to learn the Bible there.
We joined Continental Mission immediately after graduation, moving to Thompson, Manitoba. We were there for seven years, pastoring, and also visiting outlying communities such as Nelson House and Split Lake. We then moved to live in Swan River, serving in itinerant evangelism, preaching in Native communities. Besides travelling, we began a radio ministry, preaching in Cree and English.
I also wrote articles for the Muskeg Moccasingraph, a paper produced by Continental Mission. We also posted articles on a web site, geared more for young people. The youth emailed us with their problems and asked for prayer.
As I look over my life, I know I had some close calls with death as a young person. I guess the Lord preserved me from dying because He had a purpose to use my life. I thank the Lord that He saved me at a young age.
There were struggles along the way, but I'm glad to be serving Him. Preaching on the radio gets God's Word into many reserves. People have given their lives to the Lord through it, and we get invitations to visit those places for special meetings. I was also able to work with Bible translators to record the entire New Testament in audio form, so that Cree speakers who are unable to read the text themselves can hear it being read in their own language. y
Fred passed away a few years ago, survived by Charlotte and their five children. This article is adapted from one of several Tribal Trails interviews with Fred over the years, and his radio interview with WithoutReservation.org. You can also listen to this testimony on https://withoutreservation.com/fred-evans-cree-2/.
