Pastor Henry Raven - Lead Pastor I was born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana January 17th, 1949, the middle of seven brothers. As a kid, I attended the very last wood framed elementary school building in Louisiana, before it’s demolishing. I graduated Booker T. Washington High School in 1967 and ventured to Fresno, Ca. to attend Fresno City College, being the first in my family to ever enter college. From city college, I joined the U. S. Army, completed a three year hitch and returned to Fresno, and city college, where I later married Jean Raven. We have shared forty -seven years together with six children, actually seven ( a niece, whom we raised) and eleven grandchildren. In 1998, I accepted God’s call and took a pastoral position with The Salvation Army, (served for two weeks in New York City, in October during 9-11) and in 2003, I was led to Oakdale, and the Free Methodist Church. I attended Pacific Rim Theological College, in San Bruno, Ca. (now defunct) graduated and was ordained in 2010, after seven years of study and working as a full time pastor. Other than pastoring, I drove truck for twenty-three years, thirteen of those years as an owner operator, and a railroad engineer with, then, Atchison Topeka Santa Fe Railroad. Jean and I have been in Oakdale for seventeen years. It has been our privilege and pleasure to serve here.