Amazing Greats
Interviews with well known actors, authors, artists, athletes, musicians, and business leaders. Authentic conversations about their lives, careers, and how their faith played an important part. Inspiring and uplifting stories of hope, transformation, and triumph. We dig deep for the powerful life stories from some very amazing guests...truly "souls on fire".
Amazing Greats
“When God Says ‘Go’: The Miracle Story Behind Invisible Angels”
What happens when a commercial airline pilot hears God’s call to take flight on a mission bigger than himself? Ted Greenfield went from teacher, TV producer, and FAA employee to the founder of Invisible Angels—a nonprofit airline that provides free transportation to survivors of human trafficking. His journey is filled with unexpected turns, divine provision, and miracles that only God could orchestrate.
In this episode of Amazing Greats, Ted shares how a Bible study opened his eyes to the hidden reality of trafficking in America, how a prophetic prayer and a donated airplane set his mission in motion, and why “do nothing” became one of the most important lessons of his life. With stories of heartbreak, redemption, and God’s unmistakable fingerprints, Ted’s testimony is proof that when you surrender your plans, God can use your skills—and even your struggles—to save lives and shine His light.
"Amazing Greats" is a library of interviews with highly successful people who have amazing career and life stories and who share how God has impacted their journey. Hosted by broadcaster Ric Hansen & produced by Klem Daniels. Available on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, Google and our YouTube Channel.
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SPEAKER_00:Hi there, this is Rick Hansen on Amazing Greats with our guest, Ted Greenfield, commercial airline pilot and invisible angel.
SPEAKER_01:From the heart to the mic, on the field, on the stage, faith in a step as they turn the next page. Athletes, actors, musicians, authors, and more sparking the flame, lifting up Jesus unashamed of his name. Life stories of struggle, redemption, and grace. Victories rising from a broken place. Legends of life with a purpose to show how God shows up when you let him flow. I'm rising great, shining bright Living the faith in the spotlight Heart's on fire, now let it go Turn it up
SPEAKER_03:We are
SPEAKER_00:talking today with Ted Greenfield, who, Ted, this is just a great opportunity to deep dive into who you are and what you do. But for our listeners who probably are not particularly aware, I'm going to tell you a you come from in this place in your life from a variety of skills that you've developed over the years, including, as I understand, you were a special education teacher. You were an improv comedian. You were a television producer at one point. You worked with the FAA in multimedia, had your own safety and training course online. And that all brings you to who you are today. And God had a way of weaving all of those little gifts together to come up with what we're doing today. So it's Invisible Angels is what we're talking about today. And that is the crux of the whole thing. Plus, we want to talk about your book as well. God is in this fight. But let's first of all, tell me what is, tell our listeners, what is Invisible Angels?
SPEAKER_03:Invisible, first, it's great to be here. And thanks for having me. Invisible Angels is is a direct air carrier that provides air transportation for human trafficking survivors. And we work with law enforcement and rescue organizations across the country, pretty much mainly in the Southeast though. So what the typical scenario is, is that when we get a call from a rescue organization or law enforcement where a human trafficking survivor needs to be transported from A to B, whether that's to medical help or whether that's to a safe house or whether that's for family reunification, Or even we were talking with Homeland Security just recently scheduling a trip for a survivor to make a victim impact statement at her trafficker sentencing, which is very important. So we provide air transportation completely for free to human traffickers, human trafficking survivors, excuse me. And we work with rescue organizations and we always travel with a victim advocate. And that's the short story of what we do.
SPEAKER_00:And when you started... You knew almost nothing about what the impact of what sex traffic and traffic in general was all about. I knew less
SPEAKER_03:than nothing. And it's really one of those stories where, you know, as every Christian, we all have one question, whether we're brand new in the faith, we're in the middle of our middle age, we'll call it, or kind of, you know, we're further down the road. What is God's will for my life? And that's every single quick and that comes and goes in seasons you know and it changes um so i back in 2018 i was in a bible study uh up in maryland where i was living at the time and um i was working at the fa and i was a pilot at the time and this woman comes to talk to our bible study about human trafficking in the baltimore and washington dc area now i knew human trafficking was a thing in cambodia and vietnam and you know and and other places but i had no i didn't think think it was happening here, you know, to Americans. I had no idea. So the woman comes in and very nice, you know, speaks to us. There's about 10, 12 of us in the room and she starts her presentation and I'm sitting there and I'm like, she's got to be making this up. And the crazy thought ran through my mind. We have Home Depot here. This can't be happening. I mean, we have, you know, it was just kind of like, you know, we have, I've lived overseas. I've lived in West Africa, lived in the Dominican Republic, lived in, you know, lived in in Southern Asia and Europe as well. And we have such a high standard of living here. I thought human trafficking can't be happening here. And after about 10 minutes, I wasn't believing her. And then she had said something. I'm like, oh my gosh, she's telling the truth. I remember sitting there just leaning back in that study that night. And this hit me in my chest like a wet bag of cement. It was just like, oh my gosh. And I was like, then I started hanging on every word. And I started thinking, I want to do something. And at first I thought, when I was driving home that night, I thought, well, maybe I can make some videos. I'm a multimedia producer. Maybe I can help with some kind of graphics or something. And then typical man, oh, wait, I'm a pilot. Maybe we can use the aviation thing. I started looking around online, just kind of snooping around online and looking at different human trafficking rescue agencies. And I found a sermon on YouTube by a guy by the name of Lee Dominique who runs an organization called Trafficking Hope out of Birmingham, Alabama. And he was giving a sermon through Hope City Church and he was just telling his story on how he got involved in the human trafficking rescue space. And he had made a lot of money in fast food restaurants and he found an interest in this and really found a calling in it and he built two organizations, one called Trafficking Hope and the other called The Well House, I believe. And so I was really just hanging on every word of his YouTube sermon. And that was a Sunday, I believe. And the next Monday, the next day, I called Trafficking Hope. And I thought, you know, hey, maybe they can use private aircraft to help out. You know, I just, you know. So I called and the director answered the phone. And I said, hey, you know, I saw this YouTube presentation yesterday. And I'm a crazy Christian guy with an idea. If you think I'm nuts, hang up the phone. You'll never hear from me again. But if it has some teeth to it, then let's keep on talking. And she laughed. And I said, hey, do you guys ever need private aircraft to transport survivors from either the point of rescue or moving them around or just to transport survivors? You guys ever need private aircraft to do that? And I thought she dropped the phone. And she was like, oh, my gosh, Ted, this is an answer to prayer. And for the next 45 minutes, she told me of all these horror stories about these trafficking survivors being rescued from hospitals, from prisons. from off the street and they can't get them to safe houses because they have no ID, they have no money, they have no family, they have no clothes, they are literally picked up right off the street. And she said, we're driving these people 10, 12, 16 hours to different safe houses across the country. Yes, we really need this. So then for the next 45 minutes, what seemed like 45 minutes probably wasn't, but it turned into a prophetic prayer call where she just prophesied over me that I would be running an organization, rescuing hundreds, if not thousands of traffic and survivors and having a fleet of aircraft and operating this organization. And it just turned into this massive prophetic prayer call. And I was in the, I was actually in a government FAA building at the time, and I'm walking up and down the hall with a bone in my hand and my hand in the air, you know, I'm just, you know, and I'm just praising God. And cause the Holy Spirit really kind of, you know, just jumped on me at that point. And I got to tell you, I have never felt that calling before. It was just, you know, it kind of one of these things.
SPEAKER_00:So before we jump too far away, the other thing that I wanted you to bring up because it was in the book and it shocked me and it shocked you at the time, and that is that trafficking happens not necessarily by criminals who are finding these folks. It's families and friends. And that to me says a whole new chapter of horror.
SPEAKER_03:And that's the reality of the trafficking scenario that I've encountered, and everybody in the trafficking and rescue space in this country has encountered, is that most of the trafficking survivors are trafficked by someone they know. Many of the people we've given transportation to have been trafficked by family members, by mothers selling their kids to a gang just because they need drugs and rent money. And I'm not making this up. When I first heard it, I'm like, this can't be happening. We did a flight with Homeland Security and we got a call from them and they said, hey, this is how the call went. The agent picked up the phone and said, hey, are you Ted Greenfield from Invisible Angels? And I said, yes. We heard about you at this conference. The teacher and the father will never see the light of day again. We have a young child under the age of 10 We have an agent waiting with him where he was. We have to get the boy back to his mother. And we can't do it. Can you help? And I said, absolutely. And it turns out, I guess the father had kidnapped him and put him into a child pornography ring. Oh, my God. And we had him home by lunchtime the next day. Fantastic. And that's the thing. The government can't move that fast. Homeland Security is not in the transportation business. Um, and you know, a private, you know, private organization, you know, like, like ours, and there's a couple others out there as well. We can move on a, you know, on a dime and, uh, you know, and take care of that and not charge. Um, so they don't have to worry about anything like that, which is, you know, which is great. And, uh, you know, so it was, uh, you know, and, and that, you know, that kind of jumped ahead that, that story, but that's the reality of trafficking, uh, in, you know, in this country. And I'm sure in other countries too it's absolutely horrifying um and just in my brief time what i've seen is awful uh but again most of the most of the people being trafficked are trafficked by someone that they know and also our youngest person was eight years old our oldest was 48 years old it runs the gamut i mean it's and they're all we you know hey people say are these people from el salvador are these foreigners these are all american people all american kids
SPEAKER_00:rick hansen he with Ted Greenfield, who's a commercial airline pilot and author of the book, God Is In This Fight. Okay, let's jump back. The prophetic vision that we had. Yeah. So that was, it was a vision, but you had no airplane at that point. You had no permits. You had no, you had nothing. But it all started with a domain name. Yes. So, the domain story.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So, after I got off the phone with the director, I remember hanging up and I just said, all right, Lord, how's this going to happen? Because I can't do any of this. I mean, I, but I knew it was going to happen. I didn't know how. And I was on cloud nine. I was just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is, you know, this is fantastic. Everything, and let me, I'll tell this story, but let me proceed this by saying everything happened in nine month periods of revelation. It was progressive revelation. And And I didn't understand the nine months until a year and a half later, I'm like, hey, everything's happened in nine month periods, which is a birth period, a birthing period. So anyway, nothing happened after that phone call. I started calling other places and there were a couple other aviation organizations that just couldn't make it work for whatever reason. And I just started calling them and I met a lot of great people over the phone. And so nine months went by It seems that nothing was happening. Then I'm in a big FAA meeting up in Washington, D.C., and there were about 40 people in the room, and it was one of these big safety meetings and kind of boring. But I hear God telling me, I hear God in the middle of the meeting, I hear him say, invisible angels. And right away, I'm like, Lord, that domain name is going to be$3,500. You want me to buy that domain name? It's going to be$3,500. I don't have$3,500. I mean, the Right away, I went into the argument. I can't do it. Forget about it. And there's a couple of people in the Bible that did the same thing. And then I heard him say invisibleangels.org. And I'm like, I knew it. I knew it. Lord, that domain name is going to be$3,500. I'm a multimedia producer. I'm a web developer. You know this. And then I hear him say, go by the domain name invisibleangels.org right now. So very politely and quietly, I closed my laptop, snuck my way out of the meeting, and I'm walking down the hall to my office. And I'm like, Lord, that's going to be$3,500. You just watch. You just watch. And I get in my office, and I open up my register.com account. I enter in visibleangels.org, and it pops up, and it says available,$35. I mean, I was just like, I'm sorry, sir. A God surprise, yeah, for sure. Oh, my gosh. So I click purchase. I bought it instantaneously. And the moment I click purchase, God told me two things. He said, number one, speak life into this organization as if it's up and running. And number two, write a budget. And I was just like, I'm not questioning you again, sir. I was like, okay. And a lot of people say, how do you know God's speaking to you? Is it words? What it was, it's like a footprint in my mind of a thought that is not mine. It was all the words all at once in one complete sentence, but it was just like download It wasn't words like coming across a ticker tape on the bottom of a news show or something. It was everything all at once. And it was just a thought that wasn't mine. Interesting. And it all came at once.
SPEAKER_00:So many people wonder about that. You know, God speaks to you. How does he speak to you? Exactly.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And that's it. And that's the way it's always been. I've heard God's voice audibly once in my life. And that's another story. It's a really cool story, but we'll get to that later if we want. And so then God said, speak life into it, write a budget. So that's All I did for nine months, and during this time, it got really chaotic, and a lot of people can identify with this too, is when God calls you, and this is kind of history looking backwards for me now, experience rather, is that things get really chaotic when this happens. So during this time, my dad died, and he was 90, and he wasn't sick or anything. Oh, yeah. in during COVID, the vision of invisible angels. And I'm just like, it's a human trafficking ministry, and it's going to have airplanes, and we're going to provide transportation to people, and this is what it's going to be like. And I'm just talking, you know? And I'm just, anybody who would listen, I'm just speaking life into it as if it's up and running. I'm in this Bible study in Florida down here, and I was telling everybody about it, and there was a retired airline pilot by and Bob said, hey, the perfect plane for you is a Cessna P210. It's pressurized. It's six passenger. It's got a low fuel cost. You don't need to be type rated in it. And they're relatively cheap. And after that Bible study, I got online to tradeaplane.com and I looked at them and sure, they're about 250 to 500,000 bucks, which is cheap for an airplane. And I was like, looking at the specs and everything, I'm like, wow, that is the perfect plane. Nine months go by, nothing kind of happens and I'm just writing my budget and that's turning into more of a brochure if anything but it's something I can email out and I'm just telling everybody like it's up and running and everything and I'm sure a lot of people thought I was crazy but they certainly heard the vision from God you know so nine months later I'm back up in DC for a meeting and it was a Sunday and I caught this sermon by Stephen Furtick from Elevation Church and the sermon was when God gives you the green light and when he was delivering that sermon, I was like, it's time. I just, it was like, it's time. That's all I kept on feeling was it's time. And I'm like, but I don't know time for what, you know, you just kind of launching pad to nowhere. I was like, what's going to happen. And after the sermon, um, you know, I literally felt I was walking around my, uh, you know, my condo up there, uh, kind of looking under the pillows for blessings, you know, it's just like, what is that? God, you're doing something. And a couple hours later I chill out and I just, you know, I just get on trade Because that's what pilots do when there's nothing to do. We look at airplanes. And the first ad that pops up was a Cessna P210, just like Rob or Bob had prophesied nine months earlier. And all the ad said was, I want to donate this to a nonprofit. Oh, my gosh. Wow. So I was, I just, I mean, I was just so stunned. I still, I was just, I remember looking at it. I'm like, I just stared at it. And then there's no phone number. or anything, you know, so you have to email. So, um, then I shut the computer down and then rebooted it and just see if it was still there. Maybe, maybe I'm just dreaming the whole thing and sure enough, it was still there, you know? And, um, uh, so I email, uh, I email the ad and the next day he calls a guy by the name of Bill Strong, an older guy who, who just, uh, you know, he's just decided to give up flying his, you know, his health gave out. And, um, I don't know what I said when he called. I was sure I was just like, well, no, human trafficking, Jesus, Jesus, God, human trafficking, I was just making any sense, you know, and if I go in 2 million miles an hour and I remember him saying, son, son, son, son, slow down, slow down. I want you to have the airplane. And that was it. So I, I said, wow, I said, okay, I have nothing set up. All I have is a URL and I didn't even build a website yet. And he goes, all right, go get yourself a nonprofit set up, son, get on legal zoom, get all that stuff taken care put some money in a bank account. You call me when it's all done, come get the airplane. So I got on LegalZoom and I set up a nonprofit in about three hours. I put$100 in a business bank account. And then I quickly did a website. I'm a web guy. So I put one together that looked decent. And then I called him about like four or five days later and I said, all right, Bill, I got everything set up. He goes, come on out and get the airplane. I flew out to Kansas City and And we met and he signed the airplane over to us. And then he had a friend deliver it back out to Florida. And that is the short story of how we got our aircraft.
SPEAKER_00:He didn't check on how much money you did have in the bank when you went down there. He said the hundred dollars was probably not very
SPEAKER_03:impressive. I told him. But, you know, I will tell you what I did is that, you know, because I thought, here's this guy giving an airplane to a complete stranger. So I put, and this, you know, I, I don't think I told too many people about this. I put a personal portfolio together for him and I included the last 10 years of my tax returns, my passport, my driver's license, my resume. I could look at it. I mean, I stacked it with everything that I could, you know, my government, you know, my government clearance work and everything just so, you know, he's not giving it to some guy who's, you know, who's going to, you know, whatever, he's going to sell it and pocket the money or something. Yeah, no secrets. And I just really wanted to be completely transparent and say, look, this is for real. And I knew he was a believer, but we didn't talk that much about God. And he hadn't used the plane in a while. I went to see it and it was perfect. It was old, but it was in perfect shape. And we did our first trip in 2021. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Is Bill still around or did he pass?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, he's still around. I haven't talked to him in a while. Um, I, I, uh, I should check actually, just because I think he was in his mid eighties back then. So, um, you know, but I did talk to his, um, uh, his accountant a while ago, uh, just because they, the way they donated the airplane to the nonprofit, we had to, you know, we had to complete some paperwork on that and that, you know, that helped out. But, uh, I think I talked to, I think I talked to him a little while ago. Ted Greenfield
SPEAKER_00:shares the origin story of invisible angels, the amazing story of rescue of trafficking. The book is called God is in This Fight, as I'm showing you right here. I got a preview copy of it. It's not actually, it'll be available by the time the podcast airs, so anybody who's interested can jump on and grab it. But I got an advanced copy, thank you. And, you know, I was, just as a reader, I was really blown away about how I got engaged in your story, all of the ups and downs, the role coaster ride that you went on through multiple miracles that happened along the way and it was so nicely written that um i felt like i was on board with whatever was going on so yeah it was really a nice job of putting it all together and of course we want people to read the book so we're not going to tell every little detail but there's so many interesting and involved stories but there are significant moments in the journey uh where it looked like uh you You were at a dead end. It looked like, oh, this is kind of where it all ends. Can you run through a couple of those? Yes.
SPEAKER_03:So... after we provided back to that Homeland Security rescue with the young child. So I completed, we completed that flight. And then at work, I was telling people about it at the FAA. And they said, well, this is really fantastic. We really want to run a story on it. You know, the internal public relations people said, we really want to run a story to show, hey, you know, our employees are doing awesome things. So they did a story on Invisible Angels. And they went, you know, they published a it, and it was a very nice story. And it went out, and there's about 50,000 FAA employees worldwide. It's a big organization. So it went out to everybody, right? And I was like, cool, maybe we'll get some donations, you know, whatever, God. You have it, and I just gave it all to God. Three days later, I get a call from the Washington, D.C. Flight Services Directorate Office, and that's like getting a call from the IRS. And they're never good, you know? And I'm an optimistic guy so I see this thing on my phone and it says Washington DC FISDO and I'm like well maybe they're calling to congratulate me if it's going to be you got a choice whether you're going to think it's bad or good you might as well think it's good so I pick up the phone and they said oh Mr. Greenfield hey we saw the story and you know and you're doing very commendable work but tell me how are you doing these flights and I said we're doing it under part 91 FAR federal aviation regulations part 91 charitable flights which I truly thought we were doing, which, you know, I thought that was okay. And they said, well, Mr. Greenfield, actually, you're not, you're operating an illegal airline. You're violating. And they started taking all the regulations I was violating. And they said, we're opening a compliance action against you. That is very serious. So at this point, I'm looking at one point in the span of about 90 seconds, I'm looking at$1.4 million in fines. They can take away my pilot's license. They can take away the airplane. And where do I work? At the same organization. So I've got mud on my face. I have, you know, I have a great reputation there. And, and I'm like, and I, and they were like, we'll send you a hearing date. Goodbye. Click. Right. That was, you know, typical kind of government guys. Oh boy. And I know how they operate because I've been on the other side of that. Right. So, so I just sat down in my chair and I said, Lord, what are you doing? I, I remember saying, I did exactly as you told me to do. What is going on? And he goes, three words. Tell my story. Don't worry. Just tell my story. And I had that Philippians four, seven piece come over me. And I was just like, I was just like, okay, just tell your story. Just tell your story. So, um, I, uh, I, and, and there's a, there's a lot I'll, I'll skip through the, you know, through the, the, the details. There's a very funny parts that, you know, that, you know, cause I reached out to friends and I go, you know, what, you know, what, what's going on here? What do I do? And, um, so it will jump ahead to the hearing and, uh, you know, I get on the hearing, there's all these government people and they're FAA, all safety inspectors, and they're very serious people, no senses of humor. And, you know, and there's a bunch of them online, all in their little zoom square, zoom squares. The first question they asked me is, so Mr. Greenfield, we're here today to go through, you know, we're here for, you know, compliance Action, ABC, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Mr. Greenfield, tell us how Invisible Angels got started. And I leaned back and I said, well, you guys believe in Jesus? And they all froze, right? They're all just like, I mean, just, you know, just like that. And then I felt like, I just felt like a spiritual starting pistol, just go, bam, go, you know? And I was like, I just told them all, every little miracle, the big miracles, everything from that Bible study. And I explained it for about 45 minutes. Maybe it was a little longer. And then I told them about the rescues that we did, the rescue flights that we did. I told them about the trafficking survivors that we got out of harm's way. I told them about their background stories. We had the eight-year-old who was abducted into a child pornography ring. We had an 18-year-old that was sold to a gang by her mother. We had some serious cases. And they were like, this is this is unbelievable um and they were just kind of all kind of fumbling with themselves and they said look we're gonna we're gonna get back to you we're gonna get back to you we're gonna come to the findings we we all need to talk and i said yeah and i'm kind of thinking yeah i bet you need to talk you know about jesus that's what you need to talk about and um so um they you know the phone call ended and then nothing for about three weeks and i had to hire a lawyer a very expensive lawyer at this time and and that's a whole nother story because i ended I ended up knowing the guy from a previous flight and we actually were friends and he was one of the premier aviation attorneys in Florida. So that was really cool. But then about three weeks later, I get an email from the compliance group and the FAA does nothing in three weeks. Compliance actions usually take about a year, maybe two years to wrap up. Three weeks later, I get an email saying, here's your hearing date, which was the next day, please be on it. And so I call my lawyer, we get on the hearing. And they said, Mr. Greenfield, and here I am, I'm thinking, and my lawyer actually said, this is a quick jury return, you're done. So I'm thinking no more pilot, no more plane, it's all over, everything. And they said, Mr. Greenfield, you're really doing commendable work. We do truly believe this was an oversight on your part. We're dropping all the charges against you. And to continue to do this, you need to be a 135 direct air carrier. Now, a 135 direct air carrier, that takes about four years, about a half a million dollars. That just You need to be invited to do that. You just don't do that. And they said, we're going to talk to the Tampa FISDO and we're going to set some things up for you. And 18 months later, we were a direct air carrier. And that is unheard of that the FAA could move that fast. Wow. documentation that needed to get done, you know, was staggering. And, um, the, the people who came out, just dropped out of the heavens to help us, uh, you know, was a miracle. There was, uh, there was what's called a compliance statement needed to get done. That was your first document. That's about 1500 pages. And that tells you, that tells the FA how you're going to comply with every single part 91, 121, um, and, uh, not 121, 91 and, uh, 119 and 135. five regulation and our compliance statement is like this. And, you know, and it, uh, it's, that was the biggest document and a company came and did that for us for free in four days using AI. And there were just a couple of changes to it. So we became a direct air carrier in 2024. We did a couple of flights, um, that, um, you know, during the time we were shut down, we really shouldn't have done those, but they, you know, where they, they call it, you know, kind of like 134 and a half. It's not really legal. But then our lawyer said, look, if anything happens, you're going to be in a lot of trouble. So shut down your operations while you do that, which was the safest thing to do. And then during that time, I'm like, okay, Lord, what do we do? There's a lot of paperwork. There's a lot of things to do. But then one day actually sitting right at this desk, I heard God say, go out to the mall and start talking to clothing stores about donating clothes to Invisible Angels. You're going to need them. So I was like, okay, So I left work. It was like 10 or 11 o'clock and I just got up and I went down to Tampa Outlet Premium Mall and I started talking to stores. Hey, would you like to donate your returned items or do you have any clothes to donate to Invisible Angels? And I walked out of that mall that day with a huge box of brand new returned items from Lucky Brand and commitments from Brooks Brothers, Nautica, Lucky Brand. And now we have Calvin Klein, Brooks Brothers, Nautica lucky brand uh and um uh calvin klein not oh and tommy hilfiger um and every six weeks or so they donate brand new returned items to us and then we use that and we put uh backpacks together for our survivors that we give rescue to uh rescue flights to and it's all brand new clothes that they don't have all in their size so we put a nice package together plus you know we have a journal a bible toiletries um and then you know some brand new clothes And then also we have like every month or six weeks, it's usually about 100, 150 pounds of clothes. So then we fly it to different rescue agencies and, you know, we just drop it off there. And it's beautiful stuff. I mean, you know, we had Egyptian suits and Brooks Brothers. Yeah, it's just so God has really provided. And I was busy during that time. Plus, you know, when you go through a walk in the desert, it's
SPEAKER_00:always fruitful. Amazing. Great shares the Ted Greenfield story. of teaming with God, experiencing life-changing miracles. And so were you holding down a regular day job too? Yes, I
SPEAKER_03:was. I was at the FAA holding a regular day job. So my days were pushing around 10, 12 hours. And I mean, I loved my job when I was there. I was a multimedia producer. I was making safety training for pilots and controllers. So I was producing an e-learning program or a video or graphics. And, you know, I still, even when I retired, I couldn't believe they paid me for what I was doing. You know, I get to, you know, I get to make videos and graphics and multimedia about airplanes and, you know, and training stuff. So it was, it was, I didn't work there a day of my life, you know? Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:that's the way to be. So now I've been trying to count on my hands here, how many miracles we just saw fly by us there. And there was a lot, I lost count. So we had a quick turnaround on the sort We had an attorney who I think in the book, at least, I don't know if you mentioned it here, became a pro bono situation where he charged you nothing.
SPEAKER_03:Well, there wasn't exactly nothing, but it was, I told him, I said, his name is Ed Page and he's from Carlton Fields. And that's one of the top legal organizations in the country. He actually worked with Kenneth Starr way back in the Bill Clinton days. So he is, he's top flight, he's top notch. So And it turns out, again, how God works. question to me was, you know, tell me how all this started. And I said, do you believe in Jesus? And, you know, he's like, yes, like a law and order, you know, answer. I said, Ed, you know, I had personally, I had about five grand in my savings account at that time. And I said, Ed, how am I going to pay for that? What's this going to cost? And he goes, well, he goes, Ted, my rate is$895 an hour. And I said, well, Ed, could you get this done in about five hours? I got five grand. That's all I got. And he goes don't worry don't worry we'll we'll take care of you i want to get you through this you're doing a good thing and when it was all over um i said i'm i'm just you know oh my gosh i'm gonna owe forty thousand dollars here what do i do and he goes ted just just sent you know just pay pay a five thousand dollar bill online and we'll call it even and um and i was just you know that was great and that came back to me in droves you know it was you know and and that's the one thing where i just felt God saying, just pay the bill. Don't worry. We're going to take care of you. And during this time, my giving, my personal giving went up from 10 to 20%. And God told me, he said, I want you to start tithing 20%. And I was like, ooh, it's worked at 10. It's going to work at 20. And that gave me so much financial peace during that time. And I didn't have a financial issue at all during that season. And still, I have the same financial peace right now.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. Now, let's go back. There's one chapter toward the beginning of the book that I earmarked that I wanted to just bring up because it's such an odd thing to be putting in a startup person's book. And that is called, the chapter was called Do Nothing. And so, to me, that's just the opposite of what you probably should be doing. You should be out there running around and doing everything you possibly can. But you got the word from God said, do nothing.
SPEAKER_03:Do nothing. And I still, in fact, I'm going through a situation right now where God said, do nothing. My life verse is Exodus 14 verses 13 and 14. And I explain what happened to me in the book. And in the book, I go back about seven, eight years, maybe 10 years to a season of of unemployment where I was really in the valley. And those valley seasons made so much sense now. But when I was going through them, they didn't. And I wanted to bring up one story that really made sense of do nothing. Because in Exodus 14, verses 13 and 14, Moses says, these Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. I, the Lord, will fight your battles for you. You need only be still. Do nothing. So, I was at the time, this is about 10, well, this is about 15 years ago, maybe 18 years ago now. I was working at a television network and I had gotten into a disagreement of sorts with one of the executive producers of the television series I was working on. And I wasn't acting like an adult at all. We wrapped for the season and it wasn't clear whether the show was going to be picked up for next season, but it was abundantly clear that they were going to let me go, right? And we had gotten into, you know, we just didn't get along well and I acted like a child during the whole thing. After I was let go, she kind of came back around, and rightly so, I think. She wanted to leave a mark, and they came back at me over a very small, trivial copyright issue, because I had some of their television programs on my personal website as a demo reel, and I never got permission for it, because most producers just put their stuff up there, and well, that's technically not right. So they came back at me with a pretty heavy-handed lawyer, and he scared the life out of me. And I say it in the book, I was caught between a wall, a hard place, and the fangs of a corporate attorney sitting behind his human skull collection. And this guy scared me to death. In about 10 seconds, he had me scared to financial ruin, and they're talking about fines and the millions of dollars and everything, and it He did exactly what he set out to do. So I called a lawyer friend of mine, Bern. And I had worked with Bern at a startup years before. And I said, hey, he's an attorney. And I said, hey, I got this problem. And I told him what had happened. And he just said, stop. He's like, I know exactly what you did. And I'm like, all right, could you help me? He goes, all right, I'll take care of it. Just don't talk to anybody over there and I'll call you back. So he calls over there. I don't know what he said, and then I just heard God say, do nothing. Just do nothing. And a couple hours later, Byrne calls back, and he said, hey, Ted, where's your production agreement? And I said, I never signed a production agreement with the network. He said, ah. And he smiled. He goes, I'm going to call you right back. And I'm like, oh, what's going on? He goes, I'll tell you later. I'm going to call you back. So he calls me back in about an hour, and he said, well, Ted, it turns out that you never had a production agreement on the show that you worked on with the network and they sold those television shows to Network A, Network B, Network C overseas. You're entitled to a portion of that sale. It was, you know. And he said, it's not going to be an easy case, but I'll take it. We're talking about a lot of money here. And I just heard God say, let it go. Let it go. And I said, Bern, I'm happy. This is over, right? And he said, yeah, they don't have a case against you. You know, it's a done deal. If you want to drop it, it's probably the best thing to do, but I'll fight it for you. I'll go for it. I'm like, let's just drop it, Byrne. And poof, it all went away. And that's when Exodus 14, 13, 14 became my life verse. And I've been living on that verse. So, you know, jump ahead a few years before any of this happened, I was Christian worship. I was in Christian worship bands for years, and I was playing in a big Christian worship band up in Maryland. And You didn't
SPEAKER_00:even tell me about that. I had no idea. I was also a musician on top of it all.
SPEAKER_03:I was in worship practice and I had just turned 50. And when that happens, that's a new season of life. And here I was, I was a special education teacher. I was a comedian. And I've always had a lot of different, that's just how God wired me. So I've always been all over the place and a musician and everything. I remember sitting and I just said during their corporate prayer time, I said, you know, God, I don't know what to do here. You know, God, take this next season of my life. I don't know what to do with it. And I literally heard God saying, finally, because I just laid it down. And that is when things started to happen. That is when I really felt the call. I wasn't even a pilot at that time. I had started my pilot training, you know, numerous times over the years, but I'd never finished because it's very expensive. And that's when I was like, you know, I'm going to finish this thing. I was on a family vacation down there. And that's when everything started to happen. And the less I do, even now, the less I do, the more things happen. And, you know, God tells me, he's like, do nothing. He is there to fight our battles for us. But also, if we get ahead of God, which we do all the time, we make a of things. And that is true for the new believer as well for the seasoned believer with lots of gray hair. You know, it's still, it's in our nature because we want to do something. And obviously, I'm a doer. I mean, I like to be busy. If I'm not busy, you know, it's not a good day. And I, you know, so that's really when do nothing, because do nothing became the mantra, because when you do nothing, you really see God work. And remember here, I, and this is interesting, I was having a moment a while back just because, you know, I turned 62 last year and I'm, you know, and then you get, oh, I'm old, I'm old in 20 years, I'm going to be 82, you know, just kind of one of those things, right? And I got really upset, you know, because it's like, oh, I've got more behind me than in front of me and what am I going to do? And I'm going to be an old man and, you know, and I just really got sad and I heard God say, I tell time what to do. Oh, And I was like, Lord, yeah, that's right. You do tell time what to do. Well, let's go then. Let's go. Yeah. And that really set the perspective for what he's doing. And a thousand years and one day is the same to God. He lives outside of time and we live inside of time. And it's very hard to wrap our heads around that. But, you know, when God says do nothing and watch them work, that's still the hardest thing to do. But boy, you know, I got a whole book here that, you know, that I want to share those miracles with everybody because God said, tell my story. Just tell my story. Tell my story. He kept on saying that over and over. And then I woke up one morning and I'm not kidding. I woke up one morning with this finished picture in my head, this finished book cover in my head, exactly how it's It's there minus the picture, right? And God said, write this. God said, write this book. And I started writing it.
SPEAKER_00:Rick Hansen here with Ted Greenfield, who's a commercial airline pilot and author of the book, God is in this fight. This is just such an amazing, amazing story and so many lessons to be learned from your experiences. Before we leave and have to say goodbye today, I want a couple of different things. want to talk about one is i want you to share with us one of your maybe the most gut-wrenching tear-jerking uh rescue story so far in in this journey yeah
SPEAKER_03:um There's two. But it's in the first chapter. It's in the very first story, the very first introduction chapter in the book. She was an older woman. And from what I hear, we don't keep in touch with them after we take them where they need to go. But I do hear from them because we work with the same victim advocates frequently. And she's doing wonderful now, doing absolutely wonderful. But we We dropped her off. We flew almost to the way far up north in upstate New York. And it was a lot colder when we got there. So we landed and the people from the safe house were there and they greeted us actually on the tarmac and they were walking away. And this is real subtle, but this really got me. And we chatted with her on the way up, but then she pretty much slept the whole flight up. But as they were leading her away, um, she stopped maybe about, you know, 20, 30 feet and she turned around and started walking back to me. And I thought maybe she had left something in the, in the aircraft. And, um, and she just can't walk right up to me. And she said, thank you for saving my life.
SPEAKER_02:Hmm.
SPEAKER_00:Hmm. What better
SPEAKER_03:payoff is
SPEAKER_00:there than
SPEAKER_03:that, right? when we're flying, I don't really think about that, you know, get him in the plane, get him comfortable and, um, you know, chat with them maybe a little bit once we reached a cruising altitude, but not much. I've got a lot going on. Um, and it's, um, you know, we're not flying a fully automated seven, seven 37, we're flying a smaller aircraft. So I'm busy the whole time. That was, you know, one of those moments. And then the other, um, you know, was a, uh, you know, was that young child who was abducted into a child porn ring by his father. Um, you know, what, what what goes wrong in a person's dna where they do that right uh you know what gets you know what gets a lot and and there's been other cases uh other cases like that uh it is heart-wrenching there was one you know one woman um she i guess she was riding during the whole ride from uh we're somewhere around texas back to florida and um she handed me a stack of papers as she left and she said here's my whole story you have to understand something three years ago, I was a normal suburban housewife with three kids.
SPEAKER_00:Jeez. Wow.
SPEAKER_03:And she goes, it's all right here. And I read the story and then I called one of my friends at the FBI and I said, I've got to, I've got to email something over to you. You got to, you know, there, there's a, there's a new case here. And, um, and then we get into it. The, uh, in December, um, a young girl in the foster care system was being trafficked by her foster care caseworker.
SPEAKER_00:Hmm. CBS, CBS. you're supposed to have trust in and uh
SPEAKER_03:yeah and you know the foster care kids um you know they're um you know they're easy targets because you know there's no family there's nothing and um no one's going to believe them and you know these so what what what is again what is off in someone's dna where they do that to somebody you know and it's just i i you know i refer to it it's auschwitz level trauma to these you know to these human trafficking survivors absolutely
SPEAKER_00:so you had um one of the other one of the other kind of crisis moments and where you thought things might be all over was your own health issues along the way. And that's not far behind you. I mean, that was fairly
SPEAKER_03:recent. No, that's recent. So again, you know, everything's fine. And, you know, this is spiritual attack 172, except it was a heavy one. I go in for a normal physical and they're like, hey, your blood work's bad. You know, come back for more tests. And I went back for more tests. And then I went back in, they said, Hey, we need to talk to you. And I'm like, okay. And I, you know, again, you don't think, you know, you don't think anything's matter. And then she said, we need to start, you know, we need to send you to an oncologist and right away, you know, that's cancer. What are they looking for? And I'm like, what's going on, Ted? Don't worry. Everything's going to be fine. We're just doing this as precaution. Turns out my platelets, my bone marrow stopped making platelets. And, um, the numbers just went down, you know, down your, your normal platelet levels are around two 40 to two 70 and mine were 29 and they thought i would just bleed out and die but here's the thing i had no symptoms i had no bleeding i had no bruising i had i was feeling fine i wasn't fatigued i mean there were absolutely no symptoms you know and again i'm like god what's going on and then they're like okay you know they they're like we need to do a bone marrow biopsy um so they do a bone marrow biopsy and i had this conversation with god one day in church and i'm like all right lord if this is it just don't drag it out just don't drag it out i don't want to be you know just make it quick and i just but I really want to see this ministry out, you know, and whatever your purpose is, I really don't want to, I don't want to meet you just yet, you know, I mean, you know, I mean, we have plenty of time for that. But I said, if this is it, just don't drag it out, please. I just don't want to do that to everybody around my life. And so I heard God say, just tell my story, just tell my story. So I go in to get my bone marrow biopsy and the intake nurse is there and, you know, she's doing her intake nurse questions and it's like five in the morning and so i told her what my birthday was and um then she just goes And I said, what's that about? I was like, I'm the one going in and getting the hole drilled in my pelvis here. What's your problem, you know? And she goes, I'm not that far behind you. And I said, young lady. And I leaned into her desk and I said, more has happened in the last five years of my life than any other period in my life. I kind of got mad, you know? And I was like, more. I said, do you want to hear a story? Do you know Jesus? And she just kind of looked at me and I'm like, and I told her the whole story of in visible angels. I said, look what God did with my life from a prayer where I said, hey, just take this season. I don't know what's going on. I became a pilot. I became a commercial pilot. I became an instrument rated pilot. I left the music world behind. I started a nonprofit. I mean, just look at all these things that have happened. I started writing a book and all this is in the last five years. Do you think God has nothing for you? And she just started crying. She says, you have inspired me so much. I'm like, good, because I'm sorry. I didn't want to yell at you. She goes, but yeah, you're right. You're right. I said, God has something for all of us. And the only thing we have to do is lean into God. If we sit there and go, wah, wah, wah, what for me? Why is me? Why is me? We can't ask God why. We never get an answer with why. And that's our first question. But God, show me what you're doing here. Show me what this looks like. And you look through it with through the lens of scripture which is really hard to do you got to be in the word and however you're in the word whether you're listening to sermons all the time or if you're a reader and you know that's different for every person but you know when you start hearing from god and god says just tell my story and the woman at the intake the intake nurse was just her mood changed she was just you've inspired me so much look you're going to be fine i'm speaking over you you're going to be fine right now and i think we even prayed right then so then she took me to the pre-op room and they start cleaning me up and doing all those things and you know then i get nervous you know because then it looks like kylo ren's interrogation room and that's you know that operating room and i'm like oh my god what are they gonna do and um and then i i said you want to hear a story do you guys believe in jesus so i'm telling the nurses then they they put me under and i just went out i think the last thing i said i said do you have any classical music and they said yeah we do and i said and they said alexa play classical music and then i just beautiful bach and last thing i that's the last thing i remember And so I woke up and everything's fine. I went home and I went into the doctor's office to get the results a week later. And the nurse, and I'm nervous, you know, I'm just like, all right, here it is. And the nurse or the doctor is sitting in the chair waiting for me. And she goes, well, Mr. Greenfield, you're going to die one day. And I'm like, she goes, but you're not going to die of this. No leukemia, no cancer. Your bone marrow is fine. You want to hear a story?
UNKNOWN:Sure.
SPEAKER_03:And it really did. It almost became like a reflex where I was just so excited to tell everybody what God was doing. Because I've been walking with God since 1988 for a long time. And I've never seen God move like this. And I've always wanted God to move like this in my life. But again, God knits this all together at his timing. And I wouldn't have been able to do this you know back you know back you know 10 20 you know or even five years ago you know but now is the now is the time where you know where all this experience and everything kind of weaves together where we might not know what to do and running a non-profit I don't know what to do from one day to the next but I know how to do it through God I know who to ask and I know how to pray for it and And that faith, the faith, God told me to up the giving. And when I upped the giving, the money came in for Invisible Angels. And in the book, it's one financial miracle after another. We're looking at a$55,000 maintenance bill. We had 600 bucks in the account and it came. And it came like 25 bucks at a time, but it came. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:And now you had an opportunity to tell the story in a book. The book's called God is in the fight. God is in this fight. And, uh, it's available as they're listening to this. It is available on Amazon, right? Or anywhere. It's available on an
SPEAKER_03:Amazon. If you Google God is in this fight book, um, you know, it's, uh, it's on Amazon, Apple, all the book outlets, or you can go to God is in this fight.com and buy it directly from the publisher. Just go to that website and buy it right from the purchase tab there. And it'll go right to Anika press and, um, you can buy it right there. And there's an audio book as well that, uh, that you can purchase.
SPEAKER_00:And in what other ways can our listeners support you? Is there opportunities for financial help?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, absolutely. And here's the thing. We have a$360,000 budget a year and it literally comes in$25 at a time. The biggest way you can help us is partner with us at any amount. We have so many$5 a month partners, which is great.$25 a a month is even fantastic. It's simple math. If a thousand people donate$25 a month to us, that's$25,000 a month and that keeps us up and running. That's the biggest thing you can do is to partner with us like that. Obviously, we're a 501c3. You can go to invisibleangels.org and read everything about us and get all our information. If you want to contact me, just fill out the contact information at the bottom of the website and I'll get that immediately.
SPEAKER_00:So what's the next step for Invisible Angels? Is it going to be multiple aircraft? What's going to
SPEAKER_03:happen? Yeah, we do need a bigger aircraft. The aircraft we have right now is wonderful. We're so grateful for it. However, we're getting longer requests to go. There was a request that we had not too long ago to take somebody from Naples, Florida with two children, two toddler to Boston. And then we got another request to go from Eau Claire, Wisconsin to Homer, Alaska. So these are 1,500 to 2,500 mile trips. And our aircraft really has a range of about a thousand miles, but we don't fly with less than an hour and a half of fuel in the fuel tanks just for safety. So we can do fuel stops, but really we operate in about an 800 mile range and you know we need something to go a little bit farther and a little bit faster so the next step up is a you know is a tbm 700 or a pilatus and you know then we're looking at about 3.5 to 4 million dollars and um you know and uh you know our costs go up but then you know we could do so much more in that aircraft as well and uh and then we can fly multiple people we just had a request uh three days ago uh was it uh yeah last friday actually from homeland security to for family reunification um and there were three sets of parents that needed to be um reunited with their kids who were in you know who were abducted into sex trafficking rings and you know their little kids so uh but we couldn't take three sets of parents we didn't have a you know we do have a six passenger plane but we only have we only use the two seats in the middle um we don't want anybody sitting up front with us because that's just that's a safety concern and then the two seats in the back we you know we use those for you know baggage and you know our air aircraft documents and and then it's just you know we don't want to pack the airplane it's uncomfortable when you've got you know an airplane full of people so we just keep it a two passenger aircraft and um this trip was for six people so we you know we really have been getting more calls for a bigger aircraft and you know god will provide it um you know he he certainly will when the time's right and uh that's you know that's really what we need and and then we do want to upgrade to uh five aircraft and five pilots because we're a part 135 carrier So we can start operating charter flights as well to run, uh, you know, to, uh, to provide funding for the organization. So, um, there's plenty of people who actually fly privately and we can offer a competitive rate for that and still have a profitability in there where it could, you know, uh, provide, you know, provide good funding. So for example, right now we're offering a charter flights between Tampa, Miami, Jacksonville, uh, Tallahassee, Tallahassee, Fort Lauderdale, and Key West. But if we get a larger aircraft, then we can start offering charter flights to different cities and use that as a fundraising device. And then also, we want to provide transportation for law enforcement and lawyers to work on these human trafficking cases where they have to get up to Tallahassee or there was a case that we had to go for the victim impact statement that we're trying to work And, you know, so we want to, that's the kind of thing we can do, but we need to be able to carry six people, you know?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, I, we've, this has been so fascinating. And so the book was incredible. Thank you. You are an inspiration. And I love the interaction you've had with God over multiple decades. And I think that everybody kind of seeks that. Sometimes have a hard time understanding you know, getting out of their, their real world life day to day to make time for God to speak. And I think you're, you're the kind of guy that can, can share that it's worth it for sure to do. So, yeah, yeah. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. The opportunity for you to tell your story, God's story right here was, was great for us and great for our listeners. And I really appreciate it. God bless you, Ted, for doing what you're doing. Hey, that was great. Another amazing guest on Amazing Greats and his God-inspired story. I love how he's built his whole relationship with Jesus and partners with him on just about everything. You can connect with Ted at invisibleangels.org and get his book, God is in this fight now, available on Amazon and most booksellers. Thanks for taking a look or listen to Ted's story on Amazing Greats. Thank you.
