Pilot Ted Greenfield: Flies to Fight HumanTrafficking

“When God Says ‘Go’: The Miracle Story Behind Invisible Angels”

Invisible Angel- Ted Greenfield

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. #EndHumanTrafficking #InvisibleAngels #GodsPlan #ChristianPodcast #RescueMission

Listen Right Here

Watch Right Here

Amazing Greats with Ric Hansen

Full Transcript

God Is in This Fight: Ted Greenfield on Invisible Angels, Miracles and Rescuing Human Trafficking Survivors

Guest: Ted Greenfield — Commercial Airline Pilot, Author and Founder of Invisible Angels

From Commercial Pilot to “Invisible Angel”

Ric Hansen:Hi there, this is Ric Hansen on Amazing Greats with our guest, Ted Greenfield, commercial airline pilot and invisible angel.

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.

We are talking today with Ted Greenfield. Ted, this is just a great opportunity to deep dive into who you are and what you do.

For our listeners who probably are not particularly aware, you come from this place in your life with a variety of skills that you've developed over the years. As I understand it, you were a special education teacher, an improv comedian, a television producer at one point. You worked with the FAA in multimedia and had your own safety and training course online.

And that all brings you to who you are today. God had a way of weaving all of those little gifts together to come up with what we're doing today.

So, 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 our listeners: What is Invisible Angels?

Ted Greenfield:First, it's great to be here, and thanks for having me.

Invisible Angels is a direct air carrier that provides air transportation for human trafficking survivors. We work with law enforcement and rescue organizations across the country, pretty much mainly in the Southeast, though.

The typical scenario 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, a safe house, or family reunification — we provide that transportation.

We were even talking with Homeland Security just recently, scheduling a trip for a survivor to make a victim impact statement at her trafficker's sentencing, which is very important.

So we provide air transportation completely for free to human trafficking survivors. We work with rescue organizations, and we always travel with a victim advocate.

That's the short story of what we do.

Discovering Human Trafficking in America

Ric Hansen:When you started, you knew almost nothing about what the impact of sex trafficking and trafficking in general was all about.

Ted Greenfield:I knew less than nothing.

And it's really one of those stories where, 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, or we're further down the road: What is God's will for my life?

And that comes and goes in seasons, and it changes.

So back in 2018, I was in a Bible study up in Maryland, where I was living at the time. I was working at the FAA and I was a pilot.

A woman came to talk to our Bible study about human trafficking in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., area.

Now, I knew human trafficking was a thing in Cambodia and Vietnam and other places, but I had no idea it was happening here. I didn't think it was happening to Americans.

I had no idea.

There were about 10 or 12 of us in the room, and she started her presentation. I'm sitting there thinking, She's got to be making this up.

The crazy thought ran through my mind: We have Home Depot here. This can't be happening.

I mean, I've lived overseas. I've lived in West Africa, the Dominican Republic, 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.

After about 10 minutes, I wasn't believing her. And then she said something and I'm like, Oh my gosh, she's telling the truth.

I remember sitting there, 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.

Then I started hanging on every word.

And I started thinking, I want to do something.

At first I thought, when I was driving home that night, 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 snooping around online and looking at different human trafficking rescue agencies.

I found a sermon on YouTube by a guy named Lee Dominique, who runs an organization called Trafficking Hope out of Birmingham, Alabama.

He was giving a sermon through Hope City Church, and he was telling his story about how he got involved in the human trafficking rescue space.

He had made a lot of money in fast-food restaurants and found an interest in this. He really found a calling in it, and he built two organizations, one called Trafficking Hope and the other called The Well House, I believe.

I was really just hanging on every word of his YouTube sermon.

That was a Sunday, I believe. And the next Monday, the next day, I called Trafficking Hope.

I thought, Hey, maybe they can use private aircraft to help out.

The director answered the phone.

I said, "Hey, 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."

She laughed.

I said, "Do you guys ever need private aircraft to transport survivors from either the point of rescue, moving them around, or just to transport survivors?"

I thought she dropped the phone.

She was like, "Oh my gosh, Ted, this is an answer to prayer."

For the next 45 minutes, she told me all these horror stories about 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.

She said, "We're driving these people 10, 12, 16 hours to different safe houses across the country."

"Yes, we really need this."

Then, for the next 45 minutes — what seemed like 45 minutes probably wasn't — 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 trafficking survivors and having a fleet of aircraft and operating this organization.

It just turned into this massive prophetic prayer call.

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, and I'm just praising God.

The Holy Spirit really just jumped on me at that point.

And I have to tell you, I had never felt that calling before. It was just one of those things.

The Horrifying Reality of Who Traffickers Can Be

Ric Hansen: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 — 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.

Ted Greenfield: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.

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.

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."

It turns out the father had kidnapped him and put him into a child pornography ring.

Ric Hansen:Oh my God.

Ted Greenfield:And we had him home by lunchtime the next day.

Ric Hansen:Fantastic.

Ted Greenfield:And that's the thing. The government can't move that fast. Homeland Security is not in the transportation business.

A private organization like ours — and there are a couple of others out there as well — can move on a dime and take care of that and not charge.

So they don't have to worry about anything like that, which is great.

That kind of jumped ahead, but that's the reality of trafficking in this country. And I'm sure in other countries too.

It's absolutely horrifying.

In my brief time, what I've seen is awful.

But again, most of the people being trafficked are trafficked by someone that they know.

Our youngest person was eight years old. Our oldest was 48 years old.

It runs the gamut.

And they're all — people say, "Are these people from El Salvador? Are these foreigners?"

These are all American people. All American kids.

It Started with a Domain Name

Ric Hansen:Ric Hansen here 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 — that was a vision, but you had no airplane at that point. You had no permits. You had nothing.

But it all started with a domain name.

Yes.

So, the domain story.

Ted Greenfield:After I got off the phone with the director, I remember hanging up and just saying, "All right, Lord, how's this going to happen?"

Because I can't do any of this.

But I knew it was going to happen. I didn't know how.

I was on cloud nine. I was just like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is fantastic."

And let me preface this by saying everything happened in nine-month periods of revelation.

It was progressive revelation.

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.

Anyway, nothing happened after that phone call.

I started calling other places, and there were a couple of other aviation organizations that just couldn't make it work for whatever reason.

I met a lot of great people over the phone.

Nine months went by. It seemed like nothing was happening.

Then I'm in a big FAA meeting up in Washington, D.C. There were about 40 people in the room. It was one of these big safety meetings and kind of boring.

But I hear God telling me, in the middle of the meeting, I hear Him say:

"Invisible Angels."

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."

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.

Then I heard Him say, "InvisibleAngels.org."

And I'm like, 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.

Then I hear Him say:

"Go buy 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."

I get in my office, open up my Register.com account, enter in InvisibleAngels.org, and it pops up and says:

Available. $35.

I mean, I was just like—

Ric Hansen:A God surprise.

Ted Greenfield:Yeah. For sure.

Oh my gosh.

So I click purchase. I bought it instantaneously.

And the moment I clicked purchase, God told me two things:

Number one, speak life into this organization as if it's up and running.

Number two, write a budget.

And I was just like, I'm not questioning You again, sir.

I was like, "Okay."

A lot of people say, "How do you know God's speaking to you? Is it words?"

What it was for me was like a footprint in my mind of a thought that was not mine.

It was all the words all at once in one complete sentence. It was just like a download.

It wasn't words coming across like 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.

“Speak Life Into It”

Ric Hansen:So many people wonder about that.

You know, God speaks to you. How does He speak to you exactly?

Ted Greenfield:Yeah. And that's it.

That's the way it's always been.

I've heard God's voice audibly once in my life. 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.

During this time, it got really chaotic.

And a lot of people can identify with this too. When God calls you — and this is kind of history looking backward for me now, experience rather — things get really chaotic when this happens.

During this time, my dad died. He was 90, and he wasn't sick or anything.

And during COVID, the vision of Invisible Angels was growing.

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.

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.

There was a retired airline pilot named Bob who 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."

After that Bible study, I got online to Trade-A-Plane and looked at them.

Sure enough, they're about $250,000 to $500,000, which is cheap for an airplane.

I was looking at the specs and everything and thinking, Wow, that is the perfect plane.

Nine months go by.

Nothing kind of happens.

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.

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.

Nine months later, I'm back up in D.C. for a meeting.

It was a Sunday, and I caught this sermon by Steven Furtick from Elevation Church.

The sermon was "When God Gives You the Green Light."

When he was delivering that sermon, I was like:

"It's time."

I just kept feeling, It's time.

And I'm like, "But I don't know time for what."

You know, just kind of a launching pad to nowhere.

I was like, What's going to happen?

After the sermon, I literally felt like I was walking around my condo up there looking under the pillows for blessings.

It's just like, What is that? God, You're doing something.

A couple of hours later, I chill out and get on Trade-A-Plane.

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 Bob had prophesied nine months earlier.

And all the ad said was:

"I want to donate this to a nonprofit."

Ric Hansen:Oh my gosh.

Ted Greenfield:Wow.

I was so stunned.

I remember just staring at it.

And there was no phone number or anything. You had to email.

So I emailed the ad.

Then I shut the computer down and rebooted it just to see if it was still there.

Maybe I'm just dreaming the whole thing.

Sure enough, it was still there.

I emailed the ad, and the next day a guy named Bill Strong called.

He's an older guy who had decided to give up flying because his health had given out.

I don't know what I said when he called. I was probably just like, "Human trafficking, Jesus, Jesus, God, human trafficking."

I was going a million miles an hour and probably wasn't making any sense.

I remember him saying, "Son, son, son, son. Slow down. Slow down."

And then he said:

"I want you to have the airplane."

And that was it.

I said, "Wow. Okay. I have nothing set up. All I have is a URL, and I didn't even build a website yet."

He goes, "All right. Go get yourself a nonprofit set up, son. Get on LegalZoom. Get all that stuff taken care of. 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 set up a nonprofit in about three hours.

I put $100 in a business bank account.

Then I quickly did a website. I'm a web guy, so I put one together that looked decent.

I called him about four or five days later.

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.

We met, and he signed the airplane over to us.

Then he had a friend deliver it back out to Florida.

And that is the short story of how we got our aircraft.

“You Better Know I'm Serious”

Ric Hansen: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 impressive.

Ted Greenfield:I told him.

But I will tell you what I did.

Because I thought, Here's this guy giving an airplane to a complete stranger.

So I put a personal portfolio together for him.

I included the last 10 years of my tax returns, my passport, my driver's license, my resume, my government clearance work — everything.

I stacked it with everything I could.

Just so he's not giving it to some guy who's going to sell it and pocket the money or something.

No secrets.

I just really wanted to be completely transparent and say, "Look, this is for real."

I knew he was a believer, but we didn't talk that much about God.

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.

We did our first trip in 2021.

Ric Hansen:Wow.

Is Bill still around, or did he pass?

Ted Greenfield:Yeah, he's still around.

I haven't talked to him in a while.

I should check, actually, just because I think he was in his mid-80s back then.

But I did talk to his accountant a while ago because, just because they donated the airplane to the nonprofit, we had to complete some paperwork on that.

I think I talked to him a little while ago.

When the FAA Said, “You're Operating an Illegal Airline”

Ric Hansen:Ted Greenfield shares the origin story of Invisible Angels, the amazing story of rescuing trafficking survivors.

The book is called God Is in This Fight, as I'm showing you right here.

I got a preview copy of it. It'll be available by the time the podcast airs, so anybody who's interested can jump on and grab it.

I got an advanced copy — thank you.

And, as a reader, I was really blown away by how I got engaged in your story.

All of the ups and downs, the roller-coaster ride that you went on through multiple miracles that happened along the way.

It was so nicely written that I felt like I was on board with whatever was going on.

It was really a nice job of putting it all together.

Of course, we want people to read the book, so we're not going to tell every little detail.

But there are so many interesting and involved stories.

There are significant moments in the journey where it looked like 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?

Ted Greenfield:Yes.

After we provided that Homeland Security rescue with the young child, I completed that flight.

At work, I was telling people about it at the FAA.

They said, "This is really fantastic. We really want to run a story on it."

The internal public relations people said, "We really want to run a story to show that our employees are doing awesome things."

So they did a story on Invisible Angels.

They published it, and it was a very nice story.

It went out to everybody.

There are about 50,000 FAA employees worldwide. It's a big organization.

And I was like, Cool. Maybe we'll get some donations.

You know, whatever.

God, You have it.

I just gave it all to God.

Three days later, I get a call from the Washington, D.C., Flight Standards District Office.

And that's like getting a call from the IRS.

They're never good.

I'm an optimistic guy, so I see this thing on my phone and it says Washington, D.C., FSDO.

I'm like, Well, maybe they're calling to congratulate me.

If you're going to think it's bad or good, you might as well think it's good.

I pick up the phone.

They said, "Mr. Greenfield, hey, we saw the story. You're doing very commendable work. But tell me, how are you doing these flights?"

I said, "We're doing it under Part 91 FAR, Federal Aviation Regulations, Part 91 charitable flights."

I truly thought we were doing it correctly.

They said, "Well, Mr. Greenfield, actually, you're not. You're operating an illegal airline."

They started taking all the regulations I was violating.

They said, "We're opening a compliance action against you."

That is very serious.

At this 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 a great reputation there.

And I'm like—

I remember saying, "Lord, what are You doing? 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 4:7 peace come over me.

I was just like, Okay. Just tell Your story. Just tell Your story.

There are a lot of details I'll skip through, including some very funny parts.

I reached out to friends and said, "What is going on here? What do I do?"

Then we jump ahead to the hearing.

I get on the hearing.

There are all these government people, FAA safety inspectors, and they're very serious people. No senses of humor.

There's a bunch of them online, all in their little Zoom squares.

The first question they asked me was:

"So, Mr. Greenfield, we're here today to go through Compliance Action ABC..."

And then:

"Mr. Greenfield, tell us how Invisible Angels got started."

I leaned back and said:

"Well, you guys believe in Jesus?"

And they all froze.

They're all just like—

I felt like a spiritual starting pistol:

Bam! Go!

I told them every little miracle, the big miracles, everything from that Bible study.

I explained it for about 45 minutes — maybe a little longer.

Then I told them about the rescues we did.

I told them about the trafficking survivors 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 who was sold to a gang by her mother.

We had some serious cases.

And they were like:

"This is unbelievable."

They were fumbling with themselves.

They said, "Look, we're going to get back to you. We're going to come to the findings. We all need to talk."

And I'm thinking, Yeah, I bet you need to talk.

That's what you need to talk about.

Jesus.

The phone call ended.

Then nothing for about three weeks.

I had to hire a lawyer, a very expensive lawyer at this time.

And that's another story, because I ended up knowing the guy from a previous flight. We actually were friends.

He was one of the premier aviation attorneys in Florida.

That was really cool.

About three weeks later, I get an email from the compliance group.

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 is the next day. Please be on it."

I call my lawyer.

We get on the hearing.

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 then they said:

"To continue to do this, you need to be a Part 135 direct air carrier."

Now, a Part 135 direct air carrier takes about four years and about half a million dollars.

You need to be invited to do that. You just don't do it.

They said, "We're going to talk to the Tampa FSDO and we're going to set some things up for you."

Eighteen months later, we were a direct air carrier.

That is unheard of — that the FAA could move that fast.

The documentation that needed to get done was staggering.

The people who came out of the heavens to help us were a miracle.

There was what's called a compliance statement that needed to get done.

That's your first document.

That's about 1,500 pages.

It tells the FAA how you're going to comply with every single applicable regulation.

Our compliance statement is like this.

And a company came and did that for us for free in four days using AI.

There were just a couple of changes to it.

So we became a direct air carrier in 2024.

During the time we were shut down, we really shouldn't have done a couple of flights. 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."

That was the safest thing to do.

During that time, I'm thinking, 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."

I left work. It was like 10 or 11 o'clock.

I went down to Tampa Premium Outlets and started talking to stores.

"Hey, would you like to donate your returned items? Do you have any clothes to donate to Invisible Angels?"

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 and Lucky Brand.

Now we have Calvin Klein, Brooks Brothers, Nautica, Lucky Brand and Tommy Hilfiger.

Every six weeks or so they donate brand-new returned items to us.

We use those clothes to put backpacks together for our survivors.

It's all brand-new clothes, though they don't necessarily have everything in their size.

We put a nice package together with a journal, a Bible, toiletries and brand-new clothes.

Every month or six weeks, it's usually about 100 to 150 pounds of clothes.

We fly it to different rescue agencies and just drop it off there.

And it's beautiful stuff.

We had Egyptian suits from Brooks Brothers.

God has really provided.

The Day Job Behind the Ministry

Ric Hansen:Amazing Greats shares the Ted Greenfield story of teaming with God, experiencing life-changing miracles.

And so, were you holding down a regular day job too?

Ted Greenfield:Yes, I was.

I was at the FAA holding a regular day job.

My days were pushing 10 to 12 hours.

And I loved my job when I was there.

I was a multimedia producer. I was making safety training for pilots and controllers.

I was producing an e-learning program or a video or graphics.

And I still, even when I retired, couldn't believe they paid me for what I was doing.

I get to make videos and graphics and multimedia about airplanes and training stuff.

It was great.

I didn't work there a day of my life.

Ric Hansen:Yeah, that's the way to be.

The Lawyer Who Charged $5,000 Instead of $40,000

Ric Hansen: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.

Ted Greenfield:Well, there wasn't exactly nothing.

His name is Ed Page, and he's from Carlton Fields. 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 top flight. He's top notch.

And again, how God works.

His question to me was, "Tell me how all this started."

And I said, "Do you believe in Jesus?"

And he's like, "Yes," like a Law & Order answer.

I said, "Ed, I personally had about five grand in my savings account at that time. How am I going to pay for this? What's this going to cost?"

He goes, "Well, Ted, my rate is $895 an hour."

I said, "Well, Ed, could you get this done in about five hours? I've got five grand. That's all I've got."

And he goes, "Don't worry. Don't worry. We'll take care of you. I want to get you through this. You're doing a good thing."

When it was all over, I'm just thinking, Oh my gosh, I'm going to owe $40,000 here. What do I do?

And he goes:

"Ted, just send a $5,000 bill online and we'll call it even."

And I was just—

That was great.

And that came back to me in droves.

It was one of those things where I felt God saying:

"Just pay the bill. Don't worry. We're going to take care of you."

During this time, my personal giving went up from 10 to 20%.

God told me, "I want you to start tithing 20%."

And I was like, Ooh. It's worked at 10. It's going to work at 20.

That gave me so much financial peace during that time.

I didn't have a financial issue at all during that season.

And still, I have the same financial peace right now.

“Do Nothing”

Ric Hansen:Now, let's go back.

There's one chapter toward the beginning of the book that I earmarked that I wanted to bring up because it's such an odd thing to be putting in a startup person's book.

The chapter was called "Do Nothing."

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 saying, "Do nothing."

Ted Greenfield: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 14:13-14.

I explain what happened to me in the book.

In the book, I go back about seven, eight years, maybe 10 years, to a season of unemployment where I was really in the valley.

Those valley seasons made so much sense now.

But when I was going through them, they didn't.

I wanted to bring up one story that really made sense of "do nothing."

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.

This was about 15 or 18 years ago.

I was working at a television network and had gotten into a disagreement of sorts with one of the executive producers of the television series I was working on.

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.

We had gotten into a disagreement. We just didn't get along well, and I acted like a child during the whole thing.

After I was let go, she came back around — and rightly so, I think.

She wanted to leave a mark.

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.

I never got permission for it, because most producers just put their stuff up there.

Well, technically that's not right.

So they came back at me with a pretty heavy-handed lawyer, and he scared the life out of me.

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.

This guy scared me to death.

In about 10 seconds, he had me scared to financial ruin.

They're talking about fines in the millions of dollars.

He did exactly what he set out to do.

So I called a lawyer friend of mine, Byrne.

I'd worked with Byrne at a startup years before.

I said, "Hey, I've got this problem."

I told him what had happened.

He just said, "Stop."

He's like, "I know exactly what you did."

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.

Then I just heard God say:

"Do nothing."

Just do nothing.

A couple of hours later, Byrne calls back.

He says, "Hey, Ted, where's your production agreement?"

I said, "I never signed a production agreement with the network."

He said, "Ah."

And he smiled.

"I'm going to call you right back."

I'm like, Oh, what's going on?

He calls me back in about an hour.

He says, "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 a lot of money.

He said, "It's not going to be an easy case, but I'll take it."

And I just heard God say:

"Let it go."

"Let it go."

I said, "Byrne, I'm happy this is over, right?"

He said, "Yeah. They don't have a case against you. 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.

That's when Exodus 14:13-14 became my life verse.

And I've been living on that verse.

The Season When Ted Finally Let Go

Ric Hansen:You didn't even tell me about that. I had no idea you were also a musician on top of it all.

Ted Greenfield:I was in Christian worship bands for years.

I was playing in a big Christian worship band up in Maryland.

I was in worship practice, and I had just turned 50.

When that happens, that's a new season of life.

Here I was, a special education teacher, a comedian, a musician.

I've always had a lot of different things. That's just how God wired me.

I've always been all over the place.

I remember sitting there during their corporate prayer time and saying:

"God, I don't know what to do here. 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.

I wasn't even a pilot at that time.

I'd started my pilot training numerous times over the years, but I'd never finished because it's very expensive.

That's when I was like, You know what? I'm going to finish this thing.

I was on a family vacation down there.

That's when everything started to happen.

And the less I do, even now, the less I do, the more things happen.

God tells me, "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 mess of things.

And that's true for the new believer as well as the seasoned believer with lots of gray hair.

It's still in our nature because we want to do something.

Obviously, I'm a doer.

I like to be busy.

If I'm not busy, it's not a good day.

So that's really where "do nothing" came from.

Do nothing became the mantra because when you do nothing, you really see God work.

I was having a moment a while back because I turned 62 last year.

You know, then you get, Oh, I'm old. I'm old. In 20 years, I'm going to be 82.

Just one of those things.

I got really upset.

I was thinking, I've got more behind me than in front of me. What am I going to do? I'm going to be an old man.

And I heard God say:

"I tell time what to do."

And I was like:

"Lord, yeah, that's right. You do tell time what to do."

"Well, let's go then. Let's go."

That really set the perspective for what He's doing.

A thousand years and one day are the same to God.

He lives outside of time and we live inside of time.

It's very hard to wrap our heads around that.

But when God says, "Do nothing and watch Me work," that's still the hardest thing to do.

But boy, I've got a whole book here that I want to share those miracles with everybody because God said:

"Tell My story. Just tell My story."

He kept saying that over and over.

Then I woke up one morning — and I'm not kidding — with this finished picture in my head.

This finished book cover in my head, exactly how it's there, minus the picture.

And God said:

"Write this."

God said, "Write this book."

And I started writing it.

“Thank You for Saving My Life”

Ric Hansen:Ric 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 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.

One is, I want you to share with us one of your — maybe the most gut-wrenching, tear-jerking rescue stories so far in this journey.

Ted Greenfield:Yeah.

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.

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.

We dropped her off. We flew almost all the way up north in upstate New York.

It was a lot colder when we got there.

We landed, and the people from the safe house were there.

They greeted us on the tarmac, and they were walking away.

This is real subtle, but this really got me.

We chatted with her on the way up, but she pretty much slept the whole flight.

As they were leading her away, she stopped maybe 20 or 30 feet away.

She turned around and started walking back to me.

I thought maybe she had left something in the aircraft.

She walked right up to me.

And she said:

"Thank you for saving my life."

Ric Hansen:Hmm.

What better payoff is there than that?

Ted Greenfield:Right?

When we're flying, I don't really think about that.

Get them in the plane, get them comfortable, chat with them maybe a little bit once we've reached cruising altitude, but not much.

I've got a lot going on.

We're not flying a fully automated 737.

We're flying a smaller aircraft, so I'm busy the whole time.

That was one of those moments.

And then the other was that young child who was abducted into a child pornography ring by his father.

What goes wrong in a person's DNA where they do that?

What gets—

And there have been other cases like that.

It is heart-wrenching.

There was one woman. She was riding with us during the whole ride from somewhere around Texas back to Florida.

She handed me a stack of papers as she left.

She said:

"Here's my whole story."

"You have to understand something. Three years ago, I was a normal suburban housewife with three kids."

Ric Hansen:Jeez.

Wow.

Ted Greenfield:And she goes, "It's all right here."

I read the story.

Then I called one of my friends at the FBI and said, "I've got to email something over to you. You've got to see this. There's a new case here."

And then we get into it.

In December, a young girl in the foster-care system was being trafficked by her foster-care caseworker.

Ric Hansen:Hmm.

You're supposed to have trust in—

Ted Greenfield:Yeah.

And foster-care kids are easy targets because there's no family, there's nothing, no one is going to believe them.

And again, what is off in someone's DNA where they do that to somebody?

I refer to it as Auschwitz-level trauma to these human trafficking survivors.

Ric Hansen:Absolutely.

When Ted Thought He Might Die

Ric Hansen:So you had one of the other crisis moments where you thought things might be all over — your own health issues along the way.

And that's not far behind you. I mean, that was fairly recent.

Ted Greenfield:No, that's recent.

Again, everything's fine, and I'm thinking, 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. Come back for more tests."

I went back for more tests.

Then I went back in, and they said, "Hey, we need to talk to you."

I'm like, "Okay."

Again, you don't think anything's matter.

Then she said, "We need to start sending you to an oncologist."

Right away:

That's cancer.

What are they looking for?

I'm thinking, What's going on, Ted?

"Don't worry. Everything's going to be fine. We're just doing this as a precaution."

Turns out my platelets — my bone marrow — had stopped making platelets.

The numbers just went down.

Normal platelet levels are around 240 to 270.

Mine were 29.

They thought I would just bleed out and die.

But here's the thing:

I had no symptoms.

No bleeding.

No bruising.

I was feeling fine.

I wasn't fatigued.

There were absolutely no symptoms.

Again, I'm like:

God, what's going on?

Then they're like, "Okay, we need to do a bone marrow biopsy."

I had this conversation with God one day in church.

I'm like:

"All right, Lord. If this is it, just don't drag it out."

"I don't want to be—"

"Just make it quick."

But I really wanted to see this ministry out.

Whatever Your purpose is, I really don't want to meet You just yet.

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 I heard God say:

"Just tell My story."

"Just tell My story."

So I go in to get my bone marrow biopsy.

The intake nurse is there, doing her intake nurse questions.

It's like five in the morning.

I told her what my birthday was, and then she just goes—

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?

She goes, "I'm not that far behind you."

I leaned into her desk and said:

"Young lady, more has happened in the last five years of my life than any other period in my life."

I kind of got mad.

I said, "More."

"Do you want to hear a story?"

"Do you know Jesus?"

And I told her the whole story of Invisible 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."

"Look at all these things that have happened."

"I started writing a book."

"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."

"The only thing we have to do is lean into God."

"If we sit there and go, 'Wah, wah, wah, what for me? Why me? Why 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."

"You look through it with the lens of Scripture."

Which is really hard to do.

You've got to be in the Word.

However you're in the Word — whether you're listening to sermons all the time or you're a reader — that's different for every person.

But when you start hearing from God and God says, "Just tell My story," that's what you do.

The woman's 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."

I think we even prayed right then.

Then she took me to the pre-op room.

They start cleaning me up and doing all those things.

Then I get nervous because it looks like Kylo Ren's interrogation room.

That's the operating room.

And I'm like, Oh my God, what are they going to do?

Then I said:

"You want to hear a story?"

"Do you guys believe in Jesus?"

So I'm telling the nurses.

Then they put me under and I just went out.

I think the last thing I said was, "Do you have any classical music?"

They said, "Yeah, we do."

I said, "Alexa, play classical music."

Then I just—

Beautiful Bach.

That's the last thing I remember.

So I woke up and everything's fine.

I went home.

I went into the doctor's office to get the results a week later.

The nurse — 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."

“God Knits It All Together at His Timing”

Ted Greenfield:It really did.

It almost became like a reflex where I was just so excited to tell everybody what God was doing.

I've been walking with God since 1988, for a long time.

I've never seen God move like this.

I've always wanted God to move like this in my life.

But again, God knits this all together at His timing.

I wouldn't have been able to do this back 10, 20, or even five years ago.

Now is the time where all this experience kind of weaves together.

We might not know what to do running a nonprofit.

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.

I know how to pray for it.

And that faith—

God told me to up the giving.

When I upped the giving, the money came in for Invisible Angels.

In the book, it's one financial miracle after another.

We're looking at a $55,000 maintenance bill.

We had $600 in the account.

And it came.

It came $25 at a time, but it came.

The Book: God Is in This Fight

Ric Hansen:And now you had an opportunity to tell the story in a book.

The book's called God Is in the Fight—

Ted Greenfield:God Is in This Fight.

Ric Hansen:God Is in This Fight.

And it's available as they're listening to this.

It is available on Amazon, right? Or anywhere?

Ted Greenfield:Amazon.

If you Google God Is in This Fight book, it's on Amazon, Apple, all the book outlets.

Or you can go to GodIsInThisFight.com and buy it directly from the publisher.

Just go to the website and buy it right from the purchase tab there.

It'll go right to Anika Press.

And there's an audiobook as well that you can purchase.

How You Can Help Invisible Angels

Ric Hansen:And in what other ways can our listeners support you?

Are there opportunities for financial help?

Ted Greenfield:Yes, absolutely.

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 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: partner with us like that.

Obviously, we're a 501(c)(3).

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.

What's Next for Invisible Angels?

Ric Hansen:So what's the next step for Invisible Angels?

Is it going to be multiple aircraft?

What's going to happen?

Ted Greenfield: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 not too long ago to take somebody from Naples, Florida, with two children — two toddlers — to Boston.

Then we got another request to go from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to Homer, Alaska.

So these are 1,500- to 2,500-mile trips.

Our aircraft really has a range of about 1,000 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.

We need something to go a little bit farther and a little bit faster.

The next step up is a TBM 700 or a Pilatus.

Then we're looking at about $3.5 to $4 million.

Our costs go up, but then we could do so much more in that aircraft as well.

And then we can fly multiple people.

We just had a request three days ago — actually, last Friday — from Homeland Security for family reunification.

There were three sets of parents who needed to be reunited with their kids who were abducted into sex-trafficking rings.

Their little kids.

But we couldn't take three sets of parents.

We do have a six-passenger plane, but we only use the two seats in the middle.

We don't want anybody sitting up front with us because that's a safety concern.

The two seats in the back we use for baggage, aircraft documents, and things like that.

We don't want to pack the airplane.

It's uncomfortable when you've got an airplane full of people.

So we keep it a two-passenger aircraft.

This trip was for six people.

We really have been getting more calls for a bigger aircraft.

And God will provide it.

He certainly will when the time's right.

That's really what we need.

Then we do want to upgrade to five aircraft and five pilots because we're a Part 135 carrier.

We can start operating charter flights as well to run, you know, to provide funding for the organization.

There's plenty of people who actually fly privately, and we can offer a competitive rate for that and still have profitability in there where it could provide good funding.

For example, right now we're offering charter flights between Tampa, Miami, Jacksonville, 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.

We also want to provide transportation for law enforcement and lawyers to work on these human trafficking cases where they have to get up to Tallahassee.

There was a case where we had to go for the victim impact statement that we're trying to work.

That's the kind of thing we can do.

But we need to be able to carry six people.

Final Thoughts

Ric Hansen:Well, we've been so fascinated.

The book was incredible.

Thank you.

You are an inspiration.

And I love the interaction you've had with God over multiple decades.

I think that everybody kind of seeks that.

Sometimes we have a hard time understanding, you know, getting out of our real-world, day-to-day life to make time for God to speak.

And I think you're the kind of guy that can share that it's worth it for sure to do.

So thank you so much.

Ted Greenfield:Thank you.

Ric Hansen:The opportunity for you to tell your story — God's story — right here was great for us and great for our listeners.

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.