The seed for my faith was sewn from a simple but consistent daily practice.  As early as I can remember, each night my mother would teach me to fold my hands in prayer.  We prayed for family as most children do, but we also always prayed for “the soldier boys” as my mother called them.  We prayed that God would bring them home safely.  As the years passed, I learned prayer was the one aspect of my arsenal that would be the most powerful, and the one element of daily life that I could not survive without in good times nor in bad.

Family was something with which I was truly blessed.  It was and still is the simple things that we gain from family that are the most precious.  For instance, our family was always together at dinnertime.  It was the reunion of the day.  Dad always sat at the head of the table.  We always prayed before meals, rotating this duty between family members.  Even if it was a one sentence prayer from one of the five children, the prayer was, indeed, acceptable to God and our family.  Eloquence was not the goal, rather giving thanks on a consistent basis was the aim.  Dinner was the time that we shared our daily lives.  It was my first experience of loving fellowship.

All along, these family values were being solidified by the teachings I would learn in Sunday School.  The first bible verse that I learned at age 5 is still the most powerful one that I know: John 3:16  - "For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son that who so ever believes in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Even though I could recite the verse at age five, I did not fully understand the  powerful gift this message implied until I was eighteen years old.  On Easter Sunday 1973, I committed my life to Christ and accepted Him as my personal Lord and Savior.  I will admit, when I made that decision, I did not see blinding lightning bolts, nor did I hear rolling, rumbling thunder, and God did not even send me off to be a missionary in a far away land where I could not speak the language.  No, it was a peaceful decision that had as much common sense about it as it did heart sense.

That was the most important decision of my life.  Even today, I know without a doubt, that when all is said and done, that is the one decision that I made that matters the most.  It was the decision that decided where I will spend eternity.

At eighteen I was doing the normal things teenagers do well, at least in Texas, that is.  I was wrapped up in music, horses and rodeo, and at school I was a good student.  About the same time that I had accepted Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, my school counselor suggested that I enter the upcoming preliminaries for the Miss America contests.  I had been singing in public for about three years, and my grades were exceptional, so that made me a good candidate for the talent driven contestant.  Low and behold, in May 1973, I was crowned Miss Corpus Christi.

God continued molding me into the warrior that He would be calling on later in life for a specific mission.  He would use my abilities in music, public speaking, and love for soldiers to form a foundation for the avocation I perform today.  No doubt, God “wired” me differently than most folks from the beginning.  My friends and family saw it long before I did.  Even though I could handle being in the public eye very well from training, I have always enjoyed being a person who does most of her work behind the scene.  I call it “being a soldier in field”.  That is where the action is.

God began using my unconventional warrior spirit to sing for soldiers.  He made me this way because He knew all along the mission He had planned for me was going to be “unconventional”.  Granted, I did not fully comprehend the word “unconventional” until I met a real “unconventional soldier”, a Special Forces professional who was a Green Beret with the 7th Special Forces Group.

God was showing me that He equips His soldiers just like the military does. God calls us to a mission that is rooted in the things that we do well, the things that we love, and in most cases, the things that are natural to us.  For me, it has always been my love for my Lord, my soldiers, my country, and music.  Regardless of where I am, or what I am doing, those four loves are with me.

Let me get to the rest of the story.  The day that I met the Green Beret, I knew that I had been blessed with “another brother”.  Not my blood brother, but one who would be as close to me, if not closer, than the brothers who shared my name.  He was the first person to ever be able to leave me breathless and spellbound from his constant one-liner wit and laughter.

The code name for my new friend and brother was “The A Team”.  Our friendship was the purest platonic brother and sister bond I have ever experienced.  He and our close knit circle of friends simply called me SIS and I was known as "The A Team’s Little Sister”.

"The A Team” grew to be my most trusted friend.  He was my mentor, my hero, my safe house, and my protector.  He was everything that you would want from your big brother and most trusted friend.  He was the one person who knew the “warrior” in me and actually accepted me that way.  We shared common interests in our love for country and our love for soldiers.  Of course, he was training them, and I was singing and writing for them. 

“The A Team” was the only person who truly “believed in me”, even when I could not believe in myself, and there was not a long line of anyone else believing in me.  He mentored the “warrior” in my heart .

The A Team knew that I went to church, and had some kind of faith, but I can’t say that we ever sat down and talked in depth about our faith.  That is the biggest regret of my life.  As you will read in the section entitled MISSION, we buried “The A Team” on September 20, 1996 in Arlington National Cemetery.  That was the day God commissioned my faith and me for a mission that would last the rest of my life.

Airborne Girl Productions believes in the following faith values:

	The New Testament Church
	The Great Commission
	Salvation by Faith
	Leadership Accountability
	Stewardship Living

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