Earth Angels

The Story of Peter VandenBosch and Wings of Mercy

By: Peter VandenBosch

Peter VandenBosch thought he had it all. He was 67 years old, happily married and successfully retired. He had homes in two states and a yacht for deep sea fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. In November 1990, while grouper fishing off the Florida coast, he heard a voice: “Peter, there is more to life than this.” For weeks he told no one, not even his wife. When he finally told her, her response was unexpected—and it changed his life.

Earth Angels is the story of Peter VandenBosch’s spiritual journey from the dust bowl of the Great Depression to the Rotunda of the nation’s Capitol. There, in 2007, congressmen and senators from both sides of the aisle honored him as the founder of Wings of Mercy, a faith-based, volunteer organization that flies low-income patients to life-saving medical centers like the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

It's a book about the heroic pilots who volunteer their time to transport patients in need of specialized, often urgent, medical care. It’s about the patients whose lives they have saved. And it’s about people like us—some in their retirement years—who have found fulfillment by serving people in need in other ways.

The foreword, by former NASA astronaut Jack Lousma, focuses on the central theme of Peter’s story: the importance of a purpose-driven life. The message applies to everyone. We all have an inner calling. If we listen it might change another life—our own—just as it changed Peter’s.

Headquartered in Michigan, Wings of Mercy has flown more than 3,500 life-saving missions since its inception. In July of 2011, Wings of Mercy will celebrate the 20th anniversary of its first mission.