Andrea Jaeger: Teen Tennis Star to Nun

Andrea Jaeger was a tennis phenomenon. She was a tennis pro in her early teens and won the French Open on her sixteenth birthday. She has taken an unexpected path since her years as a tennis champion. Instead of the riches and easy life that Andrea could have taken, she chose a mission in God's Kingdom. Her mission is to uplift children with cancer at the Silver Lining Foundation in Colorado.

I had the privilege of seeing Andrea Jaeger speak at Willow Creek Community Church in Barrington Illinois in 2004. At the time she was promoting her recent book, "First Service, Following God's Calling and Finding Life's Purpose", by Former Tennis Star Andrea Jaeger. As the Co-founder and Executive Director of the Silver Lining Foundation, she spoke with great conviction about her spiritual journey.

Sitting somewhere in the middle of an auditorium filled with 5,000 people, I could feel her energy and enthusiasm for her mission.

The Silver Lining Foundation is a ranch where children with cancer can receive positive encouragement and have some fun, in spite of their illness. The Foundation will bring the children to the ranch, where they are housed and they can have some respite form the ordeal of disease with play and fun.

As a teenage tennis star, Andrea was well known as something of a tennis brat, prone to temper tantrums. Her tennis career was over before most people even start their's, when sidelined by a shoulder injury. She spoke of, and detailed in her book, her journey to Tampa, Florida, where she took a job as a receptionist. She stated that she felt that she needed administrative skills and attacked the job with the enthusiasm that she was famous for. While she was living in Florida, she was in a serious car accident and suffered further injuries and was in a great deal of pain.