A former RAF pilot who found God on a dangerous flight into Afghanistan will be ordained as the new minister at a West Watford Baptist church.

During a long night in February 2002, pilot of 10 years Alice McDermott sat in the cockpit of her Hercules aircraft en route to Kabul.

It was the first time she had flown into a conflict zone post 9/11.

Leaving the base in Oman and flying north to the Afghan capital, she promised God that if she returned alive she would give him another chance.

The 44-year-old said: "The crew was turning around and asking me how safe is was. I kept saying we were fine, but on the inside I was feeling very vulnerable. There’s nothing you can do to stop someone taking a shot at the aircraft. It felt dangerous. Things are out of your control. I started praying for protection. I was reaching out to the faith I had left behind in my childhood."

But it wasn’t until 2006 a breast cancer scare made Mrs McDermott remember her promise and she started attending church.

She said: "I found a lump. It was one of those moments in life where you think there could be something majorly wrong. It made me face my own mortality and question why we’re here and what it’s all about. My sister-in-law said her church group were going to be praying for me and asked me what happened to my faith."

Once she was given the all clear, Mrs McDermott turned to her husband Colin and said she was going to go to church again.

Mrs McDermott spent another 10 years in the RAF after her first flight to Afghanistan. She went back numerous times and completed several missions to Iraq in that time, before undertaking her ministerial training in Paisley, Scotland.

She said: "Initially going to church was more like ticking a box, it’s been very gradual getting to this point."

Mrs McDermott is originally from Glasgow and joined the RAF while at university.

She moved to Watford last month to take up the position at St James Road Baptist Church.

The church has been without a minister since March 2012 when Rev Stephen Harrison left to take up a hospice chaplaincy role in Oxford.

Mrs McDermott will have her formal induction and ordination service on Saturday, September 27.
She has been working as minister at St James Road since the beginning of the month.