Andrew Wommack was born in 1949 in Marshall, Texas to Winfred Raymond and Ida Lavell Stroud Wommack. His father died when Andy was twelve years old. Andy always enjoyed going to the Baptist church and at the age of eight he was taught that it was the relationship that one has with the Lord that determines whether you go to heaven or not. It was then that Andy became an introvert as he was made fun of for his religious beliefs. At the age of eighteen, he says he became a religious fanatic. A very devout southern Baptist, Andy was so excited about sharing the Lord Jesus that he did not attend his classes the last two months at the University of Texas at Arlington. He passed his tests at the end of the semester but he did not reenroll in September. Because Andy attended college, his number did not come up in the draft but when he did not reenroll he was reclassified 1-A and received his draft notice. He was sent to Fort Bliss for basic training, to Fort Dix, New Jersey for AIT then to Fort Hamilton, New York where he was trained as a chaplain's assistant. Andy was deployed to Vietnam in January of 1970 and he landed in Cam Ranh Bay while it was under rocket attack. He served with Chaplain Wilson at LZ West and says did not see the war realistically. While he was in Vietnam, his fiance died of leukemia and he was allowed to return home to be with her before she died. Although Chaplain Wilson went into the field, Andrew stayed at the base camp most of the time, and did not provide services except for the six months that they were without a chaplain. He held very low key bible studies and ministered when the men were interested because as the assistant, that was not his job. He began praying for the Vietnamese and felt love and compassion for them and he realizes now that he was in a bubble and did not see the combat the way the others did. When he was discharged and returned home, he pastoring a youth group in Mesquite that eventually grew larger than the church itself. When he left that church, he decided to go into the ministry full time, quit his job pouring concrete and married Jamie Ann Harris who had been his fiancee's best friend. Moving around for several years, he pastored several churches and did broadcast radio shows, ending up near Colorado Springs and traveling the circuit of Colorado, Texas and New Mexico holding bible studies. By 1980, Andy was on the radio in Phoenix, Kansas City, Omaha, Colorado Springs and Denver. In 1999, when his radio program was on 130 stations, he decided it was time to begin a television ministry. The Andrew Wommack Ministries grew to be on every network, around five hundred stations with about three hundred employees in the United States with other offices around the world including in St. Petersburg, Russia and has plans to start a thousand bible schools Russia.