The call of Christ to "take up your cross and follow me" is not a call toward safety, comfort, or ease.
It's a call to join battle in a mop-up operation against an Enemy who has been defeated... but the terrorist cells hang on around the world.

God promises no safety outside Himself.
The Psalmist calls God his "shield," his "strong tower," his "buckler," his "defense." David repeatedly calls out to God to rescue, save, deliver, remember, justify, vindicate. This is no easy walk.

When we chase safety....
when we make our own peace more important than the Prince of Peace....
when we refuse to trust God Himself with the hearts and souls of our loved ones, and set up our own extra-biblical defenses....
when we call "truce" with people who do not ally themselves with Grace fully understood....
when we retreat in the face of falsehood, error, condemnation --

we sell out and sit down on the sidelines of the great battle to see "the knowledge of God cover the earth like the waters cover the sea."

Our King is King Jesus, and He reigns.

Stop chasing safety.

Do hard things.

Defend the oppressed, speak for the abused, love the orphans and fatherless, visit the widows in their affliction.
Tackle the hard problems of this world in the name of the King.
Love people the way God does:  All-out, full-bore, no-stops, both-hands. Fortissimo. 

SUPER-EASY! And easy to multiply for larger crowds. This serves 2.

Recipe is originally from the Italian Market & Grill in Greenville, SC -- they used to send out a newsletter.  I adapted it for 2 people. I'll include the 8x8 pan directions at the end.

10 Minute Peach Cobbler for Two

Preheat oven to 350.

Get two 8oz ramekins or small round baking dishes. 
Cut a stick of butter in half (4T), then in half again (2T). 
Put 2T of butter in each dish and set in the oven while it preheats to completely melt the butter.

In a small bowl, combine
3/4 cup baking mix, Bisquick, or self-rising flour ... or gluten-free baking mix (my favorite, actually)
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup milk

Then slice a peach in half, peel it, and remove the pit.
Slice each half into very thin slices.

When butter is melted, pull out the baking dishes.  Carefully pour half of the wet mixture into each dish, then top with the peach slices.

Bake at 350 for 25-35 minutes (the center needs to be "baked" and not runny. 
Serve warm.  Each dish is a generous single portion.  Vanilla ice cream is a must.

Full-size version:  Use a 8x8 baking dish and double the recipe; use at least 2 cups of sliced peaches.

Try this, folks. It's seriously AWESOME. And really, really EASY.

Measure 3 standard cups of cold, fresh water (24oz) into your coffeepot and
put 1 cup of ground coffee in the bucket (8 dry oz, measured).  Brew.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan stir together about 1/2 cup white sugar and 1/2 cup water.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and whisk for about 30 seconds until all the sugar is totally dissolved. ("Simple Syrup")
If you use Splenda or Truvia or whatever, those probably don't need to be pre-dissolved.

In a large pitcher, pour in the Simple Syrup,
several tablespoons of any flavoring you'd like (I prefer high-quality caramel syrup, but Hershey's syrup or any of the standard coffee syrups would work),
the freshly brewed coffee,
a couple cups of fresh milk (to your liking)
and 3 cups of ice.

Stir well (I like to combine the sugar-syrup and flavorings first, then whisk in the coffee and milk, then add the ice.)
You can serve immediately in a glass full of more ice, or chill in the frig for iced coffee on the go!

I got the brewing ratio from Starbucks.  The rest of the concoction is mine.

At NCS, we like to kick off each year in the high school with a fully-integrated problem-based unit.  To define my terms:  by "integrated," I mean, "something that draws from all the disciplines at one time."  And "problem-based" simply means that we look to real events and current problems for our inspiration. We cancel regular classes to ask the students to study in groups, learn like "real people" learn (you find what you need and put that knowledge to work on a real issue), and come up with realistic solutions that can be implemented by NCS students for our own community.

Four years ago we attempted our first problem-based unit by asking the high schoolers to tackle the problem in Darfur and suggest something we could do. They met with local experts in related fields and organized, managed, and executed a public awareness event about the Darfur problem. I was super proud of their groundwork in laying a foundation for future successful units. (I have an album of photos from the event on Facebook.)

Our next project, in 2008, divided up the students into little families and arbitrarily assigned one member of each "family" a chronic disease. This very-real investigation into the health care crisis sharpened the kids' understanding of the health care debate that had shaped the McCain-Obama election campaigns. A real-world simulation powerfully made its point.  

Last year we focused on the problems that the elderly face. That project was short, but it nicely dove-tailed into supporting the widows' ministry that the NCS seniors manage as their senior project. (If you know of any local widows who need help, contact the school office or one of the seniors.)

This year, the faculty came up with another global issue for the students to sink their teeth into:  Water.

• Did you know that half of all patients in hospitals world-wide are there due to water-borne illness?
• Did you know that 72% of the water-gathering necessary in developing cultures where water is scarce is done by women?
• And that the hundreds of thousands of hours of lost productivity caused by this basic drudgery for women is equal to the COMBINED productivity of EVERY employee at EVERY Wal-Mart, McDonald's, UPS, Target, and Kroger store each week?
• Did you know that the average person in the developing world has only 31 liters of water a day for washing, cooking, and drinking?  In contrast, the average American uses 200 or more liters of water just to shower, plus more for drinking and cooking. Your bathtub holds about 150 liters.
• Every 20 seconds a child dies of a water-borne illness like diarrhea.
• Nearly 75% of the water usage in the world goes to agriculture. Many countries literally waste water to grow crops or care for livestock.
• It takes about 1,000 liters of water to grow a kilo of rice or wheat. It takes about 13,000 liters to get a kilo of beef. 
• In fact, every day, YOUR American food (a diet rich in meat) costs about 5,000 liters of water to produce.  That's in addition to the 200 liters you used in the shower this morning.
• Only a tiny percentage of the global water projects (drilling wells, installing water treatment pods) are maintained or inspected once the rich benefactors do the initial installation. 
• Water scarcity is a very local problem. It's hard to get water to places where it's scarce.  It's also a complex problem, complicated by economic, political, scientific, and biological factors.

If you'd like to know more about the water problem, the UNICEF site is very useful.

Today, we kicked off the unit by telling the high schoolers that a water main break had rendered the building's water sources temporarily unsafe. Meanwhile we invited them all to partake of a special snack break stocked with lots of dry, salty foods.

Debbie started quoting facts and figures like I've listed above and we divided the kids into 4 research groups and handed them stacks of articles to read.  Before lunch, everyone gathered to pour 31 liters into a bathtub behind the science classroom.  That's not much water ... not when a bathtub holds 150+ liters. Yet that's the average water consumption per person per day in the developing world.

By the end of the day, everyone was thoughtful, tired, and focusing on solutions.  I think some good ideas will emerge. Some great charities out there are putting easy-to-maintain water treatment kids on the ground all over Africa and India.  Julianna is going back to Kenya next summer to help drill wells. Many of the kids really want to help get the word out about the problem at events like the Midnight Flight in Anderson next month.

Kingdom work.  It's not rocket science, usually.
It's hearing about a problem .... caring about people's bodies AND souls.... doing something to push back the brokenness of this world....

Just do it.

Illegal immigration and immigration policy in general are back on the radar thanks to the controversial Arizona immigration law.  This multifaceted issue lies beyond the scope of my experience or wisdom to solve. A few thoughts have been brewing though:

The Old Testament is loaded with references to "the alien" and "the stranger."  According to Mosaic law, the Israelites were to treat their "immigrants" well. It's true that Israelites were allowed to enslave immigrants, but I don't think that's meant to be a statement of their inferiority. (A discussion of the slavery laws in the OT would require multiple posts, so let me set that issue aside.) Also, an OT professor at TEDS wrote a book (summarized here) that suggests that the OT Israel treated "legal" immigrants differently than those who did not attain a status similar to what we call "legal immigrant." I want to mention his position to be fair.

But another guy at Denver Seminary wrote a better article about the OT material dealing with immigration, especially as it pertains to the checkered patchwork of US regulations which are at the forefront of this debate.  I highly recommend that you take time to read the middle of this article: http://www.denverseminary.edu/article/the-immigration-crisis-immigrants-aliens-and-the-bible/

Jesus speaks of the judgment of nations (Mt 25:32). I don't know exactly what that means -- how can God "judge" an entire nation at one time, when the people currently living in a nation aren't necessarily responsible for its government or situation? I don't know. I do believe that "The Judge of all the earth will do right."  

Imagine for a moment that God Almighty calls America before His throne of judgment.

America is a generous, caring nation. When Haiti was shaken down by earthquakes, when people in Turkey were buried in rubble for weeks, when the tsunami slammed Thailand, when people are being oppressed or slaughtered -- Americans are there to help.  Yeah, we meddle without sufficient knowledge and get ourselves into trouble at times. But overall, Americans will put their own lives at risk to help others live free, and that pattern of caring for people beyond our borders is biblical.

We are rich. Rich beyond all imagination or historical precedent.
Even my small house (by American standards) and very modest income (compared to professionals in other fields with masters degrees and years of experience) dwarfs the income and possessions of the vast majority of the world's citizens. I eat good-quality food, drink safe water cheaply, drive a reliable car (*knocks on wood*), pay less than $3/gal for fuel, and own a multitude of electronics and appliances to improve my quality of life. I live on 1/3 acre of ground in air conditioning and can inexpensively keep my home comfortably warm during the winter. 

I'm not bragging -- at all.  Most of the families in my school and church enjoy a much higher standard of living than mine. But any American is rich compared to many across the globe who live without electricity, cars, a/c, clean water, safe food, disease-resistant crop seeds, access to health care. 

And let's discuss security. Is America safe? Stunningly so. I lock my front door, but I don't really have to.  I lock my car too in parking lots, but the chance of theft is pretty small. Anderson County doesn't deal much with Mafia crime rings or wholesale violence. Sure, there are shootings across town that are usually drug-related, and I want my county government to address the underlying causes. But even in "The Age of Terror," we Americans live securely in a stable nation free of rioting, drug wars, or horrific violence.

Back to my judgment throne daydream:
How is God going to respond when He pulls a Mexican family in front of the throne and says, "How did you care for the least of these?"

Our immigration policy is patchwork, unfair, and almost impossible to navigate. Americans think there's some kind of queue at the border of Texas and Mexico where you just get in line with your birth certificate and sob story and wait.  There's not.  There are no lines. There are miles of red tape, a highly outdated and limited system of quotas and visas for entry -- quotas slashed after 9/11 for fear of terrorism. 

The INS enforcement of immigration law is spotty at best. Certain industries like agriculture suffer little from the immigration laws because INS knows farms would be out of business if not for the illegals who come to harvest the food for us to eat.  American kids won't do it.  And Americans won't stand to pay $7 for a pack of strawberries in the grocery store -- because that's what we'd have to pay if you hired Anglos to pick your strawberries for us. We don't want our ChikFilA sandwich meals to jump up another dollar --but it would if white kids started scrubbing the floors and cleaning the grill at night. And even in this economy, none of my students will take any of those jobs....

Besides our uneven implementation of unfair immigration quotas and our tacit reliance on cheap illegal labor to push back price inflation...

Jesus spoke much of loving God and loving your neighbor. The OT standards for a righteous king (mentioned everywhere from Deuteronomy to Psalms to the minor prophets) emphasize that social justice was part of His mandate for right governing.  Treating the aliens well and caring for the poor, widowed, and orphan is a mandate of the Gospel in both OT and NT ages.

A couple weeks ago, the Economist published another update on Mexico describing the horrible drug war that has ravaged that nation in recent years. Probably 25,000 people have been killed, mostly unemployed young people who started working for the gangs because they had no other options for employment. Let that number soak into your head for a minute. 25,000.  More than 90% of the wealth and power in Mexico is held by only a dozen families who have controlled the nation since its inception. Any politician who tries to work against the wholesale corruption (most government officials are in league with the drug lords) will be shot mysteriously during the campaign or "disappear."

Might I point out that the drug lords' power stems directly from the high street price American addicts will pay for their cocaine, heroin, and weed?

WE are part of this problem.  It's OUR drug market that empowers the Mexican drug lords to murder and threaten and control.

I have a good friend whose job led her to work alongside a number of illegals. Every story she's relayed to me reads the same:  The guy is in the US illegally because he could not find a legal way in. The waiting list for entry is 7 to 10 years long. The guy's mother or sister or family is living in a slum and cannot afford a house. The area is dangerous as the drug war encroaches.  So this person ran north, slipped through the border, works in America, sends 90% of his paychecks home, and knows that his family has been able to purchase a small house in a safer part of town.  He misses his family dearly and would go home today if he knew that his family could survive. But they can't. So he lives 1000 miles away to make their lives better. If he gets deported, he'll be back -- it's a minor inconvenience.

You can say "but they need to be legal!!!" all you want ..... but you aren't addressing the unfairness of the system as it stands

....or the hubris of children-of-immigrants Americans who sit in our air conditioned houses eating cheap food picked by underpaid migrant workers while demanding that illegals be treated as criminals.

Love. your. neighbor.
Wealth wasn't given to us as a nation for us to enjoy alone. It's a gift to be shared.

I am NOT making up the following. I don't know how long the web link will be active, but this is a legit request for an editor/writer to help this guy with his book .... and it is truly a WTF?! moment here.....
http://www.elance.com/job?crypted=am9iaWQlM0QyMDY1NzMxMyUyNmNhdElkJTNEMTAyMDY=&rid=1RP8F

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I need guidance, and editing on this project I have begun as it grows. I am writing about a higher-dimensional culture through information I receive from what many call channeling. Though I still have to put pieces together, find the right words, and relay it in a way that is acceptable to others.

So far, I have approx. 12 pages. I want to make sure this takes off in the right direction. This is an enligtened culture, in perfect balance, and harmony. I am not sure if I need conflict, or such, since this is an inspiring guide of what is possible.

I have a good friend who is helping to do the illustrations for me. I have attached the first couple of pages. This is the story of my contact with a fifth-dimensional ET being, who is anthropomorphic in nature. It serves as hope for those who have love and affinity for these type of beings.

I am finding some wonderful information from this being. But I want something that may be acceptable by publishers such as: http://www.sofawolf.com/

It is somewhat in the genre of "furry", but does have larger market, as it talks about what is possible with evolution of human consciousness. I am learning and building my ability to talk with a higher ET being, so having an open mind is critical for the editor. I need guidance, and compatibility for this endeavor.

I have published a novel in the past: www.thewarlockname.com

That novel took 8 years and is 292 pages in length, Sci-Fi fantasy. This writing I am doing now is much different, more graphics, and much more enlightened type of writing. I can provide the 13 or so pages of manuscript I have so far upon acceptance of the project.

My last editor once published no longer spoke to me again, or responded to me. I do not want an editor who will break contact once their project is done. This has potential for much growth. Perhaps it will be a beacon for the potential of humanity.

I can work with either hourly or fixed, depending on fairness of budget. It's small now, and I feel I am at least a competent writer.

Also attached is The Warlock Namek, the novel I have published before. It might not relate, but I am offering it free now since it is out of print. To give an idea of my style of writing.

Thank you.

- Thomas Sweet, MBA
FurryBlueNaki
------------------------------------------
Added 25 JUL 2010, 11:45 AM EDT
Some concepts this book covers:

1. Evolution of Human Consciousness
2. Advanced Language Systems
3. Fifth Dimensional Geometry
4. Language is Form
5. Programming, DNA and Energy

Though we've been at NCC for almost 9 years now, this summer we set foot on the RYM Youth Conference for the first time. Last week we spent 5 days in Panama City, FL (Laguna Beach) with 27 of our senior high kids and youth leaders.

Our involvement with the youth group has grown in the past couple years. We stayed away back in the early days because we thought there was too much overlap between school and church. (We didn't want to be overwhelmingly present in the lives of some kids.)  Since then our thinking has changed (yay) and our school & church communities overlap much less.

So when the opportunity arose this summer to assist with RYM as chaperons, we put our names on the list for the beach adventure. Overall, it was a good week.  As Coart says, "It's funny to see the PCA sense of decorum stretched over the top of 1500 teens at a beach."  The conference is well-planned and -executed.  The preaching was outstanding and refreshing and Grace-centered.  The weather was nearly unbearable. If I never return to that part of Florida, it will be too soon.

I really enjoyed spending longer stretches of time around the teens in our church. They're great people -- a lot of fun, and sometimes more in tune with the heart of the Gospel than many adults. Those who are broken understand their need for help. Those who are "healthy" don't need the Physician, Jesus said.

I especially valued the speakers we heard -- Richie Sessions, Brian Habig, and Joey Stewart.  Richie took a dry topic ("sovereignty") and breathed the life of true experience into it. His evening talks were short but powerful -- he didn't need to fill them with irrelevant stories or cutsie outlines. He got up, spoke the Truth, and sat down. I appreciate that in a speaker. 

Brian Habig brings a winsomeness to hard things -- that's a strange sentence, but true. He was teaching a class on dating/marriage/sex (a high-interest topic for anyone between the ages of 12 and 102) to a packed-out room, but instead of resorting to the usual list of do's/don'ts, he focused his thoughts on the way our understanding of Creation, Fall, and Redemption changes everything about how we live. <<We are created in the image of an "us.">> - my favorite quote from him.  Our passion for relationships lets us "bump against the goodness of God" in daily living. Our fallen nature screws it all up and twists our desire for relationship into a passion for idolatry.  These "counterfeit gods" (to quote Tim Keller) possess our hearts, and "anything I can't live without" begins to displace the role of the Savior in healing, fulfilling, and satisfying the infinite hole built into our hearts. Great stuff.

Joey Stewart directs RYM and has been working with the ministry for 20 years -- pretty amazing. His class essentially covered justification and sanctification, and it was incredible. So many people are trapped in a "hamster wheel" religion! Doesn't matter whether you name the right theology; we live as if our actions after salvation make God happy (or upset) with us. It's a deadly, destructive mistake. Props to Joey for clearly and boldly saying what people don't want to believe: Grace. Grace. Grace. The Gospel is enough. Our 10-step plans for righteousness are crap.

The NCC youth group excels in abusing other youth groups (in a semi-friendly way, of course). Water balloons appear out of nowhere when our boys are around, hitting their targets efficiently. Our guys working tray return at lunch one day harassed people who didn't eat their food. "Take another bite!" Kelsey or Timothy would command. It was pretty funny.  The truest "conflict" came during the mega-rec game time in the afternoons, of course. Nothing excites our sense of "fair" like competition ... and the NCC kids were incensed that we were consistently cheated against by a particular youth group the entire time. Pinewood Church (maybe they're from Mississippi? not sure) became the arch-enemy of Mark and the guys, who would bellow "CHEATERS!!!" across public spaces whenever they recognized any Pinewood people. *coughs*   But we had many good moments too. Several teens stopped by the vans to say goodbye to us when we were loading up to leave.

I don't know whether the other youth groups are much like ours.   And I kinda like that.... 

Next year, maybe we'll eschew the oven-hot purgatory of FL (seriously... it was stupidly humid) for the conference that's held in Colorado. Mark is leaving us to pastor a youth group out there (suburb of Denver). Makes sense that we could head West next summer to visit Mark and enjoy some cooler air in the middle of summer.

I've got a couple photos on Facebook from our adventures -- they're in the Mobile Uploads album. Don't miss the pink velvet Jesus!! lol

from the people who are more concerned about "work" than the things that *really* matter come all the statistics about how much productivity was lost during the World Cup. lol

I'm enamored by the excellent graphic communication here. Could someone please rewrite all our math and economic textbooks like this, please? [You might need to click through to the original image to see the full-width version.....]

Sales Productivity Software - InsideView.com

Created by Oatmeal

I'm home now, but I'd be remiss if I didn't take a few minutes to recount our journey home from England. Usually travel days don't produce much news, but this one deserves its own post!

I love traveling, but I love coming home too. I miss my friends and my bed (and for this trip, my husband) so I take the homecoming in stride -- it has pros and cons. One thing I actually hate is the plane ride home. If you're flying overseas from Europe, it's a horrible flight.  Full daylight, usually kind of stuffy/warm, and longer than the flight over.

In hopes of jump-starting my return to the American clock, I elected to stay up Monday night instead of going to bed. Before you consider me crazy -- understand that the group had to be awake at 3am anyway to finish packing, eat breakfast, and load the van so we could be on the road out of Coverack by 4:30 am.  We had to be at the airport in Bristol by 8:30 for a 10:30am flight. I couldn't make much sense out of the plan to sleep for a couple hours just to get up and ride in the van, so I figured I'd try an all-nighter in hopes of sleeping on the journey.

The all-nighter was pretty chill (a few kids stayed up with me) and I hauled my very small (and therefore lightweight) suitcase out to the van at 4am while the sky was still dark.  It was a foggy, rainy day -- the first rain we'd seen in the entire trip! -- so I didn't get to see the sunrise though I was awake for the transformation from dark to light. The guys threw the suitcases back into the van, everyone smashed in, and we were off.  I dozed off and on, but the luggage tower threatened to kill me at any second when Dave was going through roundabouts, which put a bit of a damper on good sleep.

The actual flight from Bristol to Newark was straightforward. Thanks to personal in-seat monitors now, transatlantic flights are more interesting than they used to be. I was too tired to concentrate on a movie, but I did play several rounds of Sudoku, Bejeweled, and Solitaire to pass the time. As expected, I couldn't sleep at all on the plane.  Airplane seats nowadays are so cramped that it's basically impossible to do anything but sit stark upright and pray for the 7 hours to pass quickly.

Things began to go downhill in Newark, and here my real story starts.  I knew that Newark would be a rough spot in our itinerary because the agent booking our flights had for some reason unfathomable to me given us barely 80 minutes between landing from the overseas flight until our next departure (to Charlotte). If you've ever flown internationally, you know that your first item of business is going through passport control and then customs. Even on a great day, customs can easily eat an hour of your time. I was worried.

Passport control went great -- INS had at least 40 lines open to handle both non-citizens and US folks, so we sailed through that.  Next we had to claim our bags and then truck through customs. Amazingly, no one was stopped and no one had to be searched.  Woot.

But already things were tight. Our second flight was to leave at 2:40. We hit the baggage carousel around 1:50 and emerged from customs by 2:10 to recheck our bags and continue our journey to an entirely different terminal. Did I mention that Newark is a large airport, and that I've never really liked it?

I was traveling at the back of the group because I was helping the Munns, who move slowly since Ann has had a knee replaced.  As we reached the airport tram platform to ride to terminal C, disaster struck. The train had broken down! Four of the Inklings were stuck on the stuffy train cars while the technicians tried to fix a door that wouldn't close. We fidgeted outside and stared at our watches as 10 precious minutes ticked by. I knew the Munns couldn't make any time walking the long passageway between terminals on foot, so our only hope was to ride the train.  At 2:20 we finally got moving again.

If Newark were set up so that we could have entered the terminal as secure travelers, having already gone through security (which we did in Bristol), we might have made the flight.  But ... no.  In the interest of harassing travelers under the pretext of safety, we emerged from the tram on one end of a giant concourse and faced a frantic airport employee screaming at us to get in a different security checkpoint line.   And since the TSA employees must personally search and examine anyone with an artificial limb or joint (they're metal), I knew my chances of making the plane were probably nil.  Dave texted me that he'd asked the flight attendants to wait on us, but they weren't going to give any leeway "to someone who arrived at the gate less than 30 minutes before the flight." (Never mind that our lateness had everything to do with airport mechanical failures and security backlogs.)

Annie Kate was with me and I shoved her to the front of the security line, telling her to RUN and try to make the flight. I knew the Munns and I would have to catch a later flight. No hope of crossing a huge swath of the concourse to reach our gate in time... indeed we were a full 5  minutes late.

At this point, things at Newark and Continental degenerated so badly that I'm still kind of angry.

First off, we discovered that 3 other Inklings had missed the plane: Annie Kate made it to the desk before 2:40 but they wouldn't let her on the plane. Joyce and Susan, two of our other adults, hit snags in the security lines and were too late for the flight. Joyce had been humiliated by a TSA employee who yanked her out of line to check her replaced knee. She was simmering when I found her, and Susan was somewhat upset. Actually, everyone was kinda edgy, so I figured I needed to be a good group leader and work on the ticket details.

Susan had already gotten a Continental employee to get new tickets for her, Annie Kate, and Joyce.... but when I approached the same desk to ask for help, the woman abjectly refused to do anything for me. "I'm sorry. I can't get caught up here working with you. Go down to the ticket desk at gate 90 or 105." Although she called a cart for Bill & Ann so they didn't have to walk around the airport, she refused to help me with my tickets.... and then stood there and did nothing for the next 5 minutes.

I didn't take time to get angry (at that point). Everyone else began working their way from gate 83 down to gate 112 where the 6:05 flight to Charlotte was to board. (We had missed the 2:40 flight.) I headed to a service desk near gate 90 to get new boarding passes for the Munns and me.  An incredibly helpful, ancient Continental employee -- she looked and sounded like an Italian grandmother -- rescued my faith in humanity by doing an amazing job to transfer our seats. 

I criss-crossed the airport a few times working out the ticket details then got some supper before David called me to work out what we would do as a group.  The six of us couldn't get home from Charlotte by ourselves if the rest of the group went ahead & drove home at 4:30 when their flight landed. Plus all our luggage was on the early flight to Charlotte.  So they were facing a 4 hour wait in the Charlotte airport, just as we were stuck in Newark till 6pm.  Crappy situation for everyone.

We were chilling at gate 112 when someone noticed that the flight was heading to Los Angeles. "What?!" The desk guy told us, "Um,yeah... the Charlotte flight is gate 92 now. ... Guess I should announce that." We were incredulous as we picked up our stuff and trudged down to gate 92. Turned out to be 94. 

Problem is, gate 94 was posted as a flight to Portland, OR at 6pm. Obviously that didn't make sense, so Susan  & I marched back to the Continental service desk to find out what was going on. "Oh," said the helpful employee, "your flight is scheduled for gate 94, but it's been delayed now to 6:30."  Great.  Was that ever announced?   No.  But at least the departure monitors started showing gate 94 (for an "on time" flight).

The panic moment came at 6pm when Susan looked up and noticed that the gate 94 board was displaying a flight to San Juan. We scattered to find someone -- anyone -- with enough of a brain to tell us where our damn plane was going to be.  The new gate:  70.  Another footrace to the finish!

My heart was pounding -- if they had switched gates on us again, and IF the flight was truly on time, we were screwed.  At 6pm, there was no way we'd make the 6:05 flight time.  At this point, I was incredibly short on sleep, sick and tired of the stupidity of the airline employees, frustrated by the experience, and angry. I readied every curse word I knew in preparation for a salvo against whatever employee I encountered if we actually missed the flight.  The plane was late and we didn't miss the flight.  Once again, NO ONE in the airport had announced the time change or the gate change for our flight, and I had dragged the Munns to 4 different airport gates that one day.  We were all pretty disgusted.

The last straw was sitting on the runway until 7:30 when we were finally cleared for takeoff. We arrived in Charlotte after 9pm to meet a very weary Dave Conley and bedraggled Inklings. A few had gone home already with other rides.  I fell into Coart's arms with joy.  At least I wasn't anywhere near Newark.

If I never see Newark again, it will be too soon.

And Continental -- screw you.

It's good to be home.