Read part 1 here…

 

It was January of 2003 and I did not have a cell phone yet.  I had been in touch with Mrs. M____ to iron out details of plane tickets and things.  I had scraped together my $850 for the trip and sent that money off.  My ticket was ready.  The date was set.  I would leave on Thursday and arrive in Manila on Friday evening where I would be picked up by Mr. M____.

 

My flight was to leave in the evening – 6:30 pm.  Now, I am a mapper.  While I use the Googlemaps GPS blue dot now, I have not used a talking GPS yet.  I love maps.  I prefer maps.  We had traveled 100,000 miles on deputation and I knew how long a trip would take based on how many miles away it was.  Almost without fail, we averaged 71 mph on deputation which included pit stops.  I went on mapquest and and saw that there approximate time of travel was just a little bit more than mine.  I added in a half an hour for a potential flat tire and set my time of departure.

 

I was the only one flying from New York.  The rest of the group had flown out the day before from Chicago and were going to meet me at the airport.  I said my goodbyes to Katie and the boys, hopped in the car and started on my way to JFK after lunch.  I had a full hour built in.  Surely I would be all right.

 

Although it was January in upstate New York, the roads were well-tended, as usual.  However, because of snow drifting and bad patches I could not set the cruise as I usually did at 74 mph.  I was using my foot and several times caught myself creeping up towards 80.  Then I saw them…the flashing lights.

 

I pulled over, pulled out my registration and insurance and hoped that I would suffer either chronologically or monetarily, but just not both.  She…yes, she walked up to my window and took my documents.

 

“CDL…do you drive for a school?”  she asked.

 

“No ma’am, for a church?”

 

“Ok, I’ll be right back.”

 

Twenty minutes later she came back.  My built in time was quickly fleeting.

 

“Ok, I went easy on you because of the CDL.  Here is your $20 parking ticket.”

 

“Thank you, ma’am.”  And I was off.

 

I glanced at my map while I drove and realized that my buffer time was down to 30 minutes.  Gates for international flights usually close one hour before takeoff.  I would have 30 minutes to park and get to my check-in.  Not cool.

 

Things continued well until I entered the outskirts of New York City at about 4:30 pm.  Traffic started to slow.  I glanced at the map periodically, calculating time to the airport.  My buffer was slipping away.  20 minutes…15 minutes…10 minutes…5 minutes…

 

Finally at about 20 miles from the airport as my buffer time expired, and traffic came to a halt.  I had to face the inevitable.  I was going to miss my flight.

 

I sweated through the next 45 minutes to an hour.  As I ran into the airport, my flight still had 10 or 15 minutes until it was scheduled to take off.  No luck.  The gate was closed.  They would put me on the flight for the next day.

 

I checked into a hotel right there and got on the phone.  I tried Mrs. M___.  No answer.  I tried Mr. M___’s cell phone.  No answer, but I left a message that I would be coming in on the same flight but a day later.  I called Mrs. M___’s phone again and left the identical message.  I trusted that if they did not receive these messages before they came to get me at the airport that when I did not show up they would check their messages.  Surely they would be there to get me the next day.

 

Surely, they would check their messages.

 

Not.