Judge giving a lift to those in need

BY TRENTON DANIEL

Strapped in the cockpit of his twin-engine prop jet, Charles ”Charlie” Greene
checked on the five passengers just before takeoff.

”All right, everyone set?” Greene asked.

”Yeah, let’s do it!” said a voice from the cabin.

Three hours earlier, Greene boarded his private plane at Fort Lauderdale
Executive Aviation to fetch the teens as part of a mission with Angel Flight,
a nonprofit pilot group that transports financially strapped people in need
of urgent medical attention.

On Saturday, Greene had a different kind of mission.

He was piloting volunteers with K-Life, an interdenominational Christian ministry in St. Petersburg. They were among two dozen teens renovating homes for needy families in Eleuthera with the Bahamas Habitat Mission.

The cost of Saturday’s flight came to about $1,000. Greene paid for the fuel.

Greene’s day job is Broward Circuit Court judge, ruling on medical malpractice cases. Since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, he has moonlighted as a volunteer for Angel Flight.

Somewhere at 17,000 feet, the judge invoked the cult classic book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Travel as philosophical inspiration.

FREEDOM IN FLIGHT

”Freedom,” said Greene, 51, in explaining his love of flying. “The ability to go somewhere and be on your own schedule.”

Later Greene steered the plane toward the landing strip, which runs parallel to the shades-of-blue shoreline. He taxied at Governor’s Harbour International Airport in Eleuthera, a narrow island 110 miles long.

As it happens, Eleuthera means freedom in Greek.

In his black 1998 Saturn — duct tape on the right side — Abraham ”Abe” McIntyre, executive director of the Bahamas Methodist Habitat, tapped his horn as he passed curbside buddies and dozens of cyclists on Queens Highway in Eleuthera. Honking is considered a friendly gesture.

Just like McIntyre, the Spandex-clad bike crew glided past the surfboard rental shops, clapboard homes and pineapple plantations.

”You hear Bahamas, you think Atlantis, cruise ships. You think party and resorts,” said McIntyre, 27, who oversaw the project. “That’s such a small part of the Bahamas.”

HELPING HANDS

McIntyre, of Nashville, Tenn., was showing off the home renovations the church group K-Life had done since last Sunday. The teens painted two houses and built an addition on a home for a single mother of four children and two grandchildren.

”Abe has helped me a whole lot,” said Penstone Petty, 46, whose husband left her in October. Petty plans to use the addition as a kitchen and an extra bedroom.

When not working on the homes, the K-Life volunteers marveled at the water and the island’s glacial pace. They also used the six days to take stock of their faith, the trip culminating in a descent into a pitch-black limestone cave.

‘Now, your `mission trip’ is your time in St. Petersburg,” McIntyre said he urged the K-Life volunteers.

RETURN HOME

Outside the tiny airport in Eleuthera, Matt Moench recalled the news he got from Harvard earlier this week. He wasn’t admitted, but he wasn’t flat-out rejected, either.

”I get to say I was wait-listed by Harvard for the rest of my life,” Moench, 18, said, punching the air with a triumphant fist.

Greene, a former Medevac whose history includes transporting injured athletes from the University of Virginia to hospitals, and the teens climbed into the plane.

Aside from a few cloud-induced bumps, the hour-plus flight was uneventful. Greene circled over the brown muck of the Everglades and then passed over the verdant golf courses and baseball diamonds of central Broward before he landed.

On the tarmac, Moench recalled the cave visit.

”We talked about this world and how humanity is in darkness,” he said. “The mission definitely continues after we leave.”

Then Moench left to catch another Angel Flight to St. Petersburg.

For information on Angel Flight, call 800-FLA-HALO or 352 326 0761, or visit angelflightse.org.