 For
the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground;
he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long
dead.
(Psalms 143:3)
The events of September 11, 2001 have had a tragic effect on the nation as
a whole. People think more clearly about their future, and understand more
completely what really matters. Christians have had this understanding more
completely, but have had their priorities refocused as well. The basic
understanding is this: Ours days are numbered, and we will never know what
that number is.
Psa 90:12 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our
hearts unto wisdom.
This tragedy has affected the members of the local churches here in the DC
area, but has not directly impacted any of the Lord's number. Our particular
congregation had two of it's members who worked at the Pentagon on that day,
one of them our elder Col. William Booth, who until 6 months ago had an office
in the exact location where the passenger jet passed into the center courtyard.
He even had activity planned in that area that day. The Lord needed his presence
on this earth a little longer. If you need prayers for anyone you are acquainted
with in this tragedy, please e-mail us.
Although we have not heard anything negative from the Lord's people in NYC,
we know that the Congregation in Manhattan has begun a fund to assist those
in the wake of future events. Information on this can be found at
World
Trade Center Disaster Fund.
You may also post and read any information at
Emergency
Broadcast Network.
Donations for families of the victims of the
Pentagon tragedy may be sent to
Arlington Church of Christ
20 N. Irving Street
Arlington, Virginia 22201
ATTN: Pentagon Tragedy Relief Fund
Please post any information you may have that has directly affect anyone
you know by e-mailing us. It will be
updated immediately here.
The Day the World Stopped
By Erik Tryggestad
September 18, 2001
Churches pull hope from the ashes of attacks
The Christian Chronicle - On Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, Christians
woke up in a world that made sense. America was secure. The horrors of war
were restricted to foreign countries. They were mentioned in wire reports
on the inside pages of daily newspapers. Front pages were reserved for football
scores and news about the economy.
Then, at 8:45 a.m. on the East Coast, the unthinkable happened. A
few minutes later, it happened again. And again.
New York City and Washington, D.C., under attack by suicidal terrorists,
broke into pandemonium. The rest of the world stopped.
As clean-up crews continue to dig through the rubble, here are the
stories compiled from countless e-mail and telephone interviews conducted
by the Chronicle staff in the days following the attacks:
New York
It was a beautiful morning in Manhattan. Tom Robinson, minister for
the Manhattan Church of Christ was walking his dog, a black lab named Molly,
through Central Park. He headed back to his home, which sits above the church
building on East 80th Street, when a church staff member frantically called
to him.
Get inside. Turn on the TV. Something terrible has happened.
"You wake up, (and see) these two buildings, solid as the rock of
Gibraltar. And before your breakfast is digested, they're gone, and (so are)
thousands of people," he said.
Unlike the blast that devastated Oklahoma City six years ago, people
in upper Manhattan didn't hear or feel the blast. But in the hours that followed,
they saw its effects.
"You go outside - and it's a beautiful day - and see huge, gray, dark
smoke … and throngs of people walking north. There are no taxis …
no subways," Robinson said.
Just days after the terrorist attacks leveled the massive World Trade
Center towers, the Manhattan church's worship and small groups minister,
Larry Mudd, was going back to the building with his bagel, walking behind
a young girl - fourth or fifth grade age - and her English nanny.
"It sounded like the little girl was afraid she'd get in trouble at
school for not being prepared to give her book report to the class that day,
and the nanny calmly and simply responded, 'I'm certain that they do not
expect a child who has lost her parents to give a book report today,'" Mudd
said.
In New York alone, there were "8 million people sitting on the edge
of their seats, waiting to help," said Allison Isbel, who works with husband
Jason in the Manhattan church's Shiloh ministry for youth in south Bronx.
"They shut down half of Manhattan," Jason Isbell said. "They’re
treating it as a crime scene."
"We're having a great problem with people who want to come here,"
Allison Isbell added. "We have to practice patience now. We have to bear
the waiting … spend time in prayer."
Churches of Christ rally in times of disaster, sending money, medicine,
manpower and foodstuffs wherever needed.
"Churches from all over want to help," said Joe Dudney of the Nashville,
Tenn.-based Church of Christ Disaster Relief Effort. But "this is different."
Dudney sent trucks of supplies for rescue workers to churches in Jamaica,
N.Y., and the Bronx.
The Memorial Road Church of Christ in Edmond, Okla., sent counselors
to Queens, New York, to help the families of victims get through the tragedies.
The workers will also counsel rescue volunteers who must face the devastation
as they clean up the rubble.
Jason Isbell said the husband of one church member at Manhattan was
still missing as of Sept. 14. He worked on the 92nd floor of One Trade Center,
just below where the first plane (American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston)
hit. Robinson said the church was ministering to the family.
Church members were prepared to open their building as a shelter for
people left without homes by the attacks, but the high number of other shelters
in the area and relatively low number of survivors kept that from
happening.
"I feel so bad for the people that are in this situation," said Jason
Choi, a member of the Manhattan church from Hong Kong who was in class at
State University of New York (SUNY) Brockport during the attacks.
"Tears didn't come out of my eyes, but my heart was saddened. …
I have a friend that (was) killed in the rubble. … This city has been
turned to nakedness."
A number of parents in other parts of the country had children studying
or living in New York City. One was Oklahoma Christian University Dean of
Students Arlis Wood. His daughter, Elizabeth, 18, is a freshman at Eugene
Lang College. She was leaving a subway station when she saw the second plane
(United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston) crash into the south tower of the
World Trade Center.
She called her father and described what was happening - there were
explosions, and people in suits were falling from the sky. Arlis Wood was
not able to get in touch with Elizabeth later in the day, as the phone circuits
became busy, so she sent e-mail.
"People are covered in dust and everyone is crying," she wrote. "It
is like a Hiroshima video or something."
Since the attacks, Elizabeth Wood said the college's Union Square
has become a living memorial, with large sheets of paper bearing messages
of "Christian encouragement" taped around the plaza.
"New York mentality has completely changed," she said. "Rather than
the well-known, brisk-walking tight-faced faces of all the busy city-goers,
many people stop and talk. We buy the officers food and water, and everyone
shares stories and hugs. It is almost like everyone knows each other
suddenly."
Robinson said the topic of his sermon for Sept. 16 was to be "Reaching
out to a lost world." He saw no reason to change it.
The devastation had New Yorkers who usually don't speak to each other
sharing their fears and even hugging.
"There are plenty of opportunities to affirm God's love," he
said.
He said the tragedies emphasized "the tenuousness of life, the uncertainty
of life," even when it is wrapped inside buildings of concrete and
steel.
"You see that your life has to be built on something sturdier than
this."
Washington, D.C.
Like congregations around the world, members of the Fairfax Church
of Christ in Virginia, near the District of Columbia, wanted to gather for
a prayer service after a terrorist attack on the Pentagon. But they
couldn't.
"We are being advised to stay home and off the roads in this area,"
said Terry L. Gibson on Sept. 11, just hours after the attack. "Because of
this, we are having a prayer time from our homes at 9 p.m. Eastern."
Although many Pentagon workers attend Fairfax and other area churches
of Christ, none reported any members missing after the attack. Casualties
were lessened because the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into
a section that was under renovation and nearly 80 percent empty, said Col.
William "Bill" Booth.
"If this had occurred six months ago … our office was right in
the middle of the impact zone," said Booth, deputy director of manpower and
organization for the U.S. Air Force and member of the church in Manassas,
Va.
On his way to a meeting, he walked through that impact zone seven
minutes before the plane hit. After evacuating the building and borrowing
a friend's cell phone he was able to get through to his wife, Rebecca. It
was four hours after the attack.
Harding University senior Thomas and junior Robin Doran's parents,
Mr. And Mrs. Wayne Doran of Woodbridge, Va., both work in the Pentagon building,
said university spokeswoman April Mouser.
They were both in the building when the plane crashed. Because she
was studying, Robin did not learn of the attack until later in the morning,
Mouser said.
"I got the news around 9:45 (a.m.), and I lost it," Robin Doran said.
"I got a voice mail from my parents saying they were OK. However, I didn't
get to talk to them until 11:30 (a.m.). My dad has been in the military for
20 years, but it was my mom's second day (at the Pentagon)."
Abilene Christian University sophomore Chris Shunk, from Fairfax,
was sure his father has not been caught in any of the violence at the Pentagon,
but still "needed to hear him say he was ok," according to the school's student
news service.
Shunk's father works at the Senate, and his daily route to work takes
him right past the Pentagon.
"Basically he missed it by half an hour," Shunk said. His father arrived
at work before the plane crashed into the Pentagon.
"He said it was like nothing he had seen before. There were F-16 fighter
jets flying all around D.C.," Shunk said.
While members of churches of Christ rejoiced that their families were
safe, they knew sad days were ahead as new information was unearthed from
the rubble of the attacks.
"I am quite sure that among the dead at the Pentagon will be people
that we … know and love," said Kasey S. Pipes, an Abilene Christian
University graduate who works in the strategy office of the White House.
"And by the time the names of all those lost (in the disasters) become available,
I suspect every American will know someone involved."
Pennsylvania
Harding University students Cherie and Mandy Hinton know the forests
around Shanksville, Penn. Relatives told them that the crash of United Airlines
Flight 93 shook their house on the morning of Sept. 11.
Their brother, Mark, and nephew, Jonathan Mahst, often camp in the
woods. They were surrounded by reporters and issued FBI passes to help search
for the plane's flight recorder, said Harding spokeswoman April Mouser.
As the workers combed through the debris, the names of the passengers
on the flight became known. One was Thomas E. Burnett Jr., 38, senior vice
president for Thoratec Corp., a company that makes medical devices for people
suffering from heart failure.
Burnett, a 1992 graduate of Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.,
was headed home to San Ramon, Calif.
After the hijacking, he called his wife, Deena, four times on his
cell phone. He told her that he and other passengers were going to try to
stop the hijackers from carrying out their plan. It was the last time they
spoke.
The plane crash killed all 38 passengers and seven crewmembers. Members
of Stonycreek Church of Christ in Shanksville made sandwiches for the crews
investigating the scene, said church member Clara Hinton.
Family members are hailing Burnett as a hero.
“We may never know how many people helped him or what they
did,” Deena Burnett told the Los Angeles Times. “But I know without
a doubt that that plane was bound for some landmark and they saved many,
many more lives than were lost on that plane.”
Note: Photos courtesy of Time Magazine |
