Remembering 9/11

[kimana517]

Lyrics taken from "There She Stands" by Michael W. Smith

This is a beautiful tribute to 9/11 complete with lots of great Scriptures.

Where were you when you heard/saw the September 11th attacks?
I was in class at the Word of Life Bible Institute in New York, training to be a campus leader as an intern for my 2nd year. We were about to take a class break as usual and the room got noisy as class ended. Then one of our resident professors came in and walked up to the mic. We were all a little surprised to see him, as he wasn't teaching us that day. He asked us all to go back to our seats, his voice grim. Then he told us. Someone flew two planes into the World Trade Towers, just 4 hours south of us, and the towers had collapsed with thousands of people inside. We were shocked. Horrified. Hearing it didn't make it seem real. As he went on with the details, we just stayed quiet. The whole rest of the day we were quiet and they didn't have the internet or any TVs hooked up yet for that year so we had no way of getting news, of seeing it for ourselves and having it become real. Finally around 9 o'clock that night someone brought in an hour and a half of news that they had taped and we watched that. Again, we were silent. It was crazy. How could someone do that? Many students' parents called because they weren't sure how close we were to NYC and were we all okay? We were, physically. I don't think anyone in America was okay mentally after that for at least a few days. I had been a camp counselor over the summer and one of the campers I kept in touch with was from Staten Island. Her father had seen the towers collapse in his rearview mirror as he was trying to leave Manhattan. That all made it real.

A little over a month after the 9/11 attacks I went on a week-long Open Air Evangelism trip to NYC. One day we were talking to people and doing Gospel meetings in that part of Manhattan so our leader took us down there. It was crazy. It was more than a month later and Ground Zero was still smoldering. It smelled like burning electronics and human flesh. Disgusting, I know, but I've smelled flesh before and that's what it was. You could still see smoke rising and though they had a lot of it blocked off, we were actually able to see many of the damaged buildings and even for a couple minutes, Ground Zero itself, which we were not allowed to take pictures of, as per the law enforcement in the area. Most of the city blocks nearby were eerily clean, as they had run street sweepers and stuff overtime to get rid of the dust, but occasionally there were ledges or awnings that hadn't been cleaned and they had dust on them 3 inches thick. The saddest part to me was that all over the wall they used to block most of it off were makeshift missing person posters and notes to loved ones who died. Flowers, teddy bears, American flags. It was SO sad. People were very receptive to the Gospel though. It was like it had awakened them.

Our country was brought together and unified like it hasn't been for a long time. The terrorists tried to divide us and bring us down but instead we banded together and were stronger than ever. It was awesome.

Here are some pictures I took in October of 2001 in Manhattan near Ground Zero. They aren't the greatest because we didn't stop walking because we had lots of things to do, but they are still interesting.


In this one you can see the smoke still rising as well as a damaged building.



This shows the barrier they put around Ground Zero. It went nearly all the way around
and was completely covered with homemade missing persons posters and memorials to people
who had died there. It was so very sad.



Here is one of the buildings that one of the Trade Towers fell on when it collapsed.



Another view of that building's damage, as well as more smoke and
more of the memorial/missing persons fence.



This HUGE flag was spread across this building. If I recall correctly,
this was the New York Stock Exchange. It was something on or near Wall Street.


So. Where were you when you heard/saw the September 11th attacks?

Comments

[kimana83.livejournal.com]

Man! That had to be scary to be so close to both attacks. And wow. That is SO sad about your friends' uncles and your schoolmates. I would think that would make it more real to you, but then I guess each person reacts differently.

[injoy.livejournal.com]

It was scary, especially since I was 17 at the time and my parents left literally hours after the attacks to go to Tennessee (they were supposed to fly out that afternoon, but obviously couldn't), and I was by myself entirely during all the days and uncertainty that followed.

I think it was less real to me because so many people around me were so directly and personally affected -- I never really had room to develop the idea of "our country is being attacked / our way of life has been betrayed" etc because it seemed so heartless to be patriotic and take it personally when so many people lost things so much more important than just their national security, and there I was so much better off than they were. So... I guess I was just in the middle ground, too far away to be directly affected, and too close to be indirectly affected, if that makes sense.

[kimana83.livejournal.com]

Yes, that does make sense. I couldn't imagine being alone for the days after that. I didn't have my family near but I had very close friends, so we were there for each other. Wow.