A Pastor's Response
to Attack on America

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“See the hole in the skyline?”

I leaned forward and followed the finger of the driver. He was a big guy named Frank. Neck too big for his collar, hands too thick to wrap around the steering wheel. He pointed through the windshield at the forest of buildings called Lower Manhattan.

“The Towers used to sit right there.”

He could tell that I couldn’t see the spot.

“See the hole to the left of the one with the spire? That used to be the World Trade Center. I looked at it each day as I came over the bridge. It was a powerful sight. The first morning I entered the city and saw no towers I called my wife and cried.”

New Yorkers are going to feel like doing the same for a long time. That’s why Kenney Isaacs is here. He’s not new to tragedy. He represented Samaritan’s Purse in Kosovo, El Salvador, Honduras, Bosnia, Sudan, and Rwanda. He’s wondering if a trip to Iran to aid Afghanistan refugees might be in the near future.

But, for now, he’s in Manhattan setting up the Billy Graham Prayer Center. And today, he’s letting me follow him to Ground Zero to see the fruit of terror now ten days old.

Driving the van is Mike Finizio, a New York pastor. Gino Gerassi, a Denver Police chaplain and Skip Heitzig, Albquerque Pastor and Samaritan’s Purse Board Member have been here for five days. They are wondering aloud if we’ll be permitted to get close to the disaster. Each day the belt of security has been tightened a notch.

To reach the epicenter of activity we drive through a layer of inactivity. Empty ambulances line the road, loved ones mingle outside the Family Care Center, the “Comforter”- a Red Cross hospital ship, sits docked. Everyone waits. But each passing second takes with it a grain of hope.

Three checkpoints later we park the car and walk the final half mile. Two weeks ago this road was full of flannel suits, cell phones, and market quotes. Today the sidewalk is muddy and air is thick with smoke and I tell myself it’s best not to think what we’re inhaling.

A female police officer tells me she’s glad to hear about the prayer center. “We’re going to need it a long time.”

We draw close to the ruin and stop. You’d think days of broadcasts and pages of photographs would prepare you for such a sight. They didn’t. I didn’t expect the fires. Ten days of rain and truckloads of water and flames still danced. I didn’t anticipate the adjoining damage. Neighboring buildings were devastated. Entire walls were collapsed. Intact windows were rare. Why, the next door Marriott had been gutted by the cockpit of a jet. Any other day it would have made the cover of a magazine.

But, most of all, I didn’t expect the numbness. Not theirs, not mine. A flank of yellow-suited firemen, some twelve or so in width, marched past us. The same number walked toward us. Shift change. Those coming were grim. Those leaving were more so; faces as steely as the beams that coffin their comrades.

My response wasn’t any different. No tears. No lump in the throat. Just numbness. Six thousand people are under there, I told myself. Yet, I just stared. The tragedy spoke a language I’d never studied. I half expected, and more wanted, to hear someone yell, “Quiet on the set!” and see Bruce Willis and George Clooney run out of the ruins. But the cranes carried no cameras, just concrete.

Later that night I spoke with an officer who guards the entrance to the Family Care Center. He’s posted next to the plywood wall of photos: the wailing wall, of sorts, on which relatives have tacked posters and hopes.

I asked him to describe the expressions on the faces of the people who come to look at the pictures. “Blank,” he said. “Blank.”

“They don’t cry?”

“They don’t cry.”

“And you, have you cried?”

“Not yet. I just push it in.”

Disbelief remains, for many, the drug of choice.

But they can’t take the drug forever. That’s why Kenney Isaacs and his team are here. In time, the dust will settle and the bagpipes will cease and thousands will try to return to life as usual only to find that they can’t. And someone needs to be there to help them.

Samaritan’s Purse is. Advertisements have been placed in major papers inviting people to call the Billy Graham Prayer Center for prayer and comfort. Volunteers are staffing makeshift booths beneath a banner that reads, “Stop Here For Prayer.” Thousands of booklets have been printed and are being distributed, urging the heavy of heart to call on God for help.

Will they? I think so. Many are like the taxi driver who said that the absence of the towers has left him confused. The World Trade Center was his North Star. When disoriented, he could spot the towers and determine his location. Now that the buildings are down, his point of reference is gone.

He’s not alone. An entire city has lost its bearings. Let’s pray that many find new ones in God.