Teena Myers

“We were established in New Orleans,” said Janice. Her husband, Mark, nodded in agreement. “I was an occupational therapist, and an international consulting firm employed Mark. After our daughter’s birth, Mark worked in Europe. The new position enabled me to set aside my career and focus on being a mom.”

“The hardest part of our decision was telling my parents we were moving to Prague with their first grandchild,” said Mark.

Mark’s new position required him to work throughout Eastern Europe—from Albania to Estonia—and to travel extensively in Western Europe. Several years later, when Janice was pregnant with their second daughter, a national position in the United States became available. The McLeans returned to America and moved to the company’s national headquarters in Connecticut.

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, Mark boarded an early train into New York City for a nine o’clock meeting. He took a cab from Grand Central Station to the World Financial Center, where he had been assigned a corner conference room. A walkway connected the building to the Twin Towers. Mark walked into the conference room on the thirty-seventh floor and drank in the stunning view of the Hudson River spilling into the Upper New York Bay near the Statue of Liberty. He set his briefcase on the conference table and waited for his clients to arrive.

Having used the conference room in the past, he was accustomed to helicopters passing the window on their way to a nearby helipad. When he heard a loud noise, he assumed a helicopter had flown too close to the building. The massive explosion that rocked the building shortly thereafter could not be ignored.

He walked to the east side of the building, facing the World Trade Center. A massive fire filled his field of vision. He looked down at the crowd gathering in the street. “The crowd reminded me of Mardi Gras—masses of people staring up at passing floats. I wondered why they were standing there. Didn’t they know the building could fall on them?” said Mark.

He called corporate headquarters to report his location and ask whether they needed him to do anything. They were unaware of the emergency. He called Janice, nine months pregnant with their third child.

Janice had put their eldest daughter on the school bus and was preparing their other daughter for pre‑K when the phone rang. At Mark’s request, she turned on the TV. There was no breaking news, and since she was running late, she turned off the TV and grabbed her purse.

Transfixed by the horror unfolding before him, Mark looked out the window again. “That’s when I saw a black woman wearing a purple suit falling to her death, and then a man in a gray suit. I looked down to see bodies on the street.” He returned to the conference room where he had left his briefcase. “As I collected my things, I glanced out the window. An airplane headed towards me. Suddenly, the plane turned, and another explosion rocked the building.”

Meanwhile, Janice strapped her daughter into her car seat and stuck her key into the ignition. As the engine hummed to life, a voice from the radio announced that a plane had just hit the World Trade Center. Her cell phone rang. “I just saw a plane hit the World Trade Center,” said Mark. “I’m coming home.”

Mark grabbed his briefcase. Susan, a member of his staff, joined him as he headed for the stairwell, already clogged with people from fifty-five floors of the World Financial Center. “I kept thinking either more planes would hit the building or the building would collapse before I could get out,” said Mark. The mass of human flesh inched down the stairs. Mark reached for his cell phone and the comfort of his wife’s voice. No cell phone service.

Janice walked her daughter to school like any normal day. “No one knew what was taking place in New York City, and I didn’t want to announce the sky is falling without understanding what had happened. It was surreal. I had a doctor’s appointment, so I continued my day as usual. It was noon before I returned home and watched the news again. That’s when I understood the magnitude of what had happened.”

“As I neared the ground floor, I thought about Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot’s wife,” said Mark. “If I made it out of the building, I would not let myself look back. I was afraid the horrendous sight would hypnotize me into an immobile trance, sealing my doom.”

Forty-five minutes later, Mark and Susan flowed out of the first‑floor exit with the river of people seeking safety. He set his face like flint toward the Hudson River, carefully keeping his back to the inferno filling the sky with black smoke. When he reached the river, he turned north toward Grand Central Station. “I was just a few blocks up the West Side Highway when the North Tower collapsed. I turned. It was horrific. My first thought was to tell Janice, ‘I’m OK,’ but the cell phone was useless.”

Mark spotted an attendant in a parking garage and asked to use the landline phone. Comforted by Janice’s calm assurance that everything would be okay, he stepped out of the garage into mayhem. Emergency vehicles sped south toward the Twin Towers. More emergency vehicles sped north with dented roofs and broken windows. People gathered around car radios and shouted the announcer’s instructions to those fleeing the terrorist attack. “Don’t go near the Empire State Building. It will be hit next,” someone shouted. Mark looked up. He was standing in front of the Empire State Building.

He stopped at an ATM, hoping to withdraw enough cash to pay for a ride out of the hell surrounding him. His search for a car with a Connecticut license plate proved futile. Fifty blocks later, Mark and Susan reached Grand Central Station. The station had closed until threats of an attack on it could be investigated. Susan’s room in a nearby hotel served as a refuge for Mark until the station reopened. “I caught a train home later that evening. When I arrived, Janice had dinner ready like any normal evening,” said Mark.

I asked Mark and Janice whether the experience shook their faith in God. They answered with a resounding “No.” They attributed the peace they experienced that day to the Christian faith instilled in them by their godly parents.

The spiritual heritage Mark and Janice received from their parents guided them safely through a tragic day in our nation’s history, but their experience is not unique. Stories abound of divine intervention that kept people safe or out of harm’s way on the day of the attack. Clearly, there are benefits to making the Most High our dwelling place.