Jonathan L. Smith, Director of the Church Strong Team at Texas Baptists, Reflects on Serving at Ground Zero

Do you ever wonder what you would grab if you had to leave your home immediately?

A few items come to mind for me, so I keep them together in a drawer. One is a lanyard with an access badge attached. That badge gave me a front-row view of one of the most defining events and locations in American history: Ground Zero.

My wife and I first visited New York City in June 2001. We went to a Yankees game, saw The Phantom of the Opera, walked through Times Square and enjoyed the typical adventures of first-time visitors to New York.

When I returned on a last-minute mission trip in December 2001, I found an entirely different city.

People seemed friendlier, but a dark and sullen cloud hung over the usual hustle and bustle of New York.

I led a team of seven people who served with Safe Horizon at the Family Assistance Center at Pier 94 in Manhattan. We helped distribute relief funds made possible through the generosity of Americans and people around the world. Our team served as intake workers, helping people complete paperwork and determine whether they qualified for financial assistance.

Our assignment was clear, and the assistance was desperately needed. But I had also gone to New York to minister. I wanted to look into the eyes of people who had lost almost everything and somehow let them know about the love of Christ.

Twenty-five years later, I can still see many of their faces.

I remember a young man who lost his only means of income, a hot dog stand positioned beneath the South Tower.

I remember a young professional woman who worked in the North Tower. She almost fought me over giving her all the funds for which she qualified. She wanted to make sure there would be enough money left for others.

I remember a young family still trying to live in their apartment in lower Manhattan, just outside the closed zone. Their baby was experiencing respiratory problems, but they didn't have the money to move away.

And I remember a single father whose family was in great need but who simply did not meet the qualifications for assistance. Telling him he was ineligible was incredibly difficult.

The faces remain fresh in my mind 25 years later.

The tragedy touched every race, religion and socioeconomic group. I interviewed migrant workers and millionaires. Priests and pizza makers. Dentists, lawyers, electricians, firefighters and window washers. I interviewed high school seniors and senior adults.

We were there to distribute funds to people who desperately needed help, yet many, probably most, had to be turned away because they did not meet the eligibility requirements. People spent hours standing in line only to receive bad news at the end of an exhausting day.

They were weary of lines.

They were weary of paperwork that made your tax return look simple.

Though we had gone to New York wanting to share Christ, we were not permitted to do so verbally while performing our assigned work. All day, every day, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., I sometimes felt as though someone had placed tape over my mouth. I could only pray that Christ would shine through our actions when we couldn't use words.

I must confess: I broke the rules a few times.

Occasionally someone would ask, "Why would you come all the way here from Texas?"

When they asked us the question, we could give them the real answer.

I still pray for those faces.

Overnight at Ground Zero

Our daytime assignment was at Pier 94, but on several nights we also served at Ground Zero, where hundreds of recovery workers continued working around the clock.

I will never forget walking toward the site.

Skyscrapers surrounded us, taller than almost anything we knew back home in Texas. One of the people with me looked upward and said something I'll never forget: "You know, these buildings are only about one third the height of the Twin Towers."

Faded photographs of the missing still lined subway walls.

As we approached Ground Zero, everything grew darker. Electricity remained out in areas surrounding the site. Gray soot covered streets, sidewalks and the exteriors of buildings. When it rained, streets near Ground Zero became slick from the ash and debris that had fallen months earlier. Pennies littered the streets, seemingly not worth the trouble of picking up, while occasional dollar bills could still be seen blowing between buildings.

I served as an overnight chaplain.

One of my jobs was taking coffee and hot chocolate to warming stations because December nights in New York were bitterly cold. I talked and prayed with recovery workers. At one point, I stood in the footprint of what had been the South Tower.

Pictures and television footage could never adequately convey what I saw.

Three months after the attacks, twisted steel and rubble still towered above portions of the site. Recovery workers continued searching through it night after night.

I know exactly where I was on the night of December 21, 2001. I was at Ground Zero when recovery workers uncovered a Brink's armored truck that had been buried in the wreckage since September 11.

Another memory has stayed with me.

A firefighter who had been at the towers on September 11 told me about the fear that swept through people when they thought another plane was approaching New York shortly after the second tower was struck. It turned out to be a fighter jet rather than another commercial airliner.

Three months had passed.

He told me he still cried every day.

A Little Piece of Texas at Ground Zero

Before entering the large temporary respite and feeding facility at Ground Zero, we went through an extensive cleaning process. Inside, thousands of notes, cards, poems and children's drawings sent from across the country and around the world lined the walls. They were messages intended to encourage the men and women who were still working amid the devastation.

Then came one of my proudest moments as a Texas Baptist.

I walked into that enormous, football-field-sized temporary building and discovered three Texas Baptist Men cooking units.

And TBM wasn't serving just burgers and hot dogs.

They were serving chicken, brisket, steaks, ribs and everything that goes with a Texas sized meal.

I was proud.

In the middle of Ground Zero, Texas Baptists were feeding some of America's finest.

Throughout the night, warm plates of food were accompanied by smiles, words of encouragement and prayers of gratitude and safety. In a place surrounded by unimaginable destruction, simple acts of service became acts of ministry.

Twenty-Five Years Later

I am a participant in the World Trade Center Health Registry, which has followed people exposed to the events and aftermath of September 11.

Over the years, its surveys have asked sobering questions.

Do you have trouble sleeping?

Are you experiencing depression?

Do you have lung problems?

Have you developed cancer?

Questions like those remind me that September 11 did not end on September 11.

My exposure was brief compared to the firefighters, police officers, construction workers, recovery personnel and others who spent weeks and months at Ground Zero. Yet those few nights profoundly affected my soul and my prayer life.

I could write for days about just those few hours of my life.

God allowed me to hear stories I otherwise never would have heard. He allowed me to look into faces I have never forgotten. He allowed me to stand in a place of unimaginable grief and witness extraordinary courage, generosity and service.

It was a mission trip I was honored to be part of, and one I will never forget.

Today, 25 years later, I will go about my work much as I do every day. But I will also pause, as I know many of you will, to remember September 11 and all that day has meant to our country.

I will think about those faces.

I will wonder where they are today.

I will remember the recovery workers who continued showing up night after night when television cameras had begun to leave.

I will remember a firefighter who still cried every day.

I will remember children's drawings covering the walls of a temporary building amid the rubble.

I will remember Texas Baptists quietly serving meals in the middle of Ground Zero.

And most of all, I will pray.

I will pray for those who still carry physical and emotional wounds from that terrible day. I will pray for the families who continue to live with loss. And I will pray that people will discover the hope we went to New York wanting them to know, the hope found in Jesus Christ.

Twenty five years later, I still see their faces.

And I still pray for them.