Street Stories - A Ringside Seat To Over 4 Decades Of Taking Jesus To The Streets Of The World

I got out of the car on East 14 th Street (cars were not allowed below 14 th Street), tipped my driver, and began to walk block after block after block, on my way to Abounding Grace Church on East 7 th and 3rd Avenue. It was surreal. I had never seen anything like it. My surroundings, “The City that never sleeps”, was eerily quiet. Every lamp post was plastered with large poster boards, each one having a picture of someone’s loved one who was missing since Tuesday morning, 9/11. Most of them had gone to work at the World Trade Center on that fateful day, and their families had not yet heard if they had survived the attack. I read several of the posters: “Missing. My sister Mary. She may have amnesia, wandering the streets. If you see her, please call this number.” On and on I read them on lamp pole after lamp pole. “Missing. My brother Frank. He is a Port Authority Police officer. I need to find him. Please call this number if you see him .” What had I wandered into? All the continual TV footage and nonstop reporting of the terrorist attacks in New York City had not come close to conveying the horror and nightmarish sight all throughout New York City. Thousands of loved ones, sons and daughters, moms and dads, friends and neighbors, had just vanished with no sign of where they might be. Frantic family members were desperately searching, praying, and hoping their loved ones would just suddenly walk in through their front door, unharmed, declaring, “I’m home.” For most of the people represented by these missing person posters, that was never going to happen.

229