It is almost 12:30 AM on 9/11/09. It is the anniversary of one of the most surprising and traumatic days in our nation's history. I still get quesy when i think about it.
Two weeks after 911 Life Way Counseling Centers was approached by The Salvation Army about the possibility of sending a team of four people to Ground Zero to minister to the First Responders who had been working almost around the clock for some 14 days.
They were burned out, traumatized and depressed. It was becoming obvious that they were no longer in a Rescue Operation but needed to move to a Recovery of Bodies Operation. This increased the grief, frustration and despair of the men and women who were digging desperately through the rubble of destruction all over Ground Zero.
To make matters worse, the sub basements of the buildings were still on fire. each day a fire chief came out to the area and let down a rope that had a thermometer attached to it. One day he remarked to us that the heat was over 1800 degrees. No one could have survived that.
The smell of dust, death and disaster hung like a gray cloud over the region.
We stayed there for a week. My shift was from 1:00 AM until 1:00 PM in the afternoon. It did not take long for us to also get overwhelmed with the pain, the disaster and the human suffering.
May God grant us His peace on this anniversary.
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