9/11 Survivor Speaks At Arlington Church
ARLINGTON (CBSDFW.COM) – On September 11, 2001, Sujo John was working in New York in the World Trade Center's North Tower. That morning he had fired off an email to a friend with a heavy question: Why did he exist?
"I'm going to church, warming a pew Sunday after Sunday," he remembered. "There's got to be more to life than this."
Little did he know that the coming moments would tremendously test his faith and later answer his questions about life.
"I had no idea that in the next 40 minutes or so, a great tragedy would hit and God would spare our lives," John said.
On Sunday, John was in Arlington sharing his story with the Northwest Baptist Church. He talked about how that day he believes his life was spared.
He spoke about making his way down 81 flights of stairs, passing others who were killed in the initial explosion. John called on his faith.
He made it out alive. When he emerged from the wreckage, he watched the South Tower collapse. He feared the worst, though: His wife was more than four months pregnant, and she worked on the 71st floor of the South Tower.
And then his cell phone rang.
"I picked up that call thinking that was the worst news of my life, but when I said hello – and although she heard my voice loud and clear – her first words were, 'Babe, are you alive?'"
His wife was late for her train that morning and missed the destruction by mere minutes.
"Evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait on the lord shall renew their strength," he told the congregation Sunday.
John now travels the country telling churches and communities his story of survival. He talked about how he believes how his life was spared that day to share that message of hope and faith with thousands of others.
And that he no longer questions the meaning of his life.
