The September 11 terrorist strikes did more than destory buildings and end lives. The attacks mobilized a vast number of volunteers eager to help in the rescue effort, participate in reconstruction, and help mend lives broken by the tragedy.

Seventh-day Adventists continue to give assistance, providing pastoral counseling for victims’ families, supporting rescue and recovery workers, and working with Federal agencies.

Adventists At Work—September 11, “Ground Zero”

“I’ve worked with an ambulance crew in New York City and witnessed many traumatic situations, but I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Bill Bremner, Adventist Community Services director for the church in the Greater New York area. “It was total, utter devastation, like being in a mass graveyard, a very somber atmosphere.”

Bremner was one of the first Adventist Disaster Response team members to reach the former site of the World Trade Center towers after the terrorist attacks. Armed with bottled water, saline solution, and food, Bremner and a team of leaders were able to get into the highly secured area of Lower Manhattan.

“Firefighters and police officers let us through because after 26 years of serving this community, we have name recognition here,” Bremner said. He and the team also transported firefighters who couldn’t get back to their home stations because they had lost their equipment, trucks, and fellow firefighters when the buildings collapsed.

“We have a unique opportunity to reach people right now in New York City,” Bremner said. “When I told one lady that my church was offering prayer and spiritual counseling, she said, ‘That’s what I need. Everyone’s telling me that everything’s going to be okay, but what I need is spiritual counseling.’”

Volunteers with the New York Van Ministry, run by the Adventist Church in the Greater New York area, have distributed hundreds of copies of “Power to Cope Magazine” which provides biblical guidelines for dealing with stress.

Pastors Provide Grief Counseling and Pastoral Care Services

Since the disaster Martin Feldbush, associate director of Chaplaincy Ministries for the Adventist Church in North America, has given 100 New York City pastors a crash course in providing grief counseling for victims of this disaster and those who watched it unfold on television.

Those pastors are already using the training. Dionisio Olivo, president of Adventist Church in the Greater New York area, and 10 pastors have been counseling at the Red Cross Family Assistance Center where family members of victims are being served.

Shortly after Mount of Olives Church pastor W.D. Felder attended the training session, he visited the 83rd Police Precinct in Brooklyn.

“One thing we need and can’t get enough of is prayer,” said the Community Affairs Officer when Felder asked how he could help. Felder was asked to return and pray with more officers today.

On the day of the attack at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, Adventist Chaplains Lt. Col. Bill Broome of the Army Chief of Chaplains office, and Darold Bigger, deputy chief of chaplains for the U.S. Navy Reserves, were on-site and helped rescue the wounded. They have been available day and night to provide pastoral care for survivors and families of the victims. Another Adventist, Lt. Col. Ed Bowen, an army chaplain who is director of Clinical Pastoral Education Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and a member of the Spencerville Church in Silver Spring, Maryland has also been counseling families.

At nearby Sligo Church, pastors Terry Johnsson, a chaplain and youth pastor, and Ismael Gama, children’s pastor, have been providing counseling to people who lost family and friends in the attacks and those who are experiencing fear and anxiety as a result of the tragedy.

“A lot of people are trying to understand how God would allow this to happen,” Johnsson was quoted as saying in a Takoma Park newspaper. “They have every right to be sad, every right to be angry. They wouldn’t be human if they didn’t.”

Johnsson, 30 pastors from Potomac Conference, and 18 from Allegheny East Conference will join other clergy this weekend at a hotel near the Pentagon to counsel the families of the 188 people who perished there.

Showing Up—Oakwood College

“They couldn’t dig through the rubble themselves. They couldn’t give aid to the rescue workers. There were plenty of people already doing that. What a group of college students from Huntsville could do was pick up their instruments and march through the streets of New York bringing music and a little solace to a hurting city.”

This was the lead article of a cover story in the Huntsville Times about the National Association for the Prevention of Starvation, commonly called NAPS. The group of 32 people, led by biology professor Dr. Anthony Paul, rented a U-Haul truck, packed their band instruments, and drove 24 hours to New York City. When they discovered that they couldn’t help with the clean up, they began marching down the streets playing their instruments, hugging police and firefighters, and, as the New York Times reported, “bringing much needed affection to 8 million survivors.” The National Review Online, CNN, CBS, and New York and Huntsville television stations carried the story. The group will be featured in a special edition of Newsweek magazine next week. NAPS plans to make another visit to New York around Thanksgiving.

“NAPS usually responds to crises—famine, war and tornadoes.” says Paul, founder of the 16-year-old group. “A lot of our members are from New York and they got calls from people saying, ‘When is NAPS coming?’ So, we went.”

President’s Day of Prayer

On September 14, United States President George W. Bush convened a special noontime prayer meeting at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Congressional members, all former able U.S. presidents, military and special guests were invited to participate in a day of prayer on behalf of the nation.

Clarence Hodges, vice president and director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty for the church in North America, and Celeste Ryan, assistant director of Communication for Media Relations, attended on behalf of the Adventist Church. Following the service, the two did television and radio interviews. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a Seventh-day Adventist from Texas, was also in attendance.

Around the Nation

Adventists around the United States and the world are reaching out to help in various ways. Some, like Eugene Torres, a pastor from Florida Conference, went to New York to help console family members and lend support to the Red Cross. Churches opened their doors to hold ecumenical prayer services and counsel the distraught. Thousands stood in line to give blood. New Jersey-based medical doctors and EMTs flocked to the city to volunteer as rescue workers. As noted in The Dallas Morning News, deacons in Fort Worth, Texas, placed encouraging messages on church signs. And at La Sierra University, in a prayer service, president Lawrence T. Geraty, sounded the call for Adventists to do what Adventists do best: “Let us reach out in concern, love, and understanding for all. Let us be channels of healing to a hurting world.”

[Cindy Kurtzhals, C.A. Murray, Dionisio Olivo, Anthony Paul, Dick Stenbakken, and Carlos Turcios contributed to this report.]