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Associate Pastor Al Toledo says that many who stopped at the church were members, stunned but filled with joy at their seemingly miraculous escape.

"They ran to the church, and we were able to rejoice with them," Toledo says.

Others, though, struggled to cope.

"Some people were just in total shock," Toledo says. "They would walk in, just shaking and trembling."

Many needed to be held and hugged and prayed for, Toledo says, while others had more immediate needs. One pregnant woman needed an ambulance. Others wanted to use a phone to talk to loved ones. A disoriented visitor to the city needed help to call her husband in Chicago. A young Jewish man, covered in rubble, knew he could come to the church for help.

"Later, he was interviewed on TV as one of the survivors of the whole thing," Toledo says, a note of joy momentarily replacing the fatigue in his voice. "He was all cleaned up, and he looked so nice. We were encouraged that we could help.

"We just try to basically react as the needs arise," Toledo says. "This is a very complicated situation to be helpful in because it's so chaotic." Members sent an allotment of water, underwear, and flashlights to ground zero for rescue workers.

"There are people whose loved ones are not accounted for," Toledo says of the church. "We wait and pray for the best. So many people are just waiting. It is too early to react, because the information is so sketchy."

The church has left several telephone lines open for members to leave messages about those who have been found and those who are still missing. Someone checks those mailboxes each hour.

Other area churches also face the challenge of accounting for members. At Christian Life Center, a Brooklyn church with more than 10,000 members, Pastor A.R. Bernard Sr. and several members of the administrative team used their database to compile a list of about 150 members who worked in or near the World Trade Center. They spent most of Thursday calling for those members.

The church also has a voicemail box for members to leave messages. It is asking people to share what they know concerning the whereabouts of family members and friends.

Mickey Heller, the church's director of legal affairs, says God kept many of the church's members from their usual locations at the World Trade Center at the time of the attack.

"Just about everyone wasn't there, or was working on one of the lower floors," Heller says. "For one reason or another, the Holy Spirit led them not to go to work. Some went to vote in the primary that morning; others went to the bank first or decided to stay home." All but three people are accounted for. "We're still believing God for them."

Because so many people from his church were spared, Heller says, much of the ministry will focus on the lingering effects of the tragedy.

"It's not so much the event itself—it's the aftershock," he says. "It's like a pebble that falls into a pond. People will be dealing with the fact that they don't have jobs anymore, or the loss of a loved one." Heller says churches will need to combat a spirit of depression, despair, and hopelessness as people realize how deeply their lives have been altered.

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September (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45