remembering

A Survivor’s Story

By Charlene Israel
CWNews

CWNews.com – Sujo John had barely begun his workday on the 81st floor of World Trade Center One when he heard a loud explosion.

"This is American Flight 11 coast to coast from Boston to LA and it just came crashing into our tower," said Sujo John, a World Trade Center survivor.

As flames burst throughout the office, Sujo and his co-workers quickly headed for the stairwell.

"I thought I would die...building was swaying and we could feel the building tilting to the left, fighting our way through the fire making our way to the stairwell," he said.

Fearing the worst for his pregnant wife, who worked in the second World Trade tower, Sujo made frantic cell phone calls to her without success.

During his nearly one-hour descent from the 81st floor, another explosion rocked the building. Sujo had no idea a second plane had just flown into tower number two.

Meanwhile, unknown to him, Sujo's wife arrived at Tower Two just moments after the second jet crashed into it. She was never allowed to enter the building.

When we visited them at their new home in Dallas, Texas, it was one of the few times that Mary has shared what she went through that day.

"We were standing right beneath the buildings and I was trying to call him on my cell phone,” Mary said. “I kept hitting the redial button, the cell phones weren't working – the call wouldn't go through. And while I was still standing there the second plane came and struck the second building. I saw it. I was standing right under the buildings. I felt the heat, and the debris falling all around me."

Hysterical, Mary spent all of that morning calling out to god to protect her husband, promising him something in return.

"One of my prayers was, ‘Lord if you help him out of that building by some chance he's able to make it out, then I'm ready to give up everything we have right now, our jobs, whatever else we have.’ We'll go to a third world country, we'll serve you for the rest of our lives," she said.

Little did Mary know the impact her prayer would have later on.

When Sujo and thousands of others finally made it to the lowest level of tower one, across the mall that connected the two towers and through an exit in tower two – the nightmare was far from over.

In moments, tower two began to collapse – forcing Sujo to stand against the wall and huddle with about 20 other people.

In that moment, Sujo said he was prompted to do something that he'd never done before.

"I felt the Lord was saying, ‘Where are these people that are huddled with you going?’ And I started crying out, ‘Jesus,’” Sujo said. “I wasn't sure what I was to expect. Almost immediately, these people started called upon the name of the Lord. I heard them call the name of the Lord with me. Picture, imagine this building going down, tremendous roar of the building going down. But for me, what is etched in my mind is not really the roar of the building going down, but the cry of these people reaching out to the eternal God."

That experience caused Sujo to realize something in a way he never had before.

"That experience showed me that people are ready for God," he said.

Meanwhile, surrounded in darkness, Sujo thought he had been buried alive as he pulled himself up. However, those he'd just stood with, had perished.

Choking on ash and blinded by debris, a flashlight drew Sujo to an FBI agent who was lying face down.

Miraculously, a flashing red light from a crushed ambulance directed the two men to safety – covered with white soot, they walked out of the debris together, saying the name Jesus.

But Sujo held out little hope or faith that Mary was still alive.

"(I’m) trying to connect with my wife, and I'm thinking for sure my wife is dead, how am I going to find her, what's happened?” he recalled. “And it was just so overwhelming thinking about her, thinking that she's dead, the child she's carrying is dead. “

“But then I get a call on my cell phone,” he said. “Cell phones weren't working all of that day because those towers had those communications equipment. But a call comes through – the first call that would come through that day. My cell phone rings. I pick up the phone seeing my wife's caller ID, and I'm thinking ‘It's not her. Someone else has gotten a hold of her phone to reach me with the news, hey. your wife is dead.’ I pick up the call. It's my wife – so it was an incredible moment that my wife is alive."

Today, still etched in Sujo's memory are the people who perished while he survived and the call on his life to tell others about the name that will take them to heaven.

"I see lost people around me,” he said. “Watching people die on 9/11 has totally changed my life."

Since those frightening hours five years ago, Sujo and Mary have been traveling the world sharing their incredible story of survival – something that has turned into a full-time evangelistic ministry with more than 30,000 decisions for Christ.

"Now looking back, it's five years,” he said. “God has taken us to more than 400 cities around the world where I've traveled with the greatest story ever told for God who offers his unconditional, irrational love upon his people."

During Sujo's recent visit to Ground Zero, he thought about the people who died, especially those who cried out to Jesus with their last breaths.

"Ground Zero for me is not just New York City where the tragedy happened,” he said. “Ground Zero for me is now my community, my city, the city where I was born, Calcutta India, nations around the world where there are lost people headed to a crisis eternity."

Now with two beautiful children, Sujo and Mary reflect on the promise that Mary made five years ago today.

“It just makes me feel more humble,” Mary said. “The more I get to reflect on it and the more I think about it, I understand I can see the magnitude of what God did for us that day when he spared our lives."

Visit Sujo's Web site.

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