John shared some of those memories and the lessons in faith and life he has gained since then during a sold-out men’s breakfast at the Hollenbeck Bayley Creative Arts and Conference Center on Wednesday morning. The event was hosted by The Gathering of Miami Valley, a Christian men’s empowerment ministry.
He also spoke to Cedarville University students later in the morning.
“There was one thing in common on the faces of everyone that day — the fear of death,” John said of when he was making his way down the North Tower stairway.
His own survival wasn’t the main thing on John’s mind, though. His then-pregnant wife, Mary John, worked on the 71st floor of the South Tower. They had just come to the U.S. six months earlier with the equivalent of $50 in his pocket from Calcutta, India, chasing the American Dream.
He couldn’t get in contact with his wife because of cell phone outages.
“I thought, ‘I’m never going to see my wife again; I’m never going to see my child,’ ” he said.
Sujo John told of how he made his way down the stairwell of the North Tower as rescue workers passed him heading the other direction, unknowingly heading toward their deaths.
“What makes America great?” he asked. “It’s because of men and women like these who were willing to lay down their lives so people like me can have a tomorrow.”
After exiting the North Tower, he ran toward the South Tower, which had been hit by a second plane, to find his wife.
“I was 15, 20 feet from the South Tower and I felt the earth shaking,” he recalled. “I thought at first it was a bomb, but I soon realized the South Tower was imploding. And for the first time, I was confronted with the reality of my mortality.”
A Christian since he was 15 years old, John huddled together with about 20 others and prayed while a three-foot-deep blanket of white soot and glass fell around them.
“I couldn’t breathe because of the ash choking me. I thought, ‘I am going to die today,’ ” he said. “But I remember this thought vividly: This body could die, but there’s something in me that will never die.”
All this time, he still did not know if his wife was alive. As it turned out, she was a couple of minutes late for work and had arrived via the subway five minutes after the second plane hit the South Tower.
She remembers watching people jump from the North Tower to their deaths, not knowing if her husband was dead or alive.
A phone call from Mary John finally got through to her husband around noon.
“It started off as a beautiful, cloudless day and I remember looking at that giant lady in the harbor with the torch in her hand,” he said. “I remember (being preoccupied with) looking for purpose that morning. Little did I know that 40 minutes or so later, my life would be forever changed.”
Sujo John found his purpose and now is an international motivational speaker and founder of Youcanfree.us, a movement to bring freedom to victims of human trafficking.
“I am often reminded that in crowds like this, everybody has a story,” Sujo John said. “Life is a compilation of stories. Life can be hard, and sometimes we can’t even get a prayer out. But remember these words (from the Bible), ‘Do not be troubled for I am with you always.’ “
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