[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi everybody. My name is Brendan Malone and you're listening to the Dispatchers podcast every single Friday from the end of December until the start of February. We're giving you the chance to sample just some of the awesome subscriber only podcast content that our five dollar monthly patrons have been exclusively enjoying over the past twelve months. If you like what you hear in this episode and you want more of it, then all you need to do is become a patron of the dispatchers with $5 or more per
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Welcome to Conservations, the podcast, which got its name by literally combining the words conservative and conversations, which is exactly what happens on this show every month. Each episode we host a conversation with at least one other guest where we go in depth on a topic or hear about their experiences on this journey we all share together called life. The aim of this show is to foster and promote dialogue which cultivates goodness, truth, and beauty, and in doing so, unpacks the richness of the authentic conservative tradition. My hope is that you'll find these conservative conversations intellectually engaging and enriching, and that they will draw you ever more deeply into an authentic, truly flourishing and more meaningfully lived human experience. In this month's episode, we're going to be talking with Jason Winslaid, who lives in Canterbury with his wife, Clarette, and their six children. Jason previously had a corporate career before hearing the call to ordained ministry as a protestant pastor. He has been pastoring a reformed baptist congregation in Christchurch for the last 14 years. And when he's not busy with pastoral responsibilities, he and Claret are home educating their six kids. And in this episode, we're going to be hearing Jason's personal story of being present at Ground Zero in New York on September 11, 2001, as the 911 terrorist attacks unfolded immediately above and around him. But this isn't just a personal account of surviving one of the most harrowing and deadly terror attacks in us history, an event which claimed 2993 lives and injured almost 9000 others. It's also a powerful story of the path to conversion and redemption for a young man who discovered in the horror and fear unfolding around him outside the World Trade center on that warm September morning that there was more to life than career and a hedonistic search for self fulfillment. And that being ready for death meant a journey into the much grander, transcendent and truly sacred vision of reality that Christianity offers to the world. So having said all of that, let's have this profoundly important conservative conversation with Jason Winslaid.
Jason, thank you so much for being here to have this conversation.
It's awesome for a couple of reasons. Number one is because it's just an event that was so central to your life. I know and I'm looking forward to sort of introducing our listeners to that aspect of who you are. Secondly, because I consider you someone who's a friend and it's always good to have a dialogue with someone you're a bit more comfortable with.
And I think obviously the timing. We're in September, it is the anniversary of the September 11 attacks and very close to when we're recording now only a few weeks away. And so it seemed appropriate to talk about this. So let's start right back at the very beginning before we even get into the events of that particular day, because you were there when the planes hit those towers. But what were you actually doing? This Kiwi lad, you're 23.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:14] Speaker A: You're in New York. What is a 23 year old Jason Winslay doing in New York?
[00:05:20] Speaker B: Well, first of all, I just want to say that note that you've actually given away my age if anyone wants to do the math. So don't get out your calculator.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: Never ask a lady his age.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: I was Kiwi born and bred. I studied at Massey, graduated there. I was working for an investment bank, share brokerage company.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Was that your qualification you studied in and went to, correct?
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I studied it and finance at uni and then got straight into an investment bank and share brokerage company in my very early 20s down in Wellington. And then not too long after that, I went over to the States, and I guess the motivation behind that was really to get a bigger job, better job. And certainly the financial district of Manhattan was certainly one of the main places to go.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: So I was going to ask you was, I don't know, I guess the painter who wants to go to Venice and study painting, or the person who wants to study medicine at Harvard. Is this the financial district where you feel this is the mecca of your profession?
[00:06:24] Speaker B: It really was, yeah. And I guess in my thinking back then, my motivations weren't particularly pure. It was greed, it was prestige. And certainly you could get a lot further afar ahead in your career and financially working in Manhattan.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Did you ever watch Gordon Gecko, greed is good. Wall street? Did you ever watch that original film, or was that not quite?
[00:06:48] Speaker B: That was. I think I may have watched it after.
I didn't see that before.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: That's so funny, because I remember when that was a big thing, and it was like this sort of elite, Nietzschean, sort of strong man who just took whatever finances they want from whoever the weak were around them, and it was all business, and you're either a powerful player or a sucker who doesn't deserve to be. It was really awful, wasn't it, really, that barbaric world?
[00:07:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, that was very much a reality for many who would go into that kind of industry.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: So how long had you actually been in New York at that stage? You moved over there, go to Mecca to have your big religious financial pilgrimage. How long had you been there and working in the Manhattan financial district?
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Yeah, about six months at that point. So I'd been there probably a little bit longer, doing a little bit of travel and spending time with extended family members that were over there, but, yeah, about six months at that time.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: Did you know anybody over there, or did you meet people over there? Did you have friends with you?
[00:07:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Not right in Manhattan itself, but I have relatives over there, so my mother's from the states. She was born in the States, which, by the way, gave me my us citizenship and passport, which meant that I was able to go and work without any red tape to have to get through.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: That's pretty awesome. And so you're going into work each day, and what are you doing? What is your daily routine like when you go to work? Are you sell, sell, sell, bye bye bye. Are you negotiating deals? What are you doing?
[00:08:13] Speaker B: No. So I wasn't in stocks or anything. Like that it wasn't share market stuff. I was working for an it company, and that it company, it specialized in trade finance systems. And so this is when, back in that time, they were automating the whole trade finance process. And so there would be software development for companies who doubt in trade finance. And we would do that in house, but then we'd have to go to the actual companies themselves to go and implement the designs for them, basically computer systems. And there were customers all over the place. So I would spend about, maybe probably two thirds of the time in the office and about a third of the time outside of the office. I was obviously a junior, 23 years old, so I was just following the seniors and being the coffee boy and what have you. But many of our clients were in the World Trade center. So my work at that time was about two blocks. It was on John street, about two blocks away from sort of larger blocks away from the World Trade center. And many clients were in there. So it wasn't unusual on any given week or any given day to actually be going into the World Trade center.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I was going to ask. So you actually spent a bit of time in that building, correct?
[00:09:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: What was it like? Because it looks from the outside, and I remember as a young lad, it just looked like this sort of very impressive or two monoliths, really, weren't they, to sort of, I guess, the american financial and industrial prowess. It looked like a pretty impressive building to be in.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: It was. It was kind of the man made version of, say, going know Arthur's pass for know, you're going through the mountains and you see these. You feel really small because these mountains around you are huge. Well, this was kind of like the man made version of that. You kind of look up and you feel so insignificant compared to these monster towers.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: Was there a status within the building? Like the elites had the top floors and you sort of worked your way down. Do you remember how high maybe you ever got in that building?
[00:10:09] Speaker B: I got to the very top because not for work wise, but you could get up from memory, you could get right to the very top. And there was sort of a lookout area for people to go up, spectators and so forth. So they knew that there would be interest. They knew that tourists would want to come, and so there was allowance for that in terms of the status, prestige. I wasn't privy to that. Remember, I'm a 23 year old coffee boy, so to speak. I'm entry level, so I wasn't privy to any of that kind of stuff.
[00:10:39] Speaker A: Nobody knows your name just yet.
Tell me, what was it like? By the way, folks, if you hear noise in the background, we've got the door open here today in my office, just a bit warmer. Finally in Canterbury. So there's a blind that every now and now and then rattles against the wall and there's a bit of the neighbor's dog you might hear as well. But you go to work that morning, the morning of the attacks, you get on the subway, do you, to go to work each day, correct?
[00:11:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: And you get in.
When did you realize something was amiss? Was it when you got off? Was it when you were coming in? You started to hear news? When's the moment? I guess you're starting to realize something's going on here.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: Yeah, well, immediately getting off the subway, really. I lived over in Jersey City, which was just across the Hudson river, and like, only just across the. I was, you know, just a stone's throw. And the accommodation over there was so much cheaper than in Manhattan, probably like a 10th of the price. Yet I could be at work through the subway. I could be at the World Trade center in less than five minutes from where I lived. So I was very close. Even though I was officially living in New Jersey, I worked down in lower Manhattan there.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: How long did that take you to get in each.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: Last? On my commute to work, the stop where I'd get off was basically in the basement of the World Trade center. So that was my place where I'd get off. I'd then come up to ground level and I'd walk several blocks down to John street and that's where my work was.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: So you could be there in, what, 1015 minutes from home.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: You got on the subway sometimes even less.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Wow. So you're pretty close. And so when do you realize something's amiss?
[00:12:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So on that morning, it's funny, I was taking a slower morning. We were on kind of glide time as work. A lot of the corporates were like that. You could come in a bit later if you wanted to, finish a bit later if you wanted to as well. I was actually a little bit later that morning, so it must have been. I can't remember what time, but it was somewhere between 845 09:00 and basically when the doors opened of the subway.
That's immediately I knew something wasn't right because there were officials, and I don't recall for some reason that there were officials that were wearing official uniforms of some sort, not military, but some maybe security or something. They were basically down there and shouting at everyone as soon as the doors open to get upstairs, get upstairs as fast as you can. Go, go.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: Get out of the building.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: Get out of the building.
And that's all we knew at that point.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: And I guess this is amazing because we really take this for granted today. The age of cell phones and social media, people probably would have known before the train had even stopped. Now, but you get out and you're in this sort of shock and awe moment. And had the first plane hit at that stage, correct?
[00:13:28] Speaker B: Yeah. So the first one had gone.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: But you didn't know that.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: I didn't know it was a plane at first. Actually, when I got up to ground level and looked out, I could see huge fire up really quite high and was just observing that at that point.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: What does that look like?
You could actually see, I guess, smoke and flames.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. You could see there was lots of smoke and you could actually see flames as well. And you could see it was actually spreading quite a bit as well. And I remember thinking to myself, well, this is New York City, there's a fire. It doesn't look good. But hey, New York City, someone will be able to take care of. Didn't, it didn't feel initially like it was something that was way out of control, even though it was quite significant.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting. I was going to ask you that because I guess the gravity of it must slowly sink in.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Well, yeah. And I think for me, the gravity started to sink in when I was looking up and then when I started to see people jumping out of the buildings at that point, I think.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: So you actually saw that, correct?
[00:14:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: And so multiple people coming, jumping out at that point. When I started to see, I could see people waving. And I think you see that on the video recordings, people waving from the buildings. But then when I actually started to see people jump and just. That just. It was a long way up, too. I don't even think that some of the videos do it justice. Like you're watching a person, a human being, flipping around and round in circles, flying down through the air. And it's not a quick process, I can't remember how many seconds, but it was still a number of seconds that you're watching this person fall down to their death. And I think at that point I realized, actually, this is not just a fire that someone can take care of. There's some serious casualties that are happening because of it.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: Yeah. I remember reading something about it some years ago because I've heard people give these woefully inadequate sort of attempts at sort of trying to make moral justifications around why they thought taking your own life would be okay. And they often compare to the World Trade center. They talk about euthanasia, for example, and they go back to that incident. But apparently the psychology of it is that people, when they do that, they reckon the majority aren't actually taking their own lives. What they're doing is they climb out to the very edge, away from the fire. They climb as far as they can, and then what happens is the intensity of the fire is just an escape ball at that point. You know, the fire is coming for you. And they literally engage in this totally irrational, but in another sense, it sort of kind of makes sense process where they think, well, I've got nothing left to lose. Maybe if I jump, I could survive, sort of thing. It's like. It's not like I want to end it. They think I'm getting away from the fire, and they just go as far as they can, which is off the edge of the building, literally.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. It's hard to put yourself in that position and sort of think if you had another ten minutes before the flames kind of got to you, that you would jump ahead of time. You would think that people were at the very end and they said, you know what?
I'm literally getting burnt here.
To alleviate the burning, I'm going to have to eject myself out of this building.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. Man, it's crazy.
So you see the fire and then you're looking up and you are there before the second plane. You see the second plane coming?
[00:16:42] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. So I can't remember how long I was there just looking up. I mean, people were looking out.
It was horrible. It was a horror in real life, looking up. And I still remember during that time, I remember hearing kind of big explosions in the background, and I remember just thinking to myself, what is that? There's something echoing through the streets. And it didn't really dawn on me too much at the time. I just thought, wow, I don't know what that is, but I was too fixated on people jumping out of the building and the fire and the fire expanding as well. But I remember watching one that was actually really quite close to me where I was. I was literally just across the road. So there's only a little street that was separating me from the world trade at that point. And just watching a person go and come all the way down. And basically, when they hit the bottom, I heard the explosion.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:17:35] Speaker B: And I realized at that point, this explosion, this sound of the explosion that was sort of echoing through the smaller streets of lower Manhattan there, these were actually people dropping and hitting the ground. And as soon as I realized that, all of a sudden I could hear explosions happening very, very frequently, like just going off one after another after another. And I remember thinking at that point, these are lives that are being lost with every explosion that we hear right now.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: Did that ever haunt you afterwards?
Do you ever come back to that moment in the days afterwards? Because I imagine there's nothing like that sort of awful. I mean, no one wants to have that sort of PTSD moment.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: Well, I don't know if we want to talk about matters of faith following that, but I remember not being a Christian, not having faith, but I remember saying audibly, actually, out loud, I said, God, do something. Not loud, but wow, enough just to look up there. And I remember just. I think at that point, and I realized how many people were dying, just said, God, do something. And so there was. Yeah, for me at the time.
[00:18:45] Speaker C: I.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: Don'T know how much I thought about that afterwards in terms of the people who actually died. But it did get me at a later stage, following the event, in the months that followed, really got me thinking about matters of eternity. It got me thinking about life and death and what's beyond the grave. It did get me thinking about that at the later stage.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: We'll come back and talk with that, because I think that's an important part of the story as well, that even out of this great darkness comes hope and redemption, in a sense, but, yeah. Wow. So you're looking up, you're hearing these explosions, you realize that's what this is, because a lot of people don't appreciate this. I know, for example, there was a catholic priest who was actually administering last rites and blessings to firemen going into the buildings, and he was killed by a falling body that just fell on top of him. So the danger of that in and of itself is very real. And then you're in this awful situation, and then you look up and you see plane number two.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. So I see just out the corner of my eye. And this would. If anyone's looking at the geography of the positions of the buildings, the building that was on fire was on my right hand. It was the right of the two buildings. That was my vantage point from where I was looking.
The right building was on fire. And I remember just seeing, last minute a shadow coming from my left. And that shadow, I just looked up just in time. Probably split seconds, maybe 2 seconds, if at most the shadow of the.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: So you realize this is not a cloud now.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: Yeah. There was something that significant because it was a fine day. It was a really fine day. And so sun was beaten down on me and then the shadow immediately came. I looked up and saw the plane coming in from the left, plunge into the building that was on the left there as well. So, yeah, witnessed that plane go in and enormous explosion. And I remember at that point because it was so loud, because it was loud and the explosion was large. Everyone who was around me, myself included, we turned around. Our instinct was to turn around and start running in the opposite direction. And I probably ran, I don't know, maybe 2 meters or so, maybe a little bit more. And then I felt what I thought. Someone actually thumped me from behind and I fell to the ground. And as I was on the ground, I kind of looked around me at that point and realized everyone else who was around me was on the ground as well.
I realized at that point, actually no one pushed me from behind.
We believe it was the shockwave of the explosion which took a bit of time to actually come down, to actually ripple outwards.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: This is quite a forceful explosion then you've been throwing to face forward to the ground.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: It was. I played a little bit of. Bit of footy, a bit of rugby at high school. And if you can imagine someone coming in behind you unexpectedly and kind of putting their shoulder into your back with quite a bit of force, that's what it kind of felt like. So it was enough to knock you to the ground and that was the result of that. So seeing that second plane and knocked to the ground, turned around to see what on earth just happened. A second plane has gone in. And at this point I didn't actually realize it was terrorism.
[00:22:04] Speaker A: So you're just thinking what, this is maybe an accident or something?
[00:22:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:09] Speaker A: Because you didn't see the first plane. Right. So you're not sure what's caused that?
[00:22:13] Speaker B: I'm not sure. And there was confusion down the bottom because this is a time where we had cell phones but we didn't have data.
[00:22:19] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:19] Speaker B: So there's no way we could have. Unless we get to our work and workplace, crank up our computers and then get Internet access. We didn't know until that point. So we're down the bottom thinking. Someone said a plane, someone said it was just a fire, some explosion went off inside. There was a bit of confusion down below as to what actually happened. But when that second plane went in, it was like well, hang on a minute. How did that happen? How could it have been? The plane was flying over and it couldn't see through the smoke. And maybe that happened, but that caused a lot more confusion because we just didn't know.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: Yeah, because it's funny, today we think we see someone of slightly arabic persuasion on a plane and we wonder, oh, is this possible terrorist event? Right. That's how paranormal we are now. But back then, that was not a thing.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: No.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: And so it kind of doesn't quite make sense. But for you, it is kind of obvious when you go back to that moment now and realize where terrorism in the west was not a normalized pattern of behavior. And so you're going through this process of, oh, this plane crashed. They couldn't see that, taking everything else off the list. But what is obviously going on in front of you?
Because I was going to ask, at what point is that? The point where you realize we got to get out of here?
[00:23:32] Speaker B: Yeah. For me, I thought this kiwi boy kind of knows when it's a little bit, things feel a little.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: I'm out of my depth.
[00:23:39] Speaker B: I'm a wee bit out of control here. I'm going back to the office to make the coffees.
The thinking was like, something is out of control. There was a feeling like it's not in control anymore. And so basically I ran the two blocks back to my work. I remember looking behind me because obviously you see the two buildings now on fire. And many of those who I was standing with turned around after the explosion and basically walked straight back to where they were to continue looking up at the buildings because it was just. Yeah, I don't know how else to put it. There was a real draw to it because you see this catastrophic. It felt like events in a sense, of. And there was something that really drew you to it. I know I was drawn for the first time when I first arrived, but the second is what caused me to basically run back to my office, which was a few blocks away and even.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: Two blocks away that wouldn't have been far enough away, right. Because of once the buildings came down. Were you still there when they started to come down?
[00:24:37] Speaker B: I was in my office, actually. So when I say blocks, there were several long blocks, quite long blocks down John street. So, yeah, I basically got back to my office on the television. As soon as I walked in, it was all over the news. And at that point I realized it was terrorism. It wasn't just an accident that had happened. Went up to my office, to my work colleagues, one of them. They were trying to frantically get hold of one of my work colleagues who was actually in the World Trade center at that time, and so trying to phone his cell phone, but no cell phone coverage because all the lines were jammed. That colleague in particular, he was actually in the elevator when the first plane went in. So he was going up, and then they felt a shake. And then basically the elevator came back down to the bottom, and it just stayed stagnant. And the doors were shut. They wouldn't open. And so even when they tried to push the button, they wouldn't open. So they managed to actually pry, get their fingers in there. You know how you can kind of do that sometimes? And they pried open the elevator doors, and then they were able to get out. And so that colleague ended up in about ten minutes later coming in the door. But there was quite a bit of concern that one of our colleagues, and could have been any of us, because, again, we were at least up at the world train at least once a week would be up there. So at the office, we were there, and just probably in shock. I think everyone was just, can you.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: See the towers from that building?
[00:26:05] Speaker B: Not from my building.
[00:26:05] Speaker A: So you're closed off from the view?
[00:26:09] Speaker B: Closed off at that point. So the next thing, basically on the schedule, then after the work colleague gets back, we go, what are we going to do? Everyone was just stagnant. They didn't really know. They were in shock. The next thing was the coming down of the buildings. And so we felt it. It was like an earthquake.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: So before that happens, you're thinking, what? We're safe here, we'll stay here until we figure out and regroup? Is that what you're thinking?
[00:26:35] Speaker B: Well, yeah, it was just trying to work out what was happening, and we just got word that there was one or two other planes that were still unaccounted for at that point as well. So we were thinking, where could. It's terrorism. There's a few planes that are unaccounted for. Where might they hit next?
Where are our staff? There was those sorts of things that were happening at that point, and many people were trying to contact family members because they knew, working in that area, just wanted to say, hey, we're okay. So that's what was taking place around that time.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: And then next thing you know, how long were you there then, when the towers collapse?
[00:27:14] Speaker B: I don't remember exactly. It felt maybe like a half an hour or so. I'd have to look. I'm sure it's documented somewhere, and we're talking 22 years ago, I didn't have the stopwatch on, but it felt somewhere around a half an hour. It was actually maybe more than that, but it was going quickly because it was just talking. A lot of talking, a lot of confusion.
I was here for the Christchurch earthquakes. It felt very similar to that of just prolonged feeling like an earthquake. The whole building was shaking and we didn't know. I initially thought it was an earthquake. I thought, yeah, is there an earthquake on top of this?
[00:27:51] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: As well. And it wasn't until we saw all the ash and the debris all coming down our street to the point where if you were out there at the time, you wouldn't have been able to see maybe 3 meters in front of you.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: It was that much. And that dust and everything just stayed. It stayed for a long time.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember that. A lot of people didn't quite appreciate that at the time, but I know now they're dealing with like firemen and others and rescue workers who have got various cancers. There was a lot of asbestos, there was the smoke, there was the dust. And it just went straight into people's lungs. And so you're inside a building which is probably at that stage relatively safe, but you don't know that. What's your next move?
[00:28:29] Speaker B: Well, the next move was to get out of there because we just didn't know what was. We didn't know which building had collapsed or anything. All we knew is that we felt this earthquake like feeling. So we were looking outside, we were seeing people fall into the ground, like you say, they were ingesting a lot of the smoke and the dust, debris, that kind of stuff that was coming through the air, people actually collapsing outside as they were running past. I was maybe the third floor up on the building, but looking down, we could see people collapsing. So what we did is whipped off my business shirt, went to the bathroom with a couple of work mates, we wet them and I can't remember why we did that. I was initiating it. I think it might have been some work on the farm once. I remember doing some farm work when I was a high school student. I remember doing something of a similar nature.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: Got old kiwi ingenuity.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. And just wet the business shirt around my face. And then we started to go out from there. And so it was just trying to make our way through the streets of that lower Manhattan to try to get more uptown. And it was quite an interesting feeling because you have to remember from this young Kiwi guy, he's trying to make something of himself over there, just trying to go to work on any given day. But now here I am with my business shirt wrapped around my face, work colleagues behind me. One of them has a map because we're trying to figure out which streets do we go down? It was really hard to see.
And then we had to start actually strategizing at the time, going, should we shoot down this way? Like, which way should we get out of here? One way was where the Brooklyn bridge was. And I remember just thinking to myself, we actually said, let's not go down there because we know there's a plane that's unaccounted for. What if we go over there and that's another big landmark that the plane might go into? So it was quite an unusual feel of, again, a young kiwi guy trying to think, how do we get out of here? And it felt like you're almost put into a war situation, strategizing in the.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Low, and you're having to navigate on your feet and you're having to figure it out. Strategize on the go. It's not even google.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Exactly. That's right. And even if it was possible to phone someone, to ask. All the phone lines were jammed. All the cell phone lines were jammed.
[00:30:44] Speaker A: Are you walking or are you running at this stage?
[00:30:46] Speaker B: Walking.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: And is it what? There must be a sea of humanity around you.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Yeah, not as much, not heaps. It was hard to see because, like I said, maybe three or 4 meters in front of you is as far as you could see, but you couldn't see beyond that. So our visibility was really limited. We'd obviously see people that would come past us, but there wasn't heaps of people running around.
[00:31:09] Speaker A: Everyone is heading out of town, though, I'd imagine.
[00:31:11] Speaker B: Yep. Heading uptown, trying to get up, because the other way, south of the city where we were, which was just the river, it was the Hudson river, and there's no way to get across there. So everyone was kind of making their way uptown.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: Wow. And so when do you realize the full extent, I guess, of what's it's. Word must have started to spread. Look, the planes have hit, towers have come down, and it's terrorism.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it wasn't until I got probably more uptown. So one of the work colleagues actually had an apartment up. I can't remember where, but up quite a bit further. So we got out of the smoky area, got up a little bit further. There were drinks being handed out. Like, there were people in their stores that were just giving out free drinks as people were walking by because our clothes and our face and everything were covered with all this ash, this white ash and everything.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:32:03] Speaker B: So we go up there. I remember having to stop within probably 15 minutes or so into a pharmacy type thing to get some equivalent to, like, paracetamol. Had just a migraine headache, which in hindsight, I realized it was actually probably the force of that explosion that just shook right through. Must have given the brain a little bit of a shake around. My wife says that explains a few things. But anyway, yeah, so needing to get some medication just to help with the migraine, that came on pretty quickly, and then finally got to an apartment of one of my colleagues, and we basically, we just started watching the reruns of what had taken place. And there was more information at that point. Plane, Pentagon, there's a few things coming.
[00:32:47] Speaker A: Together at that point because they instituted a curfew, didn't they?
Did that affect you guys? Or were you. Because it's terrorism at that point.
And I guess in that moment, everyone potentially becomes a threat, you know what I mean? If you're paranoid enough, all of a sudden, where's the next threat coming from?
[00:33:09] Speaker B: Yeah, there was that feel, but there was also the feel of not knowing what were the terrorists carrying in the planes that exploded into the building. And so when know got over this migraine of mine and thought, I have to make my way back to Jersey City again, it's where my apartment was. We took a boat across the Hudson river. It was uptown a bit. I don't know if it's the normal place where the boat would cross over, but it was a place where we could get over to New Jersey. And when we got over to the other side, we were kind of greeted by these people wearing full body hazmat. Yeah, exactly. And these little white tents. And they said they were putting us through these white tents and spraying us down with water. And I think there was some other.
[00:33:53] Speaker A: Substance, detergent, I think normally.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: Probably detergent. Yeah, I remember there's a few soap suds and stuff as well. So they're spraying us down with. And I asked them, why are you spraying us right now? And they said, well, we don't know what's on you right now. We don't know. In the explosion and the buildings that came down, we don't know if there are. I mean, there was talk about anthrax that was kind of big around that time as well. So there was concern that they didn't know to what extent.
[00:34:20] Speaker A: The paranoia must ramp up at that point when someone says, you may have anthrax on you. You're thinking, am I going to go home and suddenly cook from the inside out?
[00:34:30] Speaker C: Or.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: You know what I mean? Like, all your worst movie fears must be starting to pop up in your mind at that point.
[00:34:35] Speaker B: At that point of the day, I was pretty tired. I think at that point it was maybe around about, I can't remember, maybe 03:00 in the afternoon. So it had taken a while to get out of the city, get uptown, get over this migraine, get on the boat, which there was quite a few people going over. So it was quite a long wait to get over to Jersey City.
It had been a long day. I was feeling pretty exhausted. Still, when you get over a migraine, you're not kind of firing on all fours at that point. And so I probably wasn't thinking too much about the anthrax or anything at that point. It was just like, man, what a day.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: And what time do you finally get home?
[00:35:11] Speaker B: I don't recall. It could have been around four ish, maybe 04:00 it was definitely later in the day.
[00:35:16] Speaker A: Wow. So you got off the, what is it, 830 or something? You get off the train around?
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe it would have been after quarter to, quarter to nine and it's.
[00:35:24] Speaker A: Out of the train building on fire. Next thing, planes hitting, next thing back at the office that's collapsed and then you're out.
It's like 04:00 or so before you even get home.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: It took a little while. Yeah.
[00:35:37] Speaker A: What would normally be, what, a ten minute journey into work.
That's unbelievable. Do you remember what the atmosphere was like? Because obviously you get home then and I mean, everyone, like, I remember back here in New Zealand, I actually remember I was leading a school retreat for a group of high school students. And even the next day we were still watching reruns of the footage and I still remember where I was that morning when the news of it.
There was an atmosphere even over here. So it must have been a real intensity of the atmosphere of what's going on.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: It was. People were just shell shocked. They really were. And I think where I was, my apartment in Jersey City was just literally across the Hudson river. So from my apartment I could be looking out and just see all the smoke. There was a lot of military presence. So there were jets that were coming over the top frequently, fighter air force jets that were coming over. I don't know what they were doing. There were military helicopters that were flying overhead. I don't remember if it was a tank. Like, it wasn't a tank, but it was similar to some military utility vehicles that were driving around the streets where I was at that time. And it was just like a ghost town. No one was out and about.
Shops had shut down. It was just, you just saw fire across the Hudson river and where the world trade was and just, yeah, it did feel very much like a ghost town.
[00:37:04] Speaker A: Were you talking to people?
I guess you must have rang home at some point and said, hey, look, your little boy's okay.
What's going on?
[00:37:14] Speaker B: I wasn't able to do that. And that was probably quite a concern to the relatives and friends back home and even my friends there as well, because the people who I shared the apartment with, they knew where I worked and they knew where I was. The only one that my final destination was a world trade center. And they hadn't heard from me. Again, there was no way of phone to get out with the phones or anything like that. So they hadn't heard from me from that morning until 04:00 or whatever. When I eventually come in, family back home were beside themselves because they knew where I worked, they knew where I was. But for that period of time, which is quite an extended period of, I mean, you're talking, what is it, 7 hours or so, where you just haven't heard yet from someone who you actually personally know? That was most probably at the site at that point. It was a long time. So first thing, first point of call for me was just emailing because I still couldn't get out because of the phones, but just emailing relatives and friends to say, and a big group email to say, I'm okay.
[00:38:14] Speaker A: What happens from there?
Obviously, you came back to New Zealand. Was it pretty quickly after that you thought, oh, man, this is it? That's come to a. Literally, I guess it's come to a screaming, crashing end. My career in Manhattan, or was it a bit more drawn out than that? How long before you got back to New Zealand?
[00:38:31] Speaker B: It was only a couple of weeks, so pretty quickly.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: So you booked yourself a flight sort of thing?
[00:38:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, booked myself a flight. See, the thing is, there's no way I could actually commute over to my. It was all cordoned off down the bottom of where my work was. And so there was questions about how can we actually get to where we need to. It was an IT company, so they did have servers off site and they were trying to reconstruct some things, but we had a lot of clients, customers in the World Trade Center. I mean, business had just basically shut down. There wasn't a whole lot to do at that point. I was told, hey, just don't come. There's no way you can come in anyway. And so that was situation. So I managed to go down to the Jersey shore, which is just basically on the beachfront. I had relatives down there a couple of hours from there and I stayed with them until I was able to book flights and until flights were open again because they had shut.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: Yeah, they shut down everything. Right.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: Shut them all down. And then very shortly after that, I was back to New Zealand.
[00:39:32] Speaker A: What was that like? First of all, I imagine there would have been a lot more intense airport security all of a sudden because you would have literally gone from six months prior flying into the states to all of a sudden flying out under this new intensive, invasive antiterrorism security measures.
[00:39:50] Speaker B: It was pretty intense. I mean, there was military with, I don't know, full on assault rifles walking around like everywhere. And you had dogs, assault rifles and all the rest of it. I remember there was. I felt really. It was. I felt really bad for an arab person who was actually on our flight.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:40:06] Speaker B: We're all waiting just in those sort of departure lounges and everyone's thinking the same thing. Everyone's on edge, like big time. And you're looking over this one guy and he's wearing a covering head scarf and we're looking at him and we're going, oh, dear. And that. You could tell he was feeling the weight of that as well. There's no way they could have got anything on the plane because the security was so tight. But you kind of felt for those who may have looked similar to those who may have been responsible for the others.
[00:40:39] Speaker A: Yeah, because I guess for him, he gets on a flight and everyone's thinking about that incident and it's just the fear and the horror of it all was so raw that. Gosh, yeah, you're right. It must have been. Imagine being that guy.
[00:40:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
So, yeah, a couple of weeks and I was back home again.
[00:40:59] Speaker A: What, did you come back to work here or what did you do?
[00:41:01] Speaker B: Not initially. My folks have an ex sort of hunting fishing lodge up at the top of the. Up in Plura Sound, actually up in the South island. So I just thought, hey, that'll be my first point of call. As soon as I got off the plane here, the reporters from the Paul Holmes show. Now I'm showing my age.
They were there and they basically followed me the whole way. From. Where did I fly into Auckland? Wellington. I can't remember all the way down to where I was.
[00:41:28] Speaker A: So they must have, what, been looking at manifests and figuring out Kiwis coming home from New York or something.
[00:41:33] Speaker B: I don't know what it was, but they were basically filming me and interviewing me the whole time as I was walking basically off the plane until I got down to my folks place. So they basically just followed me the whole time. And that was the furthest thing from my mind. I didn't really feel like being interviewed at that point. But I did interview and they did put a spot on Paul Holmes that night about the experience.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: That's another thing we've both got in common. We've both been interviewed by Paul Holmes. I was on his radio show, though. Well, so that's amazing. They must have. Back when journalists probably did their legwork, right. And they must have gone, okay, well, there's this guy, this Kiwi guy. We know he's been there. He's coming back to New Zealand and far out. But that's intense, though.
That's a couple of weeks later and still there's this interest in Kiwis who have been in the hot zone of it all.
[00:42:25] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. Well, I mean, they'd only just opened the airport, so they were just starting to get people out. It was a while, I can't remember how long. There was probably at least a week or something. They just didn't open while they ramped up their security measures.
[00:42:36] Speaker A: So you're in the plural sound. You're away from everything, just trying to get your head back together. Did you have people, did it ever become a thing where you sort of, once people figured out you'd been there, they were constantly asking you about did you get sick of it? Did that become a thing ever?
[00:42:50] Speaker B: Or maybe I didn't really feel to keep on talking about it and running over it. Didn't really feel to talk too much about it. But at the same time I realized there was an initial curiosity, so I sort of wanted to leave room for that as.
[00:43:04] Speaker A: Feel. I guess you must have felt relieved to be back in New Zealand and to be back on terra firma in a place you knew and away from all of that.
[00:43:12] Speaker B: Yes. And mean, because you have to remember, I went over to the States with a kind of bigger ambitions in mind. I had a lifetime in mind. And then to have that kind of ripped out from underneath your feet. And I had no plan b. There wasn't any plan b. That was the plan. And so there's quite a bit of confusion from my side of going. Well, this has happened. But what next? People would ask me straight away, so what's the plan? And I'm like, I have no idea what the plan is right now. I've been working in this particular direction, and now this is no longer a reality anymore. I don't know. I just didn't know.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess it's just, yeah, in a sense, you come home and the isolation of that must have been pretty intense because, like you say, a whole world has collapsed. It's not just an event.
Did you know your wife, Clara? Did you know each other at that?
[00:44:03] Speaker B: We had. We had dated for a while. We were still really good friends before I went to the states, and so we weren't married at that point, but, yeah, we knew each other and we're good.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: Want to. This is the bit I think is probably the most important part of the story, really, in a sense, is you've talked about that fact that you are standing there and you say, God, do something. Probably the prayer of an honest man. Right. The prayer of job, sort of, in a sense.
And there's this wrestling with God, this beautiful jewish tradition. Jacob wrestled with God, right. And there's sort of this wrestling with God that begins there for you. Doesn't it?
Tell us a bit about your life before 911? Obviously, there's the financial incentive and everything else, but how would you describe your life before that point?
[00:44:53] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, from a spiritual point of view, God was the furthest thing from my mind by nature. I hated God. I didn't want anything that he wanted for my life. I enjoyed life. I enjoyed the party lifestyle.
I enjoyed the drinking. I enjoyed the recreational drugs. I enjoyed that lifestyle. And for a period, I found myself quite content in that lifestyle. So it was interesting that when I went to the states and people often say, well, jason, did you kind of come to faith because of 911? And I don't really like to attribute it to that. I say that was just one cog in the wheel that God was turning to kind of bring me closer and closer to him. Even before that point being over in the states, I had friends and there were always people around me. I mean, you're in a city of 9 million people, so it was the strangest feeling that, number one, I was there constantly around people, but there was this inner loneliness at the time. And I remember just thinking, this is strange. Why I thought I'd be feeling better in this situation.
[00:46:02] Speaker A: You're in the mecca of your dreams. You're on your career path that you always desired. You're in the city that never sleeps, the Big Apple, you've got all the hedonism and self gratification you could possibly want to put your hands on, I suppose, to a certain degree. And you're still not happy.
[00:46:17] Speaker B: Well, that's right. And to compile things to make things worse is that I was rubbing shoulders a lot with my older work colleagues in the workplace where I was at. And it was interesting because as I got to know them, I'd hang out with them after work, in the weekends. They would invite me to their places where they, you know very well to know they've been in the business for a while.
[00:46:37] Speaker A: They're not living in New Jersey.
[00:46:39] Speaker B: They don't even know that name, Jersey City. Where is.
They're. They are living the life that I was hoping to pursue. But what was really interesting and getting to know them well over that period of time is that I realized, although, that they had everything that I wanted materially. And in terms of the career and money and all the rest of it, they weren't happy people. Interesting. They were nice people. They were the people I'm friends I could get along with. But they came from broken marriages, estrained relationships with children. Some hadn't married at all. And so they kind of had all this material stuff around them. But when you kind of got to talk to them a little bit more, you realized that there wasn't a lot of joy, there wasn't a lot of happiness. There didn't seem to be a whole lot of fulfillment. And I remember, as a 23 year old man, even before this is even before the world trades, before the terrorism and everything else, I remember feeling lonely in terms of my surroundings. I was looking to what I was pursuing and going. And I remember just thinking to myself, do I need to pursue what these guys are doing for another 30 years only to come out the other side with the same result? And I remember that those kinds of thoughts were going, quite philosophical thoughts were going around in my mind even before that time.
[00:47:52] Speaker A: That's quite a profound. You're 23 at this point, and you're asking those questions already.
There's something really beautiful about that because I imagine a lot of people, it'd just be another round of drugs or another round of drinks, and we'll just, hopefully it'll get better in two years time. Or the next big thing that I satisfy myself with will probably fix that problem, and you just ignore it.
[00:48:13] Speaker B: And maybe part of that was because of the weight that I had placed on the fulfillment I would receive by going to the states to fulfilling that dream, only to kind of get there, settle into it for a number of months and realize at that point it's not what I actually thought it was to be. And I think what happened with the World Trade center collapsing, that was almost like a very visible, literal picture of what was probably happening in my life internally. Like I was seeing my dreams, my hopes, my ambitions, the things I was going for were basically crumbling internally. And then I see the buildings come down materially and it was quite the picture.
[00:48:51] Speaker A: That's quite profound, really, because that's a very visceral, sort of sacramental, literal, sort of. They almost are like two idols. They were absolutely, and they were idols to capitalism, to the industrial age and everything else. And also they very much typify that through the 90s, probably the 90s was the best, most settled period, I think, in the west, you'd have to say, particularly financially, and where everything was at globally. And then all of that collapsed. And those two buildings, they are not just the symbol of that collapse, but it's almost like the terror of Babel coming down and it's the beginning of something new that's unleashed, that we're living through now.
So that's quite a powerful sort of thing for you, because it's not just an event for you, then it's literally world shattering. Your whole world you've built.
[00:49:44] Speaker B: Yeah. It wasn't just the loss of a career or the career that I had at that point in the States. It wasn't just losing a job. It was a lot more that was going on for me personally when that time happened. So when I come back to New Zealand, I'm trying to process all of that. So I'm processing the dashed dreams or the perceived fulfillment and it going in a certain direction. I need to find that this probably isn't what I was looking for in that particular direction. Coupled with that, there was the reality of my mortality, and I'm thinking about life and death. And I guess that's where I was saying a bit earlier on, thinking through those who had died, they were just going to work the same as I was going to work. They had no idea that that morning would be their last for quite a number of them on that particular day. And so it got me thinking about, I guess, the eternal things and going, what happens is there life after death? What happens when a person dies? And started to think a little bit more carefully around those things. Now, for me, I actually went to the Bible. I started to read the Bible.
[00:50:46] Speaker A: Was that an instinct you had why the Bible?
[00:50:50] Speaker B: Some religious education in high school, there were some religious education classes there. I remember very early on, I remember going to Sunday school a few times. I mean, that had ended quite earlier on in my younger family and family life. But there was some default to when I'm looking for something and I wasn't going to Buddhism or Hinduism, there would seem to be Christianity was my go to, because at least that was the only thing that I was familiar with at that point. So I go to the Bible, I start reading the Bible, I'm looking for answers, I'm going, what is the meaning of life? Is there what happens after a person dies? Those kinds of questions going around in my thinking, and for me, over a period of time, probably about seven, eight and maybe nine months or so, I can't really put it down to any one conversation or any one teaching I might have listened to, but just through reading the Bible, I started the gospel of Luke, I think it was, and just started reading, trying to look for answers, really. And I think shine tv was out, had just come out around that time. So there was a couple know a lot of it I probably wouldn't recommend, but there may be one or two that were in there.
I remember talking to some Christians as well, because again, I was looking for answers.
And I recall getting to a point after about a nine month period or so, eight or nine month period, just feeling that, wow, I've actually learnt quite a bit over this time. And it wasn't until I went up to Wellington again, where I had lived, I was visiting Wellington, I went into a church, I think it was called the Rock at the time, just as a one off went in for a service. I don't remember anything they talked about, but as I walked out, there was a little pamphlet on baptism and I took that home and it basically had a list of little boxes on there and it said things.
If. If you believe that Jesus is the son of God, if you believe that you have sinned against God and your sin is against God, if you accept and acknowledge that your sin deserves the punishment from God, there was hell in there as well. If you believe that Jesus came to earth, died for your sin upon the cross, if you believe that he rose again from the dead, it basically went down this checklist of the gospel message. And at the end, almost like the.
[00:53:14] Speaker A: Apostles creed sort of thing, was it.
[00:53:16] Speaker B: Kind of, but similar, but little checkboxes. It was designed for someone who would be going, do I have enough of the truth, of understanding of truth to actually be able to call myself a Christian. And so I go down this list, and I'm looking at this.
I could identify with it all.
I'd been walking around with that remorse for sin. I had lived the party lifestyle. I had done all the things that the world sort of offers and says, you'll find joy and fulfillment in these things. I'd exhausted as well as I could all of those things, only to find that there was nothing apart from a lot of remorse, a lot of guilt. And when I came to realize the gospel, when I came to realize, actually my wrong wasn't just against myself or others, but I've actually sinned against God here. And one day I'm going to have to meet my maker. And it could have been back then. Would I have been ready at that time?
And I came to a point of realizing, actually, I wouldn't have been ready. I wouldn't have been ready to meet God. I wouldn't have been ready to meet my maker. And if I was to be put before him at that point, it wouldn't be heaven, it would be hell. I'd get what every sinner deserves.
[00:54:31] Speaker A: How far after 911 is this?
[00:54:35] Speaker B: This is about maybe eight, nine months or so after that. And so when it kind of all comes together, when I came to realize, actually this is what Jesus Christ has done, he's come as a substitute to pay for my fine, for my sin on the cross in my place.
I'm then looking at this little sheet on baptism, and I'm going, and I read down this list and I handed it over to Clara, who is now my beautiful wife. We weren't married at the time, and I remember handing it to her and saying, hey, claret, I've just read this and I think I'm a Christian, is what I said to her. And she, too, was on this journey with me. Again, that's a different story, but a parallel journey with me in terms of her faith. She read down the little pamphlet as well and goes, you know what? I think I am too. Wow. And it was that very day I went down to my stepfather, who was a very new Christian himself, and we said, we are Christians and we would like to be baptized. Would you baptize us down in the ocean right now? And he stumbled around a little bit, trying to ask us some questions and to make sure. Do these guys actually know what they're doing right now? I think it may have taken him by surprise. We convinced him enough that we did understand what it was. And he took us down to the ocean and baptized us that very day. And that was really the beginning of, I would say, of the mark of my faith, walk with Christ, because that's.
[00:56:01] Speaker A: Quite a profound journey. Less than a year later, this is your wrestling with God. And it's literally when you say, God, do something. He did, but not in the way you probably thought or wanted at the time. But something started to happen.
[00:56:17] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
[00:56:18] Speaker A: Just wasn't what you expected.
That wasn't the end of the journey, though, in a sense either, because obviously you're now a minister, you're a pastor of a church, but you started out, I guess maybe sort of an evangelical Christianity is where you started, and you're now in a reform tradition.
[00:56:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
For me, it started on my day of baptism. Obviously, I was converted at some point before then. I don't know when, I don't know when all those truths all came together. But that little pamphlet was an acknowledgment to say, wow, I have been searching and I now believe, trusting in these prepositional truths of the gospel. So at that point of baptism, I remember looking. I remember being baptized. I remember looking out over the water and plural sound. And I remember just in the quietness of my own heart, just saying to God, God, I'm either not in or I'm fully in. I'm not sitting on the fence with this. And I just want to let you know, God, I am all in from this point forward. And I guess theologically, I now look back on that and I go, that was almost more of surrendering to the lordship of Christ at that point, I understood the prepositional truths, and I responded rightly to that, saved. But that was a distinct moment that I remember thinking to myself, I'm all in here. But I suppose from my side, what else did I have? I hadn't really pursued. Again, the direction I was heading had been dashed.
I saw the nothingness of it. It had been literally destroyed before my eyes. I wasn't looking for something else. I was looking for what that purpose, the true purpose of life, is actually all about. So for me, surrender. It was almost like God brought me to the place where I had nothing else. And I was like, I'm giving you all from this point forward. And I think what that did for me personally was that it gave me hope, it gave me confidence.
If I was to ever be put in a situation like that again, I wouldn't have the uncertainty of the future.
I wouldn't have the fear of death in the same way that I did back at that point, because I know that I'm right with God. I know that I'm trusting Christ, I'm trusting the gospel, and that I know that my last breath on earth would be followed by my first breath in heaven. I'm not saying I want to die anytime soon, but I'm just saying there was something very.
[00:58:43] Speaker A: You're ready when the moment comes.
[00:58:45] Speaker B: Exactly. And so previously, as a young man, to be put into that situation, going, I could have died and I wouldn't have been ready. But now I'm ready to meet my maker because of Christ. There was something that changed from that point forward.
[00:58:59] Speaker A: I am reminded, as you're talking actually, of a scene in a film, the Batman v. Superman movie. And it starts with the tail end of the previous film, what's called man of Steel, the new Superman reboot. And Superman is fighting what, General Zor, and the buildings are all collapsing. And it's in Metropolis, which is really supposed to be, I think it's supposed to be New York City anyway, isn't it?
And the next film starts with where the tail end of the previous one was with these two titans fighting each other and buildings collapsing and people dying in these collapsing buildings. And it looks an awfully lot like New York City. And one of the gentlemen there is a manager who works for Wayne Enterprises, and he's trying to usher people out to safety out of the building. And then he realizes in this moment, his time has come and he's not getting out himself. And he turns. And I thought it was such a. It's quite a poignant little moment in an otherwise probably just typical sort of superhero film. But he turns in that moment, he realizes he's not getting out. And he begins to make his final act of contrition, asking for the mercy of God and putting his life before God. And I thought it was such a beautiful sort of and powerful reminder of the importance of being ready for that moment.
I don't know why, but I think of that moment as you're saying that now, if you were ever again in a situation like that, where literally the world is collapsing, you know, and you have a sense of certainty and purpose and trust and hope, that's beyond.
[01:00:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Don't we all kind of, in some way think that we're going to all die peacefully in our sleep in our mid to mid to late eighty s or something? Maybe early 90s if we get there. We all have this idea, but the reality, and this is what September 11 really showed me and taught me from a very young age to say we can't count on tomorrow. We can't even count on whether we're going to get through the rest of today. We just don't know what could happen at any point in time. And so we would do well to make sure that, if nothing else, that we are right with God.
[01:01:03] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's quite amazing because it's not just like those realizations have been with us since the beginning. In a sense, someone somewhere throughout all of time has had a moment, whether they had a massive scrape with death or an almost heart attack or whatever it is, and they go, oh, wow, I really got a value of life. But your experience is you're at the very front line of, I think, literally like a type of collapse of western secular confidence. Right. And this reintroduction of this islamic religious extremism back into a culture that's lost sight of God and is more about greed.
So it's not just a sort of personal scare. It's a whole question of what are we really living for and the fragility of everything. Because one of the things I remember that period was, I think we probably all were just very lulled into a sense of western security and strength. And all of a sudden, it was just a bunch of terrorists got on planes in the most sort of rudimentary, very organic and unorganized way. I mean, it was organized, but they didn't have tanks and guns and superweapons. They just flew planes into buildings and brought the whole of the west to its knees.
[01:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. And the reality is that I think that's what we have to wrestle with as human beings. We have to realize that whatever we're living for, if it's materially based, it can be taken from us. It can be destroyed and removed in an instant. And so for me, I know personally, I always really wanted to really base my life upon something that was concrete, that couldn't be taken away and something that would remain for eternity. And this is where living for God, wanting to pursue his will, that's where that confidence came from and the joy and fulfillment that comes as a result. Because I know regardless of what some crazy terrorists might do, they cannot take that away. They cannot actually take that away. They might take my life, but they can't take away the things that I'm working for, because they go beyond just the here and the now. They are eternal.
[01:03:07] Speaker A: Have you ever watched dockos or films about the 911 event? And if so, what's that like for you?
[01:03:15] Speaker B: Yeah, not for quite some time. I wasn't interested at first to watch anything about it.
[01:03:19] Speaker A: So you wanted to avoid it.
[01:03:21] Speaker B: I did. I didn't really want to keep on thinking about it. I mean, there was still for a couple of years afterwards when I'd hear a plane above my head, I would look up straight away, and it just kind of caught my attention a wee bit. I felt a little jittery.
I didn't think I had any post traumatic stress. But those who are around me in hindsight, and even now, my wife says you had changed for a little while. It may have been a year or so after that, just a little bit more irritable, maybe a little jumpy. I don't know, maybe some of those sorts of things I saw, I kind of avoided watching things of that nature. It wasn't probably until about. I remember seeing things maybe about ten years on, I think maybe that ten year anniversary, and I looked at it a little bit more and a lot of healing happened.
[01:04:11] Speaker A: That's quite a wee way afterwards, because you experienced hell on earth that day, in a sense, and I can understand why. But full ten years later, before you.
[01:04:19] Speaker B: It may have been less. I just don't recall.
[01:04:22] Speaker A: But what was that like? Did it pull you back into the.
[01:04:25] Speaker B: Moment a little bit? Yeah, a little bit. Especially when seeing the people falling out of the building? I think that was probably the biggest thing for me when I saw that.
[01:04:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:04:33] Speaker A: Because I watch a documentary and I see the horror of that.
But it's an abstract thing, I guess, like, for you, you lived that reality. It's a whole different sort of thing, right?
[01:04:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:04:47] Speaker A: What's the event itself like? I mean, so much is encompassed in this event. Like, we talked about the collapse of western supremacy and all that sort of stuff. So it's hugely political.
It's also a very personal lived experience for you, but it's also a spiritual thing for you.
When you think of it now, do you think of the political context, the islamic terrorist aspect of it, or is it still this sort of moral, sort of, I guess, spiritual, personal thing?
[01:05:18] Speaker B: Primarily, probably more the personal, spiritual side.
I haven't really thought more into that side of it, the political side or anything like that. It's interesting. I think I mentioned before, years on, and some of the conspiracy theories were coming out at that point about, hey, could it have been the Americans that had just had organized these planes on and said it was the islamic terrorists, maybe was it an in house kind of job? And they asked me those questions as though somehow I was an expert on that. I just say I have no idea.
[01:05:53] Speaker A: So people were actually asking you?
[01:05:55] Speaker B: They have. They have. Even within the last year, people have asked, what do I think? And I'm going, well, I don't know. My opinion wouldn't be any different from anyone else's.
[01:06:03] Speaker A: I wasn't taking notes again.
[01:06:05] Speaker B: I was the coffee boy. The coffee boy wasn't privy to that.
[01:06:12] Speaker A: Guess to be.
It's one thing to be attached to an event like that, I guess, in America. It's interesting, there was certain currency and cachet too that came with it. I remember there were some high profile people who lied and claimed I was there. I even know of a New Zealander who claimed that and wasn't true. Apparently we found out sometime later. So it became not this currency. But it's one thing to be connected to an event in America that sort of makes sense. But do you sort of feel a sense of, I don't know, a bit of a disconnection because you're a whole world away back in New Zealand, you're a kiwi who was there. It's not your country, not your people in a sense, but you were there and then now you're back here and no one else was. Know, it must be a very od sort of thing in a sense.
[01:06:56] Speaker B: I'm sure there were some Kiwis that must have been close. I know there are a number of kiwis that worked in Manhattan. I know that I'd met a number of them, but I haven't met any that were close in there and I'm sure there are. I'm sure there were. I'm sure there were plenty of them, but I haven't known of any yet. I haven't heard of any. I haven't seen any news articles been written and maybe there have been and maybe I haven't seen them at all. So for me it is a bit distanced now, a wee bit. I suppose when it does come up, a lot of times it would come up in my testimony. So when people are asking me, how did I come to faith? And I was in New York at that time, something I've probably learned over the years is to not make too much of a big deal of that, because I feel that the miracle of escaping from what could have been a life and death situation, the greatest miracle for me is not that the greatest miracle was my conversion, which God changed my heart, drew me to himself at that later stage. And so I'm cautious on how sometimes I talk about that event because I don't want to take the shine away from in my life, which was the greatest thing, which was actually my conversion. Sometimes I'll talk about my testimony of coming to faith, and then I get to the end of it. And then instead of saying, wow, isn't God good? Isn't he gracious? They'll say, hey, let's talk about the twin towers. And I feel that kind of take can sometimes take the shine away from the most significant part of that, which was what followed.
[01:08:27] Speaker A: Well, your life, in a sense, on that experience in particular, is almost, as you were talking, I was thinking about this, in fact, I remember the first time you shared with me that part of your life. And I remember thinking, it is like living proof of that claim that people aren't really convinced or converted by miracles.
Instead, it's almost the necessity of God that brings people to that point of I need God. It's not, I saw something phenomenal or I survived something, so therefore I suddenly realize God's real. No, it might be part of the journey, but it's not the. So the miracle, like you say, is not really in that.
[01:09:10] Speaker B: Don't need it. People don't need to see miracles in order to believe that there is a God. They need a change of heart. That's what they need. And we see that in the gospel accounts where the religious jewish leaders come to Jesus and say, show us a miracle, and then we'll believe.
How many jolly miracles have you already shown them? They didn't believe. It wasn't a matter of evidence. It was a matter of a heart. And that's when I think back to the twin Towers. That's very much what it is for me. I don't attribute my conversion to the twin towers at all. I attribute it to a gracious God who reached down and saved me and changed my heart and allowed me to believe the gospel, not it wasn't some towers coming down that did their work.
[01:09:52] Speaker A: Yeah, that's such an important point. Right.
That notion of, we often think the big event comes first, but in actual fact, I think that there's a real importance in a willful sort of movement towards God, even if you're not sure. I think he always rewards that. I think about our own lives, and I remember there was. I can't remember exactly who it was, but one of the great medieval christians, apparently, he would wander around saying to people he had challenge for them. He would say, live your life as if you're a Christian for a year and then see what happens. And if you don't like it, well, great. And if you do see. And there's something kind of profound about that sense of, and in our own lives where we're looking for these big moments when in actual fact, if we don't cultivate the object of our faith, which is God, then, sorry, we don't cultivate God. We cultivate that relationship. We're not going to see any fruit from that. It's not like you have barren ground and you're like, come on, give me a bit of fruit now. It's, no, you've got to seed the to. And then after all that toil, along comes a bit of fruit. Suddenly you're know, almost like Hansel and Gretel, a breadcrumb on the path. But we're constantly seeking out the breadcrumbs rather than the path, if that makes sense.
[01:11:09] Speaker B: It can be. And it's always going for the novel, being attracted to the novel rather than just being faithful at the day to day stuff sometimes.
[01:11:17] Speaker A: Yeah. So for you now, we'll try and put a neat little bow on this and wrap this up. I love this conversation, Justin. It's been awesome. And thank you for talking about it, too, because like I say, you try not to make a big deal out of it. But for you, what's the anniversary like?
Does that signify anything for you? Or does it just sort of come and go now?
[01:11:39] Speaker B: It comes and goes, and I often wouldn't say anything. Sometimes I have some relatives, and especially relatives still in the states who are kind of around my age. They might do a Facebook post and maybe tag me in it when it's September 11. I personally don't really make, I don't reminiscent about it too much. I know when it comes, like, I go, oh, it's September 11 today. But for me, what I do, I look around and I'm thankful to God. I mean, I have a beautiful wife, I have six beautiful children.
And I look at my life now and I go, it's a time for me to remind myself, thank you for your goodness, God. Thank you for being so gracious and sparing my life and giving me eternal life and blessing me in the material right here and now. And it has nothing to do with earning a lot of money. It has nothing to do with being, working in Manhattan. But it's through those beautiful gifts that God's given to me of family, of church family, of good friends.
Those are the true gifts that I'm so grateful to God for.
[01:12:43] Speaker C: Wow.
[01:12:43] Speaker A: Was it always that way or earlier on, was it sort of a bit of an anniversary that would loom large? Or was it always like that for you, that you were able to sort of move past it?
[01:12:52] Speaker B: I think maybe at first it was a little bit more. A bit more of a time where my thoughts cast back to there. But I think as I got married and had a family, as God starts blessing my life and these treasures that he's given to me, then those past memories kind of pale in comparison.
[01:13:12] Speaker A: Other priorities? Yeah, I guess that first year must have been quite phenomenal, because by that stage, you're a Christian, right?
[01:13:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:13:19] Speaker A: And you've gone from this cataclysmic event, and then one year later, you're a completely new man.
[01:13:26] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Very much that to be the case. And with both my wife and I being converted and baptized, pretty much all baptized on the same day, converted roughly around the same time, we have got to actually learn to meet two different people. We knew what each other were like before Christ, and we now see what we are like in Christ. I mean, I love that scripture. It says that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. And that's been a real two corinthians five, a real just life verse for me, because I've seen just the contrast between the old and the new, and God is good.
[01:14:11] Speaker A: Now, if I was a smart man, I'd say that's a really great place to wrap things up. But I have one more pressing question I want to ask, and that is this. You mentioned already sort of conspiracy theories, but what do you think when you hear people say, no, there was no planes, and they blow up the buildings from the inside out? What does that invoke within you when you hear those kind of theories?
[01:14:31] Speaker B: Well, if that's the case, then I must have been delusional, and myself and many around me must have hallucinated. I don't know the motivations behind those who actually blow up the buildings. Again, I'm not in the political sphere of understanding all the background of that, but what I do know is that I was standing there. I saw a plane. I saw it explode. I felt the force of that explosion throw me to the ground. So unless I was completely delusional, then I would reject that kind of. Kind of claim.
[01:15:01] Speaker A: Have you ever had moments with people where it's got a bit tense over that sort of stuff? Who pressed the issue a bit too much and you said, look, mate, I was there.
[01:15:09] Speaker B: No, because everyone who I've spoken to who has some questions around that, they come with, I think, a level of cautiousness and humility, realizing actually he was there and I wasn't. So I haven't had anyone that's kind of pushed it. Maybe if there was a person that was standing next to me at the time and we wanted to debate, that's one thing, but I haven't had anyone try to push that with me in my conversations.
[01:15:35] Speaker A: Wow. It's kind of amazing because that was the first big conspiracy theory that, I mean. I mean, JFK was always floating around and the moon landings had a little bit of currency, but that was the first big one where I remember Internet documentaries were being made and people were drawing all sorts of links, and it was very wild, the speculation. It was the first moment, I think, where I realized human beings who are unanchored from a transcendent vision of reality, from the independent mind of God, which doesn't need to be, which holds us in existence, and we recognize that. And as christians, we say, yeah, this is God. We make ourselves subservient to him. All of a sudden, reality, I think, falls into place a bit better, and you're able to, I think, grapple with suffering and cris. But this was a moment where I realized a lot of people that had gone, I look back now, probably more so now, and recognize it, but they'd lost that anchor, and so what did they do? They just started going into wild conjecture to try and make sense of this otherwise, seemingly not just unexplainable, but insurmountable, bringing of an empire to its knees, in a sense.
Wow. Jason, what can I say? Thank you for sharing. Thanks for sharing with the.
I just. I think both you and mean good friends to mean, and it's awesome to have another fellow traveler on the journey, but also, I think just your faith is a real beautiful witness to God and his goodness, and that's something that I think our world desperately needs more of right now. So thank you.
[01:17:09] Speaker B: No worries. Thanks for having me on.
[01:17:20] Speaker C: Everything will be okay.
If you try to make any move, you'll danger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet. Nobody moves, please. Going back to the airport.
Don't try to make any stupid moves. It's not answering. Somebody stabbed in business class. And I think there's mace that we can't breathe. I don't know. I think we're getting hijacked. Anybody know what that smoke is in lower Manhattan? I'm sorry, say again? A lot of smoke in lower Manhattan.
A lot of smoke. And lower into Manhattan, out of the top of the World Trade center. Building a major fire. Hey, can you look out your window right now? Can you see God? About 4000ft, about five East Europa right now. Looks like he's. Yeah, I see him. Is he descending for the building also? He's descending really quick, too. Yeah, well, that's 500ft now. He just chopped 800ft in one sweep. That's another situation. Another one just hit the building. Wow.
The whole building just came apart. Holy smokes. You got United 93 south of Shardner, descended. What's that? I just saying it looks like he descended. 93, verify three 50.
[01:18:34] Speaker B: United 93, Cleveland.
[01:18:36] Speaker C: Go ahead, Greg. Do you have United 93 south of shark? We hear some funny noises. We're trying to get him. Do you have him? No.
United 93, have you got information on that yet? Yeah, he's down. He's down. Yes. When did he land? Because he did not land. He's down. Yes. Somewhere up northeast of Camp David.
[01:19:01] Speaker B: Explosion now raining debris on all of us.
[01:19:04] Speaker C: We better get out of the way.
It was on purpose. You saw a plane. I just saw a plane go into the building.
Why do you say that was definitely on purpose? Because it just flew straight in.
