As a news journalist working then for UCB Europe (now UCB UK), the hours, days, and weeks that followed were intense as we, as a team tried, to report the devastation with a Christian perspective.

Even in the early day’s so many people asked me the same question, “Where was God on 9/11?” I never doubted His presence that day, but I tried to imagine myself being one of the thousands of people desperate to flee the buildings of the World Trade Center in New York on that bright and beautiful sunny morning.

I believe that many of them would have cried out to the Lord and, in doing so, He heard their feeble prayer as he did with the thief who hung on a cross next to Him.

The question, “Where was God on 9/11?” was constantly resounding in my head and in my heart and soul and with it came the desire grew to visit lower Manhattan and the place that we came to know as Ground Zero to try and discover the answer for myself.

Peter Wooding, my news editor at UCB, supported my request to make the journey and on Monday, November 12, two months after the towers collapsed, it was agreed to.

When I heard the news, my mind was all over the place thinking of my mission in New York while still trying to prepare and present the hourly news bulletins.

Working on the late shift, I was preparing the 3:00 PM news report when the news began to filter through that American Airlines Flight 587 had crashed on takeoff from JFK airport in the borough of Queens in New York City and 246 passengers and nine crew members had perished. In the minds and hearts of millions around the world it initially appeared that the terrorists had struck again.

Walking through the UCB reception area after reading the news, Teresa, a dear friend and sister in the Lord, stopped me. Having heard through the UCB grapevine that they had agreed to my trip to, she asked me sincerely, “Patrick, aren’t you frightened of going to New York with all that’s happening there?”

I paused for a moment and closed my eyes, searching for an answer, which came almost immediately. “Sister Teresa,” I said, “in Him I live and move and have my being. I will die when my time is up not before.” With that a peace filled my whole being.

I planned my trip to coincide with the third month anniversary and persuaded David, a brother in Christ, to accompany me.

Pastor Mike MacIntosh preaching (Photo: Dan Wooding)

Two day’s before our departure, I received an email on my work desk from Pastor Mike McIntosh, senior pastor of Horizon Christian Fellowship in San Diego, California. Although I had never met him, he had heard of my trip through Dan Wooding and suggested in his email that, when I got to New York, I should meet Detective Carlos Aviles of the NYPD. “He’s doing an amazing work at Ground Zero” Mike wrote. That was it. No contact details.

I fired back an email thanking him and asking for more details, like a phone number, but nothing came back even though I hung around the production office on my last day after my shift had finished.

I filed the email along with several reports I had printed off for research and on December 5, 2001, I took off from London’s Heathrow airport bound for Manhattan with my friend, David.

During the flight, I read through my research files and came across a report from the Bible Society. In it was an interview with Neil Wain, a British Christian police officer who had been caught up in the awful events of 9/11. I naively thought that it would be good to meet him and also Detective Aviles.

Once David and I had checked into our hotel, we decide not to go straight to where the towers had stood but instead to stay around mid Manhattan.

Walking through the crowds in Times Square, it was hard to believe that just a few miles south of where we were was the scene of the worst act of terrorism that the world had ever witnessed; a vile act that had claimed the lives of thousands of innocent people. However, it seemed to me that New Yorkers were instead, concentrating on the Christmas holidays.

On our first full day in the city, we walked east and not far from our hotel, we came across the Bellevue Hospital Center. We noticed that the side street had been cordoned off and was lined with marquees and Portacabins. Introducing myself as a Christian journalist to one of the police officers standing behind the barrier, he went and fetch a Catholic priest who invited us into a prayer tent where he was about to lead a service. When we had entered the tent the priest told us that nearby a temporary mortuary had been set up.

Following the service, that included prayers for the victim, their relatives and all those involved, the priest walked with us down the street. As we passed the Portacabins on both our left and right, we realized what they were being used for why the signs on the doors. They included, “Dental Services” and “DNA Analysis.”

At the bottom of the street, on the right hand side, we stopped and stared and several mobile refrigerators, which we soon realized contained the remains of many of the victims.

After an hour or so, we said our goodbyes, but before we left, I showed Mike McIntosh’s email to several officers. “Do you know where I could find Detective Aviles?” I asked. They all sympathetically replied, “No.”

We had been in New York City for three whole days and the only thing I had recorded on my MiniDisc was a sound check. Fear and doubt began to try to take a grip of me. “Who do you think you are to take on something of this magnitude?” I asked myself.

David and I made our way on foot down Broadway heading towards Ground Zero.

We found the Mayor’s office and I stopped to ask the police officer on duty outside about Detective Aviles. Reading Mike McIntosh’s email, he handed it back to me and my heart sank when he said, “Look, you’re in a city with 41,000 police officers deployed all over the place. I wish you well but you’re looking for a needle in a haystack.”

We made our way back onto Broadway and soon came across a group of hundreds of people standing in virtual silence, many of them with tears in their eyes. Following their gaze beyond a police cordon, we saw for the first time, the skeletal remains of one of the towers that I had only seen on TV.

I tried to interview people in the crowd but for so many the emotions of what they were looking at made it impossible for them to speak to me.

Feeling absolutely devastated by the scene in front of me, and the fact that I had failed to interview anyone, I put my MiniDisc away and began handing out tracts with the title, “Is December the 25th the answer to September 11?” It was written by the Rev. Paul Bassett who compared the two dates; one of darkness and death, the other of light and life. I handed out nearly 500 of them during my stay in New York.

Walking a little further down Broadway, we stopped outside St Paul’s Chapel where we saw, attached to the railings outside, were messages of support from around the world. The hundreds of burning candles gave the place a shrine like atmosphere.

The Chapel had opened its doors after the attacks and became a refuge and home to hundreds of recovery workers who were still sifting through the thousands of tons of rubble that still covered the sixteen-acre site of death and destruction.

Walking a little further, we came across a group of Christians huddled together in a door way. They were praising and praying, so we stopped to join them in their worship. I then began talking with the group about my sense of failure, and they laid their hands on me and prayed that the Lord would guide me. There and then, I felt the heaviness leave me.

David and decide to walk further and, turning off Broadway, we found ourselves walking through almost deserted streets and alleyways.

Almost an hour after we had left the prayer group, we walked passed St Joseph’s Chapel. The lights were blazing and so we decided to see what was going on inside. David lagged behind, tired from the day’s walking, so as I stepped into the entrance and as I did, a man began walking out with his mobile phone in his hand. He stopped and extended his arm to greet me. “Hi, my name is Carlos,” he said. As I shook his hand, I noticed his police badge hanging from the top pocket of his jacket. It read, “Detective Aviles.”

I cautiously asked, “Are you Detective Carlos Aviles?” He replied in his thick New York accent, “Yeah.” I then showed him Mike McIntosh’s email and told him of my quest to find him and, with that, he threw his arms around me with a wonderful hug. We danced and praised God for the miracle of our meeting.

Ian Otto (a British police officer), Patrick Reilly, Carlos Aviles and Neil Wain in New York

In my sheer excitement I blurted out to Carlos the name of the British police officer I had read about. “His name is Bruce Wain…” and before I could finish, he said, “You mean, Neil Wain… I have just been speaking to him on the phone.” Tears of pure joy filled my eyes as within moments I was talking to Neil on the cell phone.

We arranged to meet a couple of day’s later.

St Joseph’s, like St Paul’s, had became a 24/7 Respite Center for the thousands of workers at Ground Zero. It was staffed by a dedicated team of Christian volunteers from all over the United States and beyond. Inside there were rest areas, a bank of PC’s connected to the Internet so that workers could keep in contact with their loved ones, and a dining area.

It was also a place of prayer and ministry which many of the workers came to love and cherish. One of the guys’ we meet and prayed with had volunteered to work on the site in the hope that he could find his son, missing since the towers fell. The presence of the Lord was very real.

With a new zeal and confidence, I began to record some of the most wonderful testimonies. One of the first was with Catherine Roskam, a Bishop in the Episcopal Church on Broadway. I asked the obvious question, "Where was God on 9/11?" and she replied with grace and conviction, “God was right in the midst of it. We saw 19 people who gave their lives to bring death and destruction, but they were met by hundreds who gave their lives so that others might live.”

All over the city, wherever we went, we met Christians with the love of Christ pouring out of them as they brought hope and healing to the traumatised city and its residents.

9/11 hero, Giann Gamboa

Among the thousands of posters of people who were still missing, was one of one of Giann Gamboa, a manager at the Top of the World Restaurant. Giann was a devout Christian who regularly attended the 6:00 AM prayer service with other members of staff. He was a man of faith who would pray with colleagues if he knew they were in distress. He was last seen waiting for an elevator on the 78th floor of Tower 2 at the World Trade Center. He gave his place to a young female colleague. As the doors closed, he was heard to reassuringly say, “I’ll get the next one.” Giann believed with all his heart that no man has greater love than this than he lay down his life for his friends. That was the last time he was seen ever seen again.

During my week in New York, I recorded hours of interviews and all those confirmed that the Lord was with them.

During another miraculous visit into the heart of Ground Zero, I felt the presence of the Lord in the shape of a twenty foot steel cross that was discovered by a construction worker in the midst of the rubble two days after the collapse.

That cross came to symbolize God’s presence and every day the workers would gather for prayer, praise and worship, focusing on the hope that the cross of Christ that has not brought the death and destruction surrounding them.

Today all these years on, I am still asked the question, "Where was God on 9/11?" and I, along with tens of thousands of others, can truthfully testify for certain that He was there all along.

Patrick Reilly is a freelance Christian journalist based in the UK. If you would like to comment on this story, you can contact him by e-mail address at patrickr@fish.co.uk.