25 years after a terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre, Sujo John recalls how God miraculously spared him and his wife, who were both working in the twin towers that day. Now, they dedicate their lives to rescuing victims of sex trafficking
I grew up in Calcutta, India, in a Christian home, but I didn’t know Jesus until I was about 15 years old.
When I was nine, my sister died of Leukaemia. It made me really angry towards God. I wanted to know: Where is God when these bad things happen? Why did my sister, who did nothing wrong, have to suffer and die?
One day, I was sitting in a youth service, listening to an American missionary. He said that Christianity is not about dos and don’ts; it’s friendship with God, and you get to choose whether to accept Him or not. At that point in my life, I had low self-esteem. I was often suicidal and depressed. But when I met Jesus, my whole life transformed. I was literally changed from the inside out. I had peace about who I was. I knew that I was made for a purpose.
In February 2001, I moved to America. I did a degree in business, and I wanted to raise money to do Kingdom things. I grew up in Calcutta, in a church that fed some 40,000 people every single day. I had met Mother Teresa and seen her work.
When my wife was pregnant it was a realy exciting time. I was making great money, we were both working in the World Trade Centre. And then, suddenly, everything changed forever.
On 10 September 2001, I went to play tennis with a friend. Halfway through the game, I said: “I’ve got to go back and talk to my wife before she falls asleep.” My friend was confused, but there was just something really heavy on my heart. I came home and woke my wife up and said: “We have a baby on the way, and life can be so uncertain. I signed up for a life insurance policy today. If something happens to me, this is who you need to call. This is the paperwork.” That was my last conversation with my wife before the morning of 9/11.
A day I’ll never forget
The next day, I said a quick goodbye to my wife and rushed off to work. It was a beautiful, clear, cloudless day in New York City. When I got to work, one of the first things I did was write an email to someone in my church. It said: “Hi Tom, something’s happening to me this morning. I know there’s a call of God upon my life. I’ve been chasing stuff, but I know I need to chase that which is on God’s heart” I sent that email at 8:05am, not knowing that, in about 40 minutes, a huge jet plane would crash into the North Tower, carrying 10,000 gallons of jet fuel.
What followed was fire, and walls collapsing around us. There were 28 of us in the office, and we fell to the floor, our faces flat on that carpet. I thought: I’m never going to see my wife again. I’m never going to see the child she’s carrying. It was chaos.
After a few minutes, someone rallied us, and we started making our way towards the stairwell. Then we heard another explosion - the second plane crashing into the South Tower, where my wife worked. We still didn’t really know what was going on. I desperately tried to call my wife, but the phone networks were jammed.
A fireman started screaming: “The building is on fire! Get out! Get out!” I started running down, thinking about my wife, and passing firemen and policemen going up. We high-five’d them, saying: “God be with you. You guys are heroes.” It took me an hour and 20 minutes to get down 81 floors to the plaza level. I looked over to the open space between the towers where people would gather during lunch and after work, but now there were bodies and body parts, and debris from the planes burning.
I felt God say: “You were spiritually and physically rescued, and that’s what you need to do for these girls”
We went down one more level and exited the tower. I thought: What if my wife is looking for me? So, I started walking towards the South Tower when suddenly the ground began to shake. I was in a revolving door when the glass shattered. I felt like being sucked into a vacuum. But it was not a bomb, it was the South Tower collapsing.
I said: “God, if I die here, where am I going to go?” Instantly, I felt peace. There were men and women on top of me, and a verse from the Bible came to my mind: “Do not be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you” (John 14). Until that time, I was a closet Christian. I was never vocal about my faith. But suddenly, a boldness came upon me, and I felt the Lord saying: “These people that are huddled together with you - where are they going without me?” So, I asked them to call upon the name of the Lord. They didn’t argue with me. They didn’t call upon any other god. They started calling upon the name of Jesus. We prayed with the deafening noise of the building going down, and we were scattered, flat on the ground, buried in debris, soot and ash falling. I couldn’t breathe.
Then I felt someone reach out for me. As we got close to each other, the man said he was a Christian and also with the FBI. We joined hands and prayed, thinking we’re going to die. Then we saw a red flashing light through the soot and the smoke. It was an ambulance, and the light led us out. The man said: “I’ve got to go back and get more people.” He ran back just as the ground began to shake again and the North Tower collapsed. He died trying to rescue more people.
I was sure that my wife was also dead. But hours later, my phone rang for the first time, and it was my wife. She was late for work by a few minutes and was making her way towards the towers when the North Tower was hit. She was on the street level, looking up at the building in flames and people jumping out when the second plane crashed into her tower. She thought about how I had talked about death the night before, when a girl grabbed her and said: “You’re pregnant. You have to live for the child you’re carrying” and pulled her out of the way.
A new calling
The media picked up on our story and churches started asking us to speak about hope, faith and resilience. Through that journey, God started exposing me to the needs in our world.
In India, I saw a street, just a mile and a half in length, which had 37,000 sex workers. I heard stories of women kidnapped when they were young and forced to sleep with 30 men every night. I asked: “God, what am I supposed to do?” I felt God say: “You were spiritually and physically rescued, and that’s what you need to do for these girls.”
We started YouCanFreeUs, a registered charity, to bring freedom to women and children. We have safe houses and child development centres where we provide education and food for almost 1,000 kids. God has given us an opportunity to shine a light on modern slavery. Globally, there are 50 million people in slavery and those of us who know Jesus have a call upon us to proclaim freedom to the captives. God is inviting you to be His hands and feet.
When I met Jesus, my whole life transformed. I knew that I was made for a purpose
For me, it doesn’t feel like 25 years since the events of that terrible day. It plays on my mind every single day. It made my wide and I realise that life is short. We have three kids, and we’ve raised them with the awareness that the only thing that lasts forever is your faith.
As I share my story, I’m reminded that there’s now a whole generation who were not born when this heinous attack took place, yet the world changed so significantly because of it. It’s important to remember those who died on that day, but also in Iraq and Afghanistan. 9/11 was not a natural disaster or an accident. It was a terrorist attack. But we should also be mindful that God redeems everything. There was such a sense of great unity in America after 9/11, and there are so many amazing stories like mine. Hundreds of thousands of people have heard about Jesus through my story.
No matter what you’ve been through in life, God can redeem your pain. Until our final breath, God gives us opportunities to push back the kingdom of darkness and to proclaim His beautiful gospel to the world around us.
Listen to the full inteview with Lydia Bennett on Premier Christian Radio
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