The New
York City Rescue Mission on 9/11
On that terrible
day, September 11, 2001, the Mission's executive director
Jim VarnHagen and his wife, Anita, were in their car at
the entrance to the Holland Tunnel when the planes hit
the World Trade Center. Everything was immediately shut
down and traffic was rerouted back into New Jersey.
VarnHagen raised the mission on his cell phone and said
to print up handbills announcing that the mission was
open for business and post them on buildings and lamp
posts as near to the Trade Center as possible. Hundreds
of men and women came, many without shoes, clothing
ripped from their backs and covered with white dust. What
was remarkable about the event was the role reversal.
Instead of the
rich and powerful ministering to the homeless, it was the
residents of the New York City Rescue Mission that
printed up and posted the handbills and when the victims
streamed in many of them movers and shakers in the
financial community this group of humble, homeless men
got them into hot showers, clothed them, fed them, prayed
with them and hugged them. "No one rejected prayer that
day," said VarnHagen.
It is with
enormous pleasure and pride that all royalties from this
book after out-of-pocket expenses will be donated to the
New York City Rescue Mission by the Hatch family in
memory of A.S. Hatch who founded it with Jerry McAuley in
1872.