I was reflecting today back to September 11, 2001 and all that went on. I don’t think I’ll ever forget what I was doing on that day when it happened. None of us expected anything, but that just added to the fear we would all experience. Here’s a peephole view into what I experienced at Penn State.

September 10, 2001:

The ads were ready for the newspaper. For the first time in years, Penn State had a Wednesday night game. We reserved the HUB for a full screen showing of the game. We had made several commercials to replace the live commercial slots. All that was needed was the day to come, September 12th.

September 11, 2001:

The planes flew into the trade center and the pentagon. Widespread distress and fear, pain and anger filled the air. It was hard to keep our minds off of what was happening.

September 12, 2001

Our football game was cancelled for obvious reasons, but just because our game was preempted, didn’t mean that nothing was happening. Several students came to Christ, including Babs, a witch.

September 13, 2001

Preparations for our weekly meeting were stifled by a bomb scare in the HUB. Articles about where God is in the midst of tragedy never got printed.

September 14, 2001

The articles finished printing. I grabbed the box of 300, unsure of where to distribute them. Minutes later was the prayer vigil on the Old Main lawn. Thousands of students gathered and mourned together. I saw a student I knew and gave her a copy of the article. Pretty soon, dozens of students as they walked by to leave the vigil, grabbed a copy of the article. Within ten minutes, 250 of the articles were in the hands of the grieving. They would look at the title for two seconds and then take it. Apparently this was a divine appointment.

• Innovation
• Systems Design
• Research & Development
• Resourcing
• Web Design
• Theology
• Problem Solving/Algorithm
• Creativity
• Knowledge
• Redevelopment {renovating old things to make them more relevant and easier to use}
• diagrams {making them and studying them}