Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the sights and sounds of a wounded New York City remain vivid for a former longtime Texans on Mission leader, John LaNoue.
He remembers the faces of families who had just learned they would never see their loved ones again. He remembers the chime of firetruck bells near Ground Zero, signaling that rescuers had found someone in the rubble.
But he also remembers the thousands of small acts of compassion he and his team shared, bringing hope to people facing unimaginable grief.
LaNoue and his wife, Kaywin, spent three months in New York City following the attacks, coordinating a massive disaster response that fed 150 volunteers each day, cleaned out 750 ash-filled apartments free of charge for residents and distributed more than 22,000 teddy bears to comfort family members of loved ones lost.
His heart sank when his daughter told him of the first terrorist attack. After the second attack, he, like many others, knew it couldn’t be a coincidence.
Soon after, Mickey Caison, then head of disaster relief for the Southern Baptist Convention, called and asked him to help.
LaNoue deployed with shower, laundry and feeding units. Several days later, he received another call: New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani needed help distributing two warehouses filled with teddy bears. There were thousands upon thousands of them.
“I began to pray, Lord, how am I going to handle this?” LaNoue said.
God answered that prayer by guiding LaNoue to hospitals, piers, churches — places where families and children were hurting badly. The bears even became sought after among firefighters, police and rescue workers. What started as an overwhelming number of bears became in high demand.
The bears were more than just cute and cuddly, LaNoue said. They miraculously brought smiles to many grief-stricken faces and honored those who died, serving as a tangible reminder that others cared.
“It doesn't replace the person, but lets you know that people are thinking of you, and people care about you,” LaNoue said.
In New York, he and his team bunked at a Navy shipyard pier while serving in the city.
Nearby, victims’ families gathered to memorialize their loved ones shortly after he and the volunteer team had arrived. Starting there, LaNoue prayed with families and provided counseling, something he would continue to do countless times for strangers over the next three months in the city.
Near Ground Zero, the team also furnished a crew for a Salvation Army kitchen. They established a tent with cots and boxes of fresh underwear and crew socks for workers who spent long hours in the heat and ash.
“That way, the guys could have a chance to change into something while they were working because it was just so sweaty and hot,” LaNoue said.
The apartment-cleaning operation brought volunteers into 750 apartments affected by debris from the towers.
“Everything inside was gray and covered in a thick layer of ash,” LaNoue said.
The force of the towers’ collapse had also shattered windows throughout the apartments. Volunteers wearing Tyvek coveralls and helmets vacuumed the ash and debris from residents’ homes. At first, residents were guarded around the unfamiliar people in yellow jackets. Within a day, however, volunteers heard residents openly express gratitude for the strangers who had come to help.
For LaNoue, the response was another chapter in a life dedicated to disaster relief. During his 17 years with TXM, he helped shape the ministry that it is today. He served as Baptist Student Union director and designed the first-ever disaster relief unit, an invention which would go on to support countless deployments throughout TXM’s history.
A quarter-century after 9/11, LaNoue still remembers the devastation. But he remembers God’s faithfulness more.
“God answered our prayers every day. What was needed, what we were supposed to be doing, the people we contacted, God supplied our need,” LaNoue said. “God was good.”