09/12/2026
Years ago my best friend and I spent a day touring the 9-11 memorial and museum in lower Manhattan and it was one of the most moving and humbling experiences of my life. My very first time to visit New York was in May of 2002 - the final month of cleanup and excavation of the World Trade Center. I came with a mission group from First Methodist Church Mineola and actually participated in relief work at Ground Zero. To have spent a week working at the epicenter of the wreckage and seeing the makeshift memorials that had been erected by New Yorkers around the site to then coming back to the newly constructed WTC and the beautiful memorial fountain was a full circle moment for me to say the least. There have been so many events and experiences in my life that have been meaningful, but to experience this moment and remember where God’s push to service in me began so many years ago was an invaluable experience. I cannot describe this day and what I remember to my daughter without tearing up, and as an American, that is the way it should always be. 9-11…thank you to those who served, honor to those who died, love to those who survived. Always remember.
