September 15, 2024
When sun rays crown thy pine clad hills
and summer spreads her hand;
when silvern voices tune thy rills,
we love thee, smiling land.
That’s the first verse of the song you just heard, and I asked Scott to play it this morning, because it plays a part in the story I’m about to tell—the story many of you asked for. But let me start elsewhere.
I spent eight years of my professional life in other countries, including two years in Colombia and three years in Puerto Rico. It was at the end of my time serving a church in San Juan that I caught wind of the need in my denomination—the United Methodist Church at the time—for a coordinator of English-speaking ministries, based in Germany. Since I’d just spent the last five years serving English-speaking congregations in Spanish-speaking countries, plus the fact that I had been a German major in college, I decided to apply for the job. This was 2001.
But before I went too far in the process, I found myself a really cheap ticket and flew to Berlin for a few days to make sure I wouldn’t have too much trouble getting along in Germany. Since my parents were hoping I’d end up closer to home, I didn’t tell them my plans. On the way back on September 11, the flight was to be divided into three legs: Berlin to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to JFK in New York, and New York to San Juan. Near the end of the flight at around 9 AM, I was watching the screen with the radar representation of the plane. And just before we were about to fly over land, the plane appeared to turn north, instead of west. Then the screen went blank.
I didn’t think that much of it, figuring there was just a glitch in the video. But then about a half hour later, the pilot announced that U.S. air space had been closed, and that we were on our way to Gander. No other information was given—not even the location of this place called Gander. Now, I’m not good for much, but I am a whiz at geography, and I knew that Gander was in the Canadian province of Newfoundland.
The plane was abuzz at this point, because there were many around me who were a lot more experienced travelers than I was, and they all said they’d never heard of U.S. air space ever having been closed before. And it was hours before we knew why.
23 years ago, we had cell phones, but they were dumb phones. There were no smart phones yet. You couldn’t access the internet from your phone, and you couldn’t use them if you weren’t in your home country. And so, though it was broad daylight, we were all completely in the dark as to what was happening in the world around us.
Around noon Eastern Daylight Time, we landed in Gander, a town pretty much in the middle of nowhere that just happened to have a big airport. (It’s where most planes flying from the U.S. to Europe used to have to stop and refuel in the old days.) And as we got closer to the ground, we discovered we weren’t the only ones. Dozens and dozens of huge jumbo jets seemingly from every country on earth had beaten us there. And they were all parked on the ground, angled in like cars around Chardon Square.
After what seemed like quite a while, our flight—Lufthansa 400—joined the others. And there we sat for hours. The crew opened the doors of the plane, but we weren’t allowed off. Nor did we know what had happened until just before dark, when the pilot finally announced what he knew: That the U.S. was under attack, the Twin Towers had fallen, and the Pentagon had been hit. Our disbelief was perhaps greater than your all’s had been, because we still hadn’t seen any images, nor had we been watching events unfold on the news. Since some of the passengers on the flight lived and worked in New York, the fear on the plane was palpable as people wondered about family, friends, and coworkers.
Around 9 PM—a full twelve hours since the plane was first diverted— we finally deplaned and were herded into the airport terminal and processed by Canadian immigration. We had our carry-on bags, but checked luggage remained in the hold of the plane. We were never allowed access to it. We were seated in the terminal and given boxed lunches from the Red Cross. I remember thinking that I was somehow a refugee, but I had no idea we’d be taken beyond the airport. I did wonder, however, where all the other thousands of passengers must be—we couldn’t have been the first ones let off our plane, and yet we were the only flight in the terminal.
And then it happened. We were loaded onto school buses—big yellow ones, just like here— and taken to a local school called Gander Collegiate Academy. It wasn’t till a bit later that we were told that the school bus drivers were on strike, but that they had left their picket lines to help us.
When we arrived at the school, there was a TV on in the lobby, and everybody rushed to watch what happened. Everybody but me, that is. By this time it was after midnight on September 12 in Newfoundland. But it was still September 11 in my hometown. September 11 was my mother’s birthday, and she had no idea where I was. So I was the first person at the pay phone, having to explain myself to my parents.
Only after that conversation was I able to watch what had happened; and, I’m sure, like you, those images will forever be engrained in my mind. The thing I remember above everything else was, at that time, they were reporting on the high number of firefighters who had sacrificed their lives trying to save others.
Sacrifice on behalf of others… Kindness... Giving. That’s what I’ll always remember about 9/11. Not the hate that caused it. But how good people responded to that hate. The New York Fire Department showed us. And so did the people of Gander, Newfoundland—at least they showed me.
If you saw Come From Away, I can confirm that everything in that play was true, and the things it depicted were all things we on the planes were well aware of. Everything, that is, except the animals. I don’t think it ever occurred to me that there would be animals in the holds of those planes— animals nobody could get to because it was considered a threat to international security for any of us to access the bags we’d checked. But the people of Gander knew, and they defied security and fed and watered the animals in those planes, and if any of them needed medicine, they gave it to them. All the animals survived the ordeal. The humans were taken even better care of. Our first night in the school, it looked to me like every linen closet in that part of the province had been emptied of sheets, blankets, and pillows. There were toiletries, and the cafeteria was full of food that had been brought in from people’s homes. And this was just one school. All the schools, as well as all the churches and any other building big enough to house us refugees were opened to passengers who descended from the sky on September 11. Since we had just doubled the population of the town, this still wasn’t enough, so some people opened up their houses as well.
My bedroom was the French classroom of Gander Collegiate Academy—a bedroom I shared with over a dozen other people (from almost as many countries). I’ll never forget waking up the next morning and listening to one of my roommates complaining about somebody snoring all night. Somebody else agreed. Then somebody else. Everybody seemed to agree, but it was funny that I didn’t hear anybody snoring.
The next day, we all gathered to hear news of our departure. When would we leave, and where would we go? Back to Germany? Or on to New York? Every day we were told we might leave at any time. And every day, our ultimate destination changed. We really had no idea. But while we were in Gander, there was never a moment when we felt unsafe. There was never a moment when we didn’t have far more than we needed to eat. If we needed medicine, it was provided. If we needed clothes, they were free for the taking. I f we wanted to go into the town, taxi cabs were transporting people for free—and private citizens were picking up wanderers as well.
I don’t know what order the planes left in—whether or not it was the order of their arrival. I’m not even sure of when they started to finally depart. But I remember my arrival and departure. I arrived on September 11, my mother’s birthday. And I left on September 16, my sister’s birthday.
One of my clearest memories of that week was something that happened as I was leaving. We had to go through Canadian immigration again because of the situation in the world. And you have to feel for those poor officials. They were in a forgotten corner of the world and suddenly here they were dealing with people from everywhere. People on my flight were Germans and Indians and Arabs and who knows what else. And when I finally got to the counter, the woman working there looked at my passport, looked up at me, and said, "Greening! Finally, a common name."
The only Greenings I’d ever met were people on my dad’s side of the family. Greenings are rare as hen’s teeth in most parts of the world. But in Newfoundland Greening is a relatively common name.
What was a horror to most of the world will forever be one of the most incredible (and best!) experiences of my life. The results of the terrorist attacks were war and retribution. In some ways, I think the conflicts and division that followed were exactly what the terrorists wanted in the first place. And I can’t tell you how many times I have thought since that day that if the world’s leaders had been stuck where we were, if they had experienced what we experienced in that little town, those who masterminded the attacks would have lost the war they started and terror would have been defeated. Hate will never be victorious over hate—only love can ultimately win.
But until that day finally comes, people of faith can follow the advice of the author of Hebrews, who told us not to forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it. Other parts of the Bible teach us to love our neighbors, or to love our brothers and sisters. This is called philadelphia in Greek. But the kind of love that Hebrews talks about would be called philoxenia in Greek—love of outsiders, love of those who are different, or being a friend to strangers. It’s one thing to be told to show it. But it’s another to be the stranger, and to be treated with unconditional love.
So be kind to the stranger. And if you happen to be the stranger, remember the kindness, and let it change the way you see the world.
I’ll close with the final verse of the song I began with:
As loved our fathers, so we love;
where once they stood, we stand;
their prayer we raise to heaven above:
God guard thee, Newfoundland.
—©2024 Sam Greening
