9/11 The Aftermath: The Word Works (English) by Lutheran Heritage Foundation

Nine One One The Aftermath

The Word Works

Dean Kavouras

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Cover photo by Reverend Stephen Lee

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Acknowledgments

Thank you to those who granted permission to print your responses to Rev. Dean Kavouras’ field reports. Thank you also to the New York Daily News for permission to reprint Rick Peinciak’s article from January 6, 2002.

The photographs are published with the permission of Rev. Stephen Lee and Rev. Dean Kavouras.

Comments or correspondence regarding these field reports may be e-mailed to deankavouras@gmail.com or addressed to:

Reverend Dean Kavouras

c/o Safety Forces Chaplain Service, Inc. Christ Lutheran Church Box 34060 Cleveland, Ohio 44134

This book has two dedications.

First to my wife Barb, the love and light of my life. She has been with me every step of the way in this unusual and often distressing work. She has made the sacrifices, and paid the high price required to be part of this blessed vocation. She never objected, but rather encouraged me to set aside my responsibility to family during these dark and uncertain days; and to travel to where the Light of the Gospel was needed most. She has been my strength and patient counselor through it all and made the countless sacrifices called for. Without her none of what you read herein would have been possible. Indeed, apart from her I never would have known Cleveland Firefighter Greg Hoshek, who recommended me for the Cleveland Safety Forces Chaplaincy service in 1995.

On February 23, 2002 Greg died suddenly of a heart attack at the tender age of 48 while attending a sporting event with his intended, Barbara Lassiter. As chaplain to the department I received an urgent page to the hospital and had the sad duty of informing his beloved family of what had transpired. With these events fresh on my mind and not soon to be forgotten, I dedicate this book also to his memory. He was a friend to all the likes of which we will not see again. A bright light was extinguished that sad Saturday; but one we will behold again with great joy when the Savior returns in glory, to reunite all who have died in Him.

“This child is not dead, but sleeping.” Mark 5:39

FOREWARD

The events of 9/11 are etched forever in the hearts and minds of people. The overwhelming outpouring of aid astounded officials, even in the largest service organizations. The catastrophic events heightened spiritual concerns in the USA and throughout the world. Expressions of sympathy were received from people around the world. An astonishing number of people were interested in prayer and in some kind of spiritual memorial for the many who died, especially our civil servants who gave their lives in rescue attempts.

Of course, much of the September 11 story will never be told because of the quiet work that went on faithfully behind the scenes. The Lutheran Heritage Foundation encouraged the publication of this book in tribute to those who performed their work without publicity or media coverage. One such worker on the scene at the crash site in Pennsylvania and at the World Trade Center in New York City was Chaplain Dean Kavouras. His reports were so captivating that we thought they should be distributed on a wider basis.

The captivating message within these reports is the basic truth that “the Word works.” In other words, the Word has great power. We see the effect of that power in the lives of those who were struck with grief and pain and yet had to carry out their vocations.

There is something to be learned from these reports that impact our lives as well. The thought conveyed by the reports from the field says to each of us: “The Word works. Let it work in your work.”

Chaplain Kavouras spoke the Word clearly and let it work in the lives of

those affected by the tragedy. There were no gimmicks, no confounding of the Truth, just a straight pronouncement of the Word. As you read the reports you will see the effect this direct presentation of Truth had on the lives and hearts of people.

The LHF believes you will be strengthened in your faith as you read these words that come direct from the field of tragedy and brokeness. They are words that give hope.

It is our prayer that they will cause you to conclude that “the Word works.” May it motivate you to “let it work in your work.”

Dr. Robert L. Rahn, Executive Director

Lutheran Heritage Foundation

March 2002

Introduction

When you’re in trouble you call 911. But who does the policeman call when he needs help? Who does the fireman call when the job gets so hot that it burns into the depths of his soul?

He calls me – I am nine one one for the safety forces.

The stories you are about to read are true. As usual some of the names have been changed to confer anonymity. Join me now for a most amazing journey –an odyssey that began on the streets of Cleveland, Ohio, wended its way east to Somerset (Shanksville), Pennsylvania and finally arrived in New York City – an expedition whose next destination is still unknown.

The title of this volume was chosen for its double meaning. First, it was chosen because police and fire chaplains are 911 for the safety services. Second, it was chosen because much of the material covers the work of the author as he ministered to law enforcement personnel following the monstrous attacks of 9/11 on our people and our liberties.

Through this collection of chaplain’s field reports I hope to accomplish several things. Initially, I hope to provide you with a view of the 9/11 disaster sites not normally available. Next, these pages will give you a new understanding of our fire, police and Emergency Medical Services (EMS)) officers and a greater appreciation for the work they do each day. When you and I flee disaster with all due haste these God-given servants have the strange vocation of running directly into it.

As you read their stories and see how the Gospel of Christ gave light to their

darkness it is my ardent hope that you too will be inspired. Although I deal with the dramatic on a regular basis as a chaplain and pastor, the fact is that your daily struggles, problems and tragedies loom as large in your life as the events of 9/11 did in the lives of our police and fire officers. You too need the comfort and strength that God supplies for us in His mighty Word.

Not only do I hope these reports will inspire laymen and civilians but I hope these reports will arouse other chaplains to abandon the socially aromatic methods of our day so widely adopted and to reclaim the powerful Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only agency which brings true comfort to human hearts assaulted each day by sin, death and the devil.

At the same time this effort will do well if it encourages more pastors to consider volunteering their time to the safety forces in their own locales. The need is greater than the resources.

While reading the following accounts you will also learn something of the Office of the Holy Ministry and its truest work. The confusion regarding this sacred Office is complete. Its proper understanding has been perfectly obscured in the last fifty years. The Christian minister is not a therapist. He is not a counselor, social worker or politician – he is a pastor. First and foremost he is a shepherd of souls whose work is to lead people into the green pastures of God’s Word. He does this most fully and properly when he preaches Scripture’s Gospel and administers the Sacraments to the sin-sick souls of men.

A chaplain will also spend time just listening, being a safe friend to whom one can pour out the frustrations and fears of the job. If that is all a person wants, the chaplain can provide it. But in our truest calling we do much more than that. We give the real answers to the big questions that a person in this line of work asks on a regular basis.

If you wonder why a federal agent or municipal paramedic would want such assistance the answer is simple. Many, if not most, of these people are Christians and they want to understand their work in light of their Christian

faith -- a religion I might add which speaks volumes to human tragedy and the age-old question of man’s inhumanity to man. These are precisely the sad matters that our safety personnel deal with every day of their lives. Much of what happens on the job cannot be effectively addressed by science or psychology, economics or politics because the questions asked and the answers they demand are eternal in their breadth.

While a police officer could obtain such aid from his own clergyman, there are roadblocks. The average pastor doesn’t understand the nature of the work and therefore is often at a loss to effectively relate the Scriptures to such a person in crisis. Often personnel are reluctant to talk to those outside the field for several reasons. Sometimes it is just too arduous to explain what occurs on the job and why it affects a person’s soul the way it does. At other times the incidents are so beyond credulity to the uninitiated that the pastor himself is rendered ineffective. This is why emergency services chaplains spend many hours in the field accompanying the personnel in their daily tasks. At the federal level there are also sensitive issues of national security. This is why FBI chaplains are thoroughly investigated before their appointment and entrusted with a “top secret” security clearance.

For all these reasons and more, it is the sacred duty of the safety services chaplain to proclaim the Gospel of Christ to his unordinary flock. For it is the very “power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16) that imparts, free of charge and free from all stipulation, life and salvation to all who will receive its soothing message.

Chapter 1 Background

In the mid-1950s the good Sisters of Notre Dame would interrupt class at St. Michael grade school for a brief moment of prayer whenever a siren was heard on Scranton Road. They told us that the urgent wail meant someone was in trouble and needed our prayers. I don’t know if that supplication also included the people responding to the emergency, but more than 40 years later whenever I hear a siren my prayer is always two-fold, one for the victims and one for the responders.

When I graduated from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri in the late 1970s I don’t think that anyone could have convinced me of the shape my ministry would eventually take. If they had told me that I would carry fire turnout gear in the trunk of my car or don a ballistic vest on a regular basis I would have laughed a good laugh. If someone had predicted that I would be conducting an impromptu funeral service in the middle of a garbage dump on Staten Island at 2:30 in the morning for NYPD detectives and FBI agents, I would have treated them with the same credulity as someone offering to sell me a bridge in Brooklyn.

However, under the rubric of true confessions I must admit that this chaplain is a bona fide wannabe. If not for the ministry, which in my humble opinion is the greatest job in the world, I would have earnestly desired to be a policeman, fireman, or better yet, both. I was a volunteer fireman and medic for two years while serving a parish in rural Wisconsin. In connection with that work I was trained in fire and emergency medical technology and loved every alarm no matter how serious or trivial. So when the inquiry came from a friend who was a member of Cleveland’s Fire Division asking if I would

be interested in volunteering as a department chaplain, I was eager for the chance.

On October 5, 1995 I was made a member of the Division with the honorary rank of Battalion Chief and began my duties. I spent many hours working tours with fire and rescue companies, getting to know the personnel, responding to alarms and learning what the job was all about for the fulltime, big-city fireman.

In May 1996 Cleveland’s head chaplain Rabbi Sruly Wolf, who has since become a good friend, asked if I would also be interested in working with the city’s police officers. Glad for the opportunity, I responded in the affirmative and was made a member of the Cleveland Police Division with the honorary rank of Captain. The learning curve for police chaplaincy was steeper than for the Fire Service since I had no previous experience in the field. With my usual enthusiasm I dove into the strange world of police culture. I regularly accompanied officers on the street as they conducted their normal duties, everything from barking dogs to traffic stops, drug raids and homicide investigations. In this way I got to know the personnel, to learn the work and above all, to gain their trust. The chaplain who didn’t faint at the sight of a corpse or correct the vulgarity that is part of the job was a good friend and a great asset.

Two months after beginning my service as a police chaplain I met Mr. Van Harp, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Cleveland Division. The occasion was a police promotional ceremony where I was giving the invocation. After a cordial visit he mentioned that the Division had need of a Protestant chaplain and wondered if I would be interested in applying. Once again my interest was aroused. In August I completed the normal employment application that any prospective agent would complete but I heard nothing from the Bureau for nine months. Being very busy with my duties to the city’s safety forces I never bothered to inquire. I just assumed that in the massive federal configuration, a bit of religion wasn’t that important. I was wrong.

In that interval the Bureau had conducted an extensive background

investigation going back to people I had known and places I had lived 15 years earlier. Having passed these rigors I was given a thorough entrance briefing, mostly regarding matters of security and secrecy. I was issued credentials (“creds” as they are commonly known) and a new phase of my work began. It was in this role as an FBI chaplain that I had the opportunity to minister at the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania and to agents in New York City.

Before we go there let me summarize what police and fire chaplains do on a regular basis. Though it is not always clear to people, a safety chaplain’s ministry is primarily to the personnel of the departments he serves. We do sometimes comfort victims and witnesses of crime. We make death notifications and occasionally perform pastoral functions for the public. But our main duties are directed to the members themselves. These are the people who see things that no one should ever have to see. They do things and have things done to them than no one should ever have to bear. Though serving with safety forces is a blessed vocation, it is also a task so strenuous and dangerous, so laced with threats and lawsuits, criticism and camcorders that many pay a high personal price. We sometimes forget that they are mere human beings who at times shake their heads in disbelief, who feel helpless and who sometimes want to roll up into a little ball and cry. Yet we have charged them with doing an heroic task and we tolerate no weakness from them.

As a fire department chaplain I am paged day or night, 365 days a year for all major fires, firefighter injuries, and civilian fire fatalities. In addition, to learn the job, to gain the trust of the people and to create opportunities to talk, I spend time working shifts with the various companies. Routine activities in the last six years included the following:

 Attending many fire fatalities of adults and children and making death notifications;

 Attending rescue operations and drownings;

 Performing first aid on the injured;

 Visiting sick and injured personnel and their families;

 Participating in “critical incident stress debriefings” when my own stress levels from terrible incidents reached the boiling point;

 Attending continuing education seminars;

 Speaking to academy classes;

 Acting as advisor to the command staff;

 Listening to the fears, frustrations, sorrows and disappointments of firefighters and families;

 Comforting firefighters and families of the deceased to bring them prayers and the support of God’s Word; and

 Praying for, encouraging and promoting the well-being of our fire officers.

As a Cleveland Police chaplain, my duties are similar to fire department chaplain activities. Some additional duties include:

 Attending “use of deadly force” scenes and SWAT scenes providing encouragement, counseling and care in some very traumatic and dangerous situations for officers and for family members of barricaded subjects;

 Intervening in suicide attempts;

 Ministering to families of slain officers on a continuing basis;

 Spending time with units on duty to learn about the job, gain people’s trust and afford opportunities to talk;

 Assisting officers in subduing and arresting suspects; and

 Serving other area police departments that have no chaplain.

In all these situations, as a minister of the Gospel I have used my calling and the Word of God to give aid, comfort, consolation, exhortation, direction, hope, wisdom and the forgiveness of sins to people both living and dying. I am the one who follows up long after friends and fellow officers have gone back the routine of their lives. I am the friend they call on 24 hours a day when their burdens overwhelm them.

My duties as a chaplain for the FBI since 9/11 constitute the main subject of the remaining chapters. While “the Bureau” seems shrouded in mystery and while it is the world’s premier law enforcement agency, it is made up of mortal yet extraordinary men. What I found to be true of local safety forces personnel, I find to be equally true for agents of the Bureau. As a group they

are extremely religious (though often only inwardly), they have a strong sense of right and wrong, and they are very open to clergy. This will become clear in the chapters that follow.

Chapter 2 Pennsylvania

For the rest of our lives we will remember where we were and what we were doing on September 11, 2001. Early reports of emergency situations are almost always inaccurate to a greater or lesser degree. After the initial shock of the day’s events and after getting a reasonable picture of what actually transpired, all other duties receded. I became perfectly focused on the needs of my special flock. After a prayer and hymn service at home with my family, I packed what gear I thought I would need for the next 12 to 24 hours to minister to Cleveland’s police, fire and EMS officers. For the moment the Bureau was intensely involved in this newly opened investigation and needed our prayers more than our presence.

At that point no one knew if more attacks were planned or what form they might take. Would terrorists unexpectedly pop out of hiding places around the country with automatic weapons? Would there be more planes crashing? Would bombs and other weapons of mass destruction begin to detonate in government facilities, in malls and schools? These are the dark thoughts that occupied my very suspicious mind that day. While this may seem paranoid to some, when you associate with emergency services for any period of time nothing is beyond the realm of possibility. Nothing can surprise you. It may sicken or revolt but it cannot shock, for whatever the sinful mind of man can conceive it can also achieve.

Cleveland’s thirty-one-story Federal Building was evacuated that day due to bomb threats. The Bureau moved its operations to an alternate location.

City safety personnel were put on the highest possible alert.

United Airlines Flight 93 changed its westerly course in Cleveland air space and began its deadly flight to the southeast on course for Washington, D.C.

Thick, dusty Weapons of Mass Destruction manuals were removed from shelves and were seen lying open on desks in government offices throughout the city.

The good old days were over.

I spent the entire day talking with Cleveland’s police and fire officers and with the city’s leadership. Our firemen in particular were in a state of utter shock at the loss of so many brothers in New York. My presence as a minister of the Gospel was welcomed everywhere. I answered many theological questions and supplied sound Christian literature. One notable stop was the Cleveland Police outdoor range where officers whom I knew well were on high alert. They were burdened with guarding the Department’s supply of weapons and ammunition. The mood was somber and the chaplain’s visit welcome. The parting prayer and Scripture reading were received with grateful hearts and minds.

On Wednesday, September 12 the Bureau’s roughly one hundred chaplains were contacted and asked to standby for possible deployment to the various disaster sites.

On Saturday, September 15 the call came asking me to report to Somerset, Pennsylvania to carry out chaplain duties for the personnel investigating the wreckage of United Airlines Flight 93.

The chaplain’s field reports will give you an understanding of what occurred and what my role was as a Bureau chaplain. I originally used these reports to communicate via e-mail with folks at home and with fellow Lutherans throughout the country. The reports have been lightly edited in matters of grammar and punctuation. I was able to clarify a few items after the luxury of time and sleep.

On Monday, September 17 I made the three-hour drive from Cleveland,

Ohio to Somerset, Pennsylvania. The chaplains already on scene instructed me to report to the Pennsylvania State Police Barracks in Somerset upon arrival. There I received a map of the sites and directions to reach them. After I reported, got a quick bite to eat and checked into a hotel, I made my way to the crash site. That night I began my work, mingling with the troops, answering questions from God’s Word and handing out good literature that would feed these beleaguered souls with the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The distribution of Christian literature is an important part of the chaplain’s work and cannot be overestimated. When people are in a hurry it may be the best and only communicator of God’s love and of His willingness to hear our prayers in times of need. It encourages people to call on the heavenly Father and to believe that for Christ’s sake He hears us and loves to do good for us. At other times it reinforces the counsel and prayers that a chaplain provides for his flock. It gives a person in crisis something good to meditate on and helps them to pray, giving immense comfort and relief when needed most.

Chaplain’s Field Report

Tuesday, September 18, 2001

Somerset, Pennsylvania

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

This report comes to you from Somerset, Pennsylvania. It is now evening and the crews have ended their twelve-hour shifts. The Pennsylvania State Police are on duty all night guarding the sites and the surrounding areas. Security is very tight. The watchful eye of God’s ministers (Romans 13) is vigilant. May He give them the strength to do their duty to God and country.

I started out this morning at the place where families of the deceased are staying, one of three sites being maintained. The airline has emergency response teams who come to such scenes and provide every conceivable service to the families. Though it is never just routine for these folks, this event is even more personal and special to them. Like many others, they are asking two questions: (1) Why? and (2) What good thing will come of this? Both questions present marvelous opportunities for answers of rock solid truths from God’s Word, answers of Law and Gospel. As one good brother noted recently, Lutherans don’t have one message for good times and one for bad. Rather our message is always the same: the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23). I did not visit with any of the families today; however, a memorial service is planned for Thursday for the families who have not made it in yet.

My next stop was the morgue. This is the place where all human remains are brought. There are pathologists and technicians of every type, doing what they do in such a situation, making identification as best as their science can. The FBI personnel are assisting in this process through fingerprints and other forensic sciences. It is notable that on the entrance door to the large room being used as the morgue there is a prominent posting of Psalm 27:1-3. “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear…” Read the whole psalm again in the light of this event remembering that the LORD is Christ. What true comfort it gives!

Many of the FBI’s Evidence Response Team personnel were most happy to see their chaplain. I also spoke with other personnel on scene – airline, medical, military, police, marshals, etc. I was able to speak to these folks about how we should interpret this event and to hand out simple, yet solid, Christian literature to them. This will do them much good and bring them true comfort because it comes from the mighty Word of God! What a difficult job they have. Pray for all involved. I also used Romans 13 to encourage and inspire them with their work in God’s left hand kingdom – a kingdom which is by no means unimportant to our Father, Creator, and Sustainer.

While other chaplains and the clergy around our country have nothing to

give but their “presence”, this chaplain has, in addition to his presence, the Balm of Gilead, the saving and healing Gospel of Jesus Christ. He has the all-sufficient, life-giving Word of God, apart from which his presence means little.

At the crash sight itself I dare say that the Pennsylvania State Police preached a truer Gospel than any other person on scene. Last week they erected a huge cross that appears to be about 16 feet tall, made of two sturdy 8’ x 8’ beams, and draped with a white shroud. Though I was not present at the time, I was told that when one person objected, a trooper said to him, “We’re in charge and that’s how it is.” Will we never learn where true peace lies?

That cross still stands.

It is a reminder of the blackest, most unjust and tragic death of all history, that of the innocent Son of God. It is also the reminder of humanity’s finest hour, for on that cross the sins and guilt and curse of all the world, of each person no matter how great their transgression, was expunged. On that cross death and hell were conquered. In Christ, God opened His loving arms and embraced the whole world (John 3:16).

In the shadow of those two pieces of wood, I preached the Word to a number of people. Many of the airline folks were brought from the family site to the crash site today to pay their respects. As they looked at the memorial, the pictures, the mementoes, and received an explanation of the work going on, I asked if they would like to join in a prayer. I read Psalm 27 in its entirety along with 1 Peter 5:6-10. We then prayed the Lord’s Prayer and all joined in.

One particular trooper was overtaken with grief. I talked with him and told him that Christ died on a cross like the one before us, for the sins of the world and that on Easter Sunday He rose from the grave. I told him that all who put their hope in Him will likewise rise to everlasting glory. I explained to him that there is no other hope and no other message in all the world that can help us now. No psychologist or politician or financial wizard can make sense of this. I quoted and talked on John 11:25-26 where Jesus says “I am

the resurrection and the life, he that believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and he that lives and believes in Me shall never die.” I explained to him that in his baptism God had made an everlasting covenant of peace with him and would never let him go, not now, not ever.

My biggest frustration is that the words of Romans 10:14ff are coming true before my very eyes. “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” As far as I can tell, few if any Christian clergy here or anywhere else are preaching the one true faith that imputes the righteousness of Christ to us by faith and delivers men from eternal death.

Christian priests, pastors and ministers are preaching about an unknown, unpredicated supreme being, who is without true name, true form, or any sure word upon which we can rely in the hour of our deepest need! “You may know him”, people are told “as Allah or Yahweh or Jesus or Buddha!” I had very strong words with two Christian clergymen today, upbraiding them and telling them that there is no other name under heaven, given among men, by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12); that further, there is only one God –the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and all others are imposters; that there is no other word which can heal these poor people than the words of Christ our Lord. I reminded them of John 6:68, the words of Peter. “Lord, to whom shall we go, for You have the words of eternal life.” I told them that while the flowery orations of the world may soothe one’s psyche for a few minutes, only the Word of God as found in Scripture can heal their souls and restore to them some modicum of peace.

In closing I leave you with words worth memorizing, posting on your wall, teaching to your children and keeping very handy for days like these:

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, and He will exalt you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. Be sober and alert, for your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith,

because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast!” (I Peter 5:6-10)

Rev. Dean Kavouras

FBI Cleveland Division

Cleveland Safety Forces

Chaplain’s Field Report

Wednesday, September 19, 2001

Somerset, Pennsylvania

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Today was a day of amazing lows that ended on a very high note. I thank you for your prayers and I thank God for the answers to those prayers.

The day itself was pretty normal regarding my work with the personnel. I had opportunities to preach the Word in several one-on-one and small group sessions. Though I am an FBI chaplain there are no other clergy on sight and so I talk with whoever wants to talk. I normally mill about, introduce myself and chit-chat with folks. I wear a clerical collar, FBI jacket and hat so I ‘m clearly recognizable. Some of this leads to discussions or to handing out the literature I mentioned yesterday. Sometimes just my presence as a man of God in the “foxholes” brings to people’s minds thoughts of their Lord associated with His servants. However while most of “Christianity” thinks this the summit of ministry, I don’t consider it nearly adequate. Only the Word of God, not Dean Kavouras (Oh, wretched man that I am!), can deliver men from the death of sin.

At the morgue I sat and talked with several of the area coroners, listened to their pain and talked about “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”

For me personally, today was the lowest day yet. I was asked to participate in Thursday’s memorial “service” which the American Red Cross will provide at United Airlines’ request for the families of the deceased. I was told that the name of Christ may not be mentioned at all! There may be no reading of Scripture there! I spoke to the other clergyman here - one of the two I confronted yesterday for their “universalism.” I told him that I will have no part in this, I will not attend, nor will I be in the vicinity of his person lest God rain down judgment upon him and I get struck as collateral damage. I told him that he cannot in good conscience as a man who wears a collar and calls himself a Christian minister have any part of this service and that if he denies the Savior before men, that same Lord will deny him before the heavenly Father (Matthew 10:32ff).

I put in a call to the American Red Cross headquarters for this site and laid out my story to them. I told them that most likely 99% of the people there would be Christian and that if they believed in the cross they wore in their logo, they cannot allow this in good conscience. The person I spoke with referred me to the head Red Cross chaplain who told me that the “service” must be “compatible for everyone.” I responded that for every Christian there it would be exactly incompatible because a Christian may not pray except in the name of Christ. I warned this person as well that in good conscience they could not allow this and that they were denying the Lord.

The day was so bad I went over to the Salvation Army tent and talked with one of their officers, inquiring about their doctrine as a point of curiosity. There I found a Christian brother whose church body teaches salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone; teaches that there is no salvation apart from Him (he quoted John 14:6 for me as proof); and teaches the virgin birth and the unconditional and complete divinity of Christ our Lord. The sacraments of course we disagreed on. I told him I only came to inquire, not to argue. I said that he had been a great comfort to this poor lamenting Jeremiah and dejected Elijah. Please don’t take my words as approval of that denomination for we do have differing doctrines in important matters, but thank God for what was good and true there. He was as dismayed as I regarding the Red Cross.

After all this transpired I had the comfort of dining with Pastor and Mrs. Dan Hahn and their five lovely children in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles north of the site. When I learned last Saturday that I was coming here, I searched out area pastors who might lend me their assistance and counsel while working in a strange area. Pastor Hahn has been a willing and able assistant and friend to me. Tomorrow evening I plan to teach his midweek Bible class on Psalm 46. At his dinner table, “the worm slowly started to turn” for me. His evening devotion was from a children’s book which the family reads each night. The theme verse was Joshua 1:9. “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD (Christ) your God will be with you wherever you go.” At the conclusion I asked Pastor Hahn to read the verse one more time. Now I am no touchy-feely kind of guy as you all know and I didn’t break down and cry, but I sure needed that verse on this night. It was an answer to your prayers when you asked, “Give Pastor Kavouras strength and courage in his work.”

And the worm continued to turn.

Last Saturday I began to talk with Supervisory Special Agent Steve Spruill from Quantico who is in charge of the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for this site. They look after the mental health of our people. This is the unit under which FBI chaplains work. Today Steve and three other EAP personnel arrived on scene. We met briefly and went about our work. This evening I stopped in at Steve’s hotel to see whether he had settled in okay and we began to talk. He said that he wanted me to know that he was a Christian, formerly Lutheran, now Baptist. He wanted me to know that Christ had changed his life and that he was still alive today because of his Lord Jesus Christ and a second chance given him. He told me he supported my work and was thrilled that I was on scene and to move forward with all vigor. After I recovered consciousness, I said that we needed to talk. I told him my story and when he recovered consciousness, things began to change.

I offered that, if he thought it appropriate, we would go below to the recovery site rest tent on Friday and offer a Christian prayer service led by Chaplain

Kavouras to those recovery personnel who would be interested. He readily agreed to this and outlined how he would publicize it. I am proposing another service as well for our personnel at the morgue. Although the Word of God may not be preached to the poor families (it might yet) at least the people I have been assigned to shepherd and other agencies will hear it.

In closing, the people of the area have bonded into one and give us everything and anything we need, often for free or for greatly reduced rates. Two massage therapists from the area offered their services and set up what they call a “chair massage.” Many of us took advantage of their ministrations. I took a helicopter tour of the whole crash area with the Pennsylvania State Police. It was quite a sight. The helicopter pilot tells me he surmises that the plane came down nose first at about 600 miles per hour, that most likely the passengers rushed the cockpit knowing from cell phones that other places had been attacked, that they forced the plane down before it could reach its destination. “Greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his life for his friend” (John 15:13).

The flight was carrying 2000 pounds of mail. I viewed some of the recovered U.S. mail and other personal articles. How real that made it for me. (Yes, this is where I cried if you must know.)

Before I close again with 1 Peter 5:6-10 I ask you not to use what you have read here to say anything to or about the Red Cross. I will deal with that later. The Church is engaged in a war, but it is not against flesh and blood. The LORD of hosts (Hebrew “sabaoth” which means “armies) is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge. Onward, Christian soldiers. “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, and He will exalt you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be sober and alert, for your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast!” (1 Peter 5:6-10)

Rev. Dean Kavouras

FBI Cleveland Division

Cleveland Safety Forces

Chaplain’s Field Report

Thursday, September 20, 2001

Somerset, Pennsylvania

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

As time allows I will continue to send these reports which I design to be both informative and faith-building, in that they clearly proclaim the rich mercy of the world’s Savior, our Lord and our only Hope, Jesus Christ. It is at His pleasure I do what I do and in Him that you and I have fellowship one with another.

I thank Christ Lutheran Church for including these chaplain duties in my Call document, making this an important and recognized work of God’s people and not just the desire of Pastor Kavouras.

The highlight of the day was the heavy rain that made sifting the sand for remains impossible. This forced the recovery teams to stop their work, to rest and to come up to the command post. There I met many of them for the first time since Monday night when I arrived. In my usual fashion I mingled among them, greeting and chatting with them. The clerical collar was like a magnet to these weary workers looking for solace. After much banter and good-natured kidding about the Browns and Steelers, I asked if they would like me to have prayers with them for their work. I didn’t have to ask twice. Their souls were very hungry. One agent spoke for all when he said that none of them have had a chance to think about this or to grieve for our nation’s tremendous loss.

So Sunday morning I will go down to the dig, the “valley of the shadow of death,” and there will proclaim that with Christ the Good Shepherd, who laid down His sacred life for us and who leads us beside still waters, we need fear no evil. He is with us. His rod and staff, His cross and His resurrection, His Word and His promises will comfort us and revive us as no other power on earth can.

I asked Pastor Hahn, my faithful assistant in the area, to see if he can locate an organist and a portable organ. For this too your prayers are earnestly requested.

The last group of family members was brought to the crash site today. I did not attend the “service” which allowed neither Christ nor Scripture, but I thank God that somehow the Salvation Army handed a New Testament with Psalms to each person there.

I did talk with a few of the people returning to the buses that would transport them to the main non-service, also attended by the Vice-President’s wife. I did not attend this caricature of Christianity where Christian ministers allowed their witness to be silenced and who withheld the precious gift of God’s healing from people crushed by sin and death. One particular family member who sought out my collar was a 17-year veteran of the New York Police Department (NYPD) who had lost his father in the crash. Only a week before this crash he buried his younger brother who had died in a car accident while on his honeymoon in California. Pray for these people, my friends, that from Scripture’s hallowed pages they may know the victory of Christ over death’s bloody reign. “Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Corinthians 15:55ff)

Or as we sing in the great Easter hymn:

“Jesus lives! The victory’s won! Death no longer can appall me; Jesus lives! Death’s reign is done!

From the grave Christ will recall me. Brighter scenes will then commence; This shall be my confidence.” (TLH 201)

In one more fascinating event of the day, I now relate to you the story told me by Master Sergeant John Mikolich and Staff Sergeant Ernie Nicholson of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. These two soldiers, normally in the recruiting office, were among others dispatched to the crash site within ninety minutes of impact. They told me of the huge crater in the ground, but because of the sheer force with which the craft hit, everything was nearly disintegrated and the crater all but empty. As they stood there frozen in disbelief, they noticed the only moving thing about 10 feet away – a book with its charred pages flapping in the wind. Upon further investigation they found that it was a Bible with a piece of debris keeping it open to Luke chapter one. After a few moments of silence I asked Sergeant Nicholson, “What, if anything, did that mean to you?” He said that even though destruction such as he had never imagined surrounded him, the Word of the Lord still survived. That, he said, gave him great hope with which to carry on.

In Matthew 24:35 Jesus says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.” Thank God for that mighty, true and life-giving Word which strengthens and comforts us, now and always.

Pastor Hahn invited me to come to his church this evening and teach the adult Bible class. There we studied Psalm 46. “God (Christ) is my refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble, therefore we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains (order and strength) are swallowed up by the sea (chaos and death).” We sang and talked about “A Mighty Fortress” and found the message of the psalm thereby exquisitely delivered to our troubled hearts.

Tentatively the FBI’s role will be completed here on Sunday. I hope to return home at that time. Depending on how things progress in New York and Washington, I may at a later date go there to serve as well.

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain

FBI Cleveland Division

Cleveland Safety Forces

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, and He will exalt you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be sober and alert, for your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you! and make you strong, firm and steadfast!” (1 Peter 5:6-10)

Chaplain’s Final Field Report

Tuesday, September 25, 2001

Cleveland, Ohio

Dear Friends,

This report comes to you from the comfort of my office in Cleveland Ohio. I arrived home on Sunday, September 23. Many of you read my field reports from the Somerset, Pennsylvania crash site and the lows and the highs associated with it. Today, however, I will end on the highest possible note.

On Saturday, September 22 my wife forwarded to you a copy of the service and sermon that this chaplain provided for the troops. A few days earlier I had asked if they wanted me to come below with them and begin their day with prayers. This germ of an idea evolved into a formal service for Sunday morning that, as it turned out, was their final day. It was held at 9:00 a.m. down near the actual crash site rather than up at the Command Post area and again at 11:00 a.m. at the morgue for about twenty Red Cross volunteers and other helpers who did not have crash site clearance.

With the help of Pastor Hahn, I was able to find an area organist who located a portable organ and amplifier. I told her that in addition to the hymns, I wanted prelude and postlude music that sounded reverent and solemn, music which would make them think they were in the finest cathedral, instead of on a makeshift road “in the valley of the shadow of death”. She came through beautifully. The music helped the comforting and healing process tremendously, for nothing drives theological truth home like reverent music. The Pennsylvania Army National Guard brought folding chairs down to the site and hooked up a public address system. They rigged a microphone onto a piece of copper pipe with duct tape and off we went. My pulpit was the portable stair and little landing used to get into one of the many office trailers; my vestments were an FBI raid jacket. There were about 150 FBI agents, ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) agents, federal marshals and people from other agencies. We sang “A Mighty Fortress,” “Our God Our Help In Ages Past,” and “I Know That My Redeemer Lives.”. My organist, Mrs. Kathy Shaffer of Hooversville, Pennsylvania, copied the hymns very neatly onto two sides of one sheet of paper. The singing was as hearty as any church on a Sunday morning. I consider this a great thing because many people were unfamiliar with the hymns, but wanted very badly to join in the peace that hymn-singing gives. I let them keep the service sheet and music sheet for further devotional use. The sheet included Psalm 91, Psalm 23, an apropos prayer, the Apostle’s Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and more.

With many people in front of me on folding chairs and many more behind them on a ten-foot bluff, standing and sitting, I preached to them about the wages of sin (death) and the gift of God (eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord). Near the end of the service I had them all face the crash site and read portions of the interment service from the Lutheran Agenda. (“It has pleased Almighty God in His good providence to call out of this present life the souls of our departed brothers and sisters…earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust…”)

Judging from the rapt attention during the service, the request for printed copies of the sermon (which my “deacons”, two FBI agents, had ready to distribute) and the numerous heart-felt thanks and tears of gratefulness

afterwards, I would say that the Word of God did its job and uplifted many weary souls. I take no credit for this! I only report to let you know how God has worked through His mighty Word so that you too might be encouraged.

Thank you all for your support in the form of prayers, funds and messages of encouragement.

In closing I pass on two e-mails I received from people in response to this service. The first is from an FBI agent; the second is from a member of the United Airlines Accident Scene Team.

The FBI agent writes:

“Chaplain: Driving home to Virginia this afternoon, I listened to news reports of the memorial gathering in Yankee Stadium . . .A sound bite from Oprah Winfrey was aired – apparently, a few ‘VIPs’ were in attendance. I immediately flashed back to the service you gave this morning and thought about how lucky I was to have been in attendance.”

The member from the United Airlines Accident Scene Team writes:

“Dear Rev. Kavouras, I was given a copy of your message notes on Sunday while waiting for my flight home at the Pittsburgh airport. I can’t tell you how much they meant to me. I am a member of the United Airlines Accident Scene Team. For 13 days I had felt numb, in spite of reading my Bible and praying. Your notes brought up the tears within me, and helped to reaffirm what I knew was true... Our God is still in control. Thank you for being faithful in delivering such a powerful message.”

Thank you all again for making this ministry possible.

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain FBI Cleveland Division Cleveland Safety Forces

A copy of the service and sermon referred to in the final field report from Somerset is included in Appendix A. The materials were originally printed in formats that allowed people to keep them and use them for personal devotions. Upon returning to Cleveland and talking with some of our own personnel who were at the Pennsylvania crash site, I found out this interesting fact. The agents working the site had erected a cross at the crater from two broken tree branches and they started each day with prayer. In two generations it seems that the rich store of Christian knowledge that our nation once contained has been nearly depleted. Thank God that there is some left. May it increase and grow for our sake and for the good of our children.

Chapter 3 Cleveland, Ohio

As an experienced chaplain I have learned how to do my work with compassion while not personally imbibing the pain of those I serve. To take on that sorrow (which I had often done in earlier days) would render a person completely ineffective, making him just one more casualty.

My work in Pennsylvania, however, was the perfect testing ground to see if I had learned those lessons well enough. Upon returning home it did take me several days to “decompress”, to make the transition from the sixteenhour, adrenalized days in the battlefield to the relative serenity of civilian life. However, with war having broken out in our own land, the home front could no longer be termed exactly “normal” and the need for my ministry only increased.

Chaplain’s Field Report

Wednesday, October 3, 2001

Cleveland, Ohio

Dear Friends,

Though I am back in Cleveland, my chaplaincy work has not stopped. I have been very busy spending time with the Cleveland Police and Fire Divisions, but more time is spent with the FBI because they are the first line of investigation and defense from further attacks. Today there were several interesting occurrences.

I spoke with one agent this morning, a young lady of Orthodox background who told me a few weeks ago that she had become disgusted with her church and had not attended Divine Services in many years. After talking with her chaplain and in the light of our immanent national peril, she went back to church last Sunday. She told me that she didn’t really know how to pray, but listened intently to the liturgy and just kept asking over and over again, “Jesus, save me.” For the first time in many years she received communion. When I talked with her this morning she was quite distraught because she had heard a “Christian radio” broadcast on the way to work telling how all these things are predicted in the Bible and how the end of the world was very near. She wanted to know what I thought of that.

I told her that there has been a contingent within Christianity taking that tack for 2000 years. Their theology and interpretation wasn’t true then and it is not true now. I told her that these signs have been with us from the beginning and that Revelation was a “vision” that must be interpreted as such by its own admission “sent and signified” (Revelation 1:2). I told her that we must all be prepared for our own personal “end” at all times.

Based on these questions and her return to the “shepherd and bishop of her soul,” I preached the Gospel to her. I told her that the Son of God bled and died for her sins and that on the cross He washed her clean from all transgressions. I said that in baptism she was crucified, buried and resurrected with Christ and that He would never leave her, not in life and not in death. I told her further that in receiving the true body and blood of her Lord in holy communion Christ came to her to make it all as personal as it can ever get. She seemed to find great comfort in that.

The Greyhound bus matter in Tennessee has the FBI tuned to an even higher state of alert, if that’s possible. Things are tense. Though the person who did this was a Croatian, many Croats are Muslim. It is unknown yet whether or not there is a connection to 9/11.

Because of the extra stress as I walked through the office greeting and chatting

with folks, one of the secretaries indicated that she wanted to talk a bit. She is a widow with two growing children and is quite upset by the events of the day. She just wanted to tell me that as she was driving into work today she was thinking about me and hoping I would stop by. The personnel seem to find great comfort in the fact that a man of God takes interest in them and in their work. We didn’t talk about anything too serious but I did notice that the booklet of Bible verses I gave her two weeks ago was still open on her desk to Psalm 46.

Just to keep me humble the Lord had a little test for me to take. One of the senior agents handed me a flyer for an “Interfaith Prayer Service” to be held on October 11 at St. John Cathedral in Cleveland. He said that they specifically requested an FBI chaplain to take part in it. Part of the brochure reads “…all are invited to participate in this interfaith service. Readings from the Sacred Scriptures and Sacred Books, Prayers and Hymns. . .”

While other parts of the brochure had some very noble sentiments, this part was like a red flag. At first I balked, asking him to contact another chaplain. After being informed that this particular chaplain was busy, I asked the senior agent if he had a few minutes to talk. I asked who would be taking part, specifically if there would be people of non-Christian religions. He said there definitely would. I told him that I must decline, that in good conscience I cannot do this. I stated that while I stand arm in arm with these other people as men and as Americans, we have diametrically opposed faith and I would not give theirs credence by my presence. I told him I hope he understands that I am not a nut-case or sectarian. He is a seasoned veteran of the FBI and a fine gentleman. He assured me that he did understand and that he would try someone else.

May I suggest that all of you plan and publicize a “memorial” or “prayer” service to be held in your church on October 11. Ask your members to come and to invite their friends. Preach the Gospel there as it hasn’t been preached in public yet.

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain

FBI Cleveland Division

Cleveland Safety Forces

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, and He will exalt you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be sober and alert, for your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast!” (1 Peter 5:6-10)

Chaplain’s Field Report

Friday, October 5, 2001

Cleveland, Ohio

Dear Friends,

This report will be short but I do wish to keep you informed and hope that you find these reports enlightening and faith-building. I will be leaving Tuesday, October 9 for New York City. I will work seven straight days in eight-hour shifts at the dump on Staten Island. This is where all debris is brought and sifted to recover human remains, evidence and any personal effects that might be identified and later returned to the families. Consider this an official solicitation of prayers on my behalf as well as for all who are ministering to those who serve and protect us all.

Today is my sixth anniversary as a chaplain. I have had great opportunities in those years to bring the Gospel hope to many people, firemen, policemen, FBI agents and more than a few victims of crime and fire as well. Now it seems that the opportunity is increasing exponentially because we are waking up from our slumber and asking the important questions. God’s judgment (whether preached or demonstrated in real time) has a way of doing that and

it is all meant for our good. If we hear the answer, we do well – believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved (Acts 16:31). That’s a promise you can take to bed with you at night and to your grave.

As regards my going to New York City, this all came about because of the troubles I have already told you about at the Somerset, Pennsylvania crash site. I told you of the opposition I faced and explained how the head agent sent there was a Christian. I told you that he agreed with my strong stand on preaching the Word of God rather than “feel good” bromides to these beleaguered FBI souls. You heard further of the great success that the Word of God accomplished in bringing supreme comfort to them.

Apparently this agent gave a favorable report regarding my work and my presence has been requested in New York City. This is unusual because I think they like to rotate chaplains and give everyone a chance at the plate. Now this is not meant to glorify Chaplain Kavouras. My only claim to fame is that of St. Paul in 1 Timothy 1:15 as “chief of sinners” in whom the mercy of God is greatly active. It is intended to say that what some people meant for evil God meant for good (Genesis 50:15). God willing, I will find more plentiful opportunity to impart the Words of Life from Scripture to many burdened souls.

There was one notable discussion today with a person at the FBI Cleveland Division. It seems that this agent was quite upset because in his church they preach that we should turn the other cheek and that revenge over this matter is wrong. What a terrible thing with which to burden any conscience since this is wrong-headed theology at best. It is even worse to burden the conscience of a person whose God-given vocation (Romans 13) is to bring about that justice at the point of a gun, if necessary – and it will be. I explained to him that he was the victim of sanctimonious nonsense, especially since selfdefense can hardly be called revenge. Further, though revenge belongs to the Lord (Romans 12:19), He often carries it out through channels such as armies and law enforcement agencies.

Pastors, please be sure to review the difference between the “kingdom of

grace” and the “kingdom of power” and teach this to your people. Check out the meaning of the fifth commandment in the catechism and also Article 16 of the Augsburg Confession for more explanation of the Bible’s correct teaching on these matters.

Most likely my next communication will be from New York City. Until then, may the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ.

Remember to invite your people and neighborhood to your own special memorial/prayer service on October 11. Use the familiar and comforting hymns, prayers, liturgies and portions of Scripture for this. Below is a text you might want to preach on.

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain FBI Cleveland Division Cleveland Safety Forces “Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8).

Chapter 4 New York City

Though I was originally scheduled to go to New York City on Tuesday, October 9, the opportunity arose to proceed earlier to my post, an opportunity of which I took full advantage.

Chaplain’s Field Report

Monday, October 8, 2001

New York City, New York

Dear Friends,

May the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ our Lord, give you all comfort and consolation at this time not only from the wars without but for the wars within. As St. Paul writes in Romans 5:1 “Having been justified therefore by faith, we now have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” With that all-important peace in place the other troubles of our lives rapidly recede.

This field report will cover two days, October 7 and 8. On Sunday, October 7 I drove from Cleveland, Ohio to Manhattan. The trip took 8 hours from door to door. It was during the drive near Scranton, Pennsylvania that I heard of the retaliatory strikes on the radio and my thoughts turned homeward, but my car somehow kept moving eastward.

Beginning on Tuesday, October 9 I will be working the midnight to 8:00 a.m. shift at the landfill on Staten Island ministering to the FBI agents and

NYPD officers there doing the evidence recovery. This is where all the debris from the World Trade Center is brought, raked and sifted with ¼-inch sifters. Evidence and human remains are recovered, examined, photographed and logged. Whenever remains of fallen policemen or firemen are found, the respective departments send an honor guard to transfer these to the morgue in Manhattan.

Though I haven’t officially started my tour of duty yet, I have been busy. Sunday evening I had a long walk through midtown Manhattan and a leisurely dinner with an agent who is a Christian. Though he knows that he is a Christian and understands his salvation, he felt that because he has a fear of death his faith might not be strong enough. I was able to assure him that fear of death is at work in Christians too, even though we are assured that through Christ we will be with the Lord when we die. I told him that God created an exceedingly strong drive of life within us, that even the best Christian has faith smaller than a mustard seed, so he should not worry about it. I further explained that such faith, grounded in Christ’s atonement for his sins, is a gift which was given to him by God who not only created that faith, but also maintains it at all times and through all the changing scenes of life. I reminded him to look to His baptism where by God’s power he was crucified, buried and resurrected with Christ. This seemed to calm him and why should it not? For this is the Gospel, the power of God unto salvation for all who believe (Romans 1:16).

On Monday, October 8 I briefly visited with my niece Kate Kavouras who is on a one-year tour of duty with Americorps and is now working in New York City. Her group is processing paperwork to get American Red Cross assistance for families of the deceased and for those who lost their jobs due to the attack. It is quite sad dealing with all the families, but the Americorps volunteers are carrying on with precision and compassion. Kate and I will have breakfast together on Tuesday morning.

After visiting with Kate I walked to the morgue, about a mile from my hotel, and talked with some NYPD crime scene specialists who process human remains. A big part of my job at these scenes is to “loiter with intent.” If

people have questions of a theological nature we talk. If not, we just chat. They are always very happy to see a law enforcement chaplain who is there just for them. I leave them with good literature that I suggest they read before bed, so that they can rest with the greatest medicine ever put into words on their minds. It is a special one-page brochure written for the occasion with familiar and comforting words: the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostle’s Creed, Psalms and New Testament verses, and the words to two hymns. I also hand out the booklet called God’s Words of Encouragement put out by God’s Word to the Nations Bible Society. It consists of appropriate verses for all kinds of distressful situations of body and soul.

This gives them Real Comfort, especially in contrast to the useless bromides imparted by many, even by those who call themselves Christians. Please don’t get me started on that subject again. It is here also just as in Somerset.

On Monday, October 8, I spent the early afternoon in an enjoyable lunch with Pastor Jimmy Coffey from Greenwich, Connecticut. As Pastor Dan Hahn afforded me local assistance in Somerset last month, Pastor Coffey has agreed to aid me while in New York City. He has spent each of his days off since 9/11 coming to the city and walking the perimeter of the World Trade Center site, dressed in clerical collar, giving the comfort of God’s Word to workers and whoever else wished to speak with him, of which there were more than a few people. Here again true restoration and strength are being imparted to God’s children by God’s pastors.

I also spoke with a fellow Lutheran from Grand Rapids, Michigan this afternoon who is working to restore the Verizon tower near “ground zero.” He requested we get together and, if possible, receive the Lord’s Supper. He works long days and I work nights, so we’ll see how that goes.

Tomorrow I will tell you more about “ground zero” and the landfill.

Your donations have been very helpful. As it turns out I will be reimbursed for some of my expenses but not for all. It is a long story as to why. In short, it has to do with FBI regulations regarding chaplains that are not nearly adequate to cover such a large scale disaster as this. Thank you for your help.

As I prepare for my first shift I leave you with something out of the ordinary – a quote from Walt Whitman in which he describes his countless visits to field hospitals during the Civil War. I found his progression from “friend” to “chaplain” as well as some of his methodology very helpful in my own work. He writes:

“In my visits to the hospitals I found it was a simple matter of personal presence, and emanating ordinary cheer and magnetism, that I succeeded and helped more than by medical nursing, or delicacies, or gifts of money, or anything else. During the war I possessed the perfection of physical health. My habit, when practicable, was to prepare for starting out on one of those daily or nightly tours, of from a couple to four or five hours, by fortifying myself with previous rest, the bath, clean clothes, a good meal, and as cheerful an appearance as possible.” (Specimen Days, “My Preparations For Visits,” p. 34)

Walt Whitman began his visits among the camp hospitals in Falmouth, Virginia. on December 21, 1862 and seeing piles of dead bodies and amputated limbs he stays outside the hospital. Then going in he says: “I went through the rooms downstairs and up. Some of the men were dying. I had nothing to give at that visit, but wrote a few letters to folks home, mothers, etc. Also talked to three or four, who seemed most susceptible to it, and needing it.” (Specimen Days, “Down At The Front,” p. 21)

However, by the summer of 1864 he says this:

“In these wards, or on the field, as I thus continue to go round, I have come to adapt myself to each emergency, after its kind or call, however trivial, however solemn, everyone justified and made real under its circumstances; not only visits and cheering talk and little gifts; not only washing and dressing wounds, (I have some cases where the patient is unwilling anyone should do this but me;) but passages from the Bible, expounding them, prayer at the bedside, explanations of doctrine, etc. (I think I see my friends smiling at this confession, but I was never more in earnest in my life.) In the camp and everywhere, I was in the habit of reading or giving recitations to the men. They were very fond of it.” (Specimen Days, “Summer of 1864,” p. 47ff.)

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain

FBI Cleveland Division Cleveland Safety Forces

Chaplain’s Field Report

Tuesday, October 9, 2001

New York City, New York

Dear Friends,

If there is one bright spot to this current crisis it is that the Word of God and the Life that it gives is being sought with new fervor. Though many people don’t really understand the great foundation that the Word provides, they do perceive that there is a foundation there and they earnestly hope that they can stand on it now. As we sing in the hymn:

“My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” (TLH 370)

I pity those from whom this treasure of majestic and awesome Gospel comfort has been taken away.

I say that this is a bright spot because God’s mighty Word imparts what it promises to us: the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved. Grant this Lord unto us all.”

After returning to my hotel at 8:00 a.m. bed was the only thing on my mind. I had been up for 24 hours and was useless to anyone.

Last evening about 10:30 my temporary partner and I, an agent from Kansas City, headed for the Staten Island landfill by way of “ground zero.” After six check points manned by New York’s finest, troopers of the New York Highway Patrol and military personnel, we parked the car and walked the entire inner perimeter trying to take in the magnitude of the destruction.

The piles that had been the twin towers have been reduced to about 40 feet in height by my loose estimate. The large treaded excavators climbing up and down the piles reminded me of Lilliputians scaling sleeping Gulliver. But that’s not all the damage.

The Verizon building, a massive behemoth of sturdy frame, did not come down, but sustained serious damage both to its exterior and its interior electronic contents. Other buildings which have no particular name on them have whole sides with shattered windows and who knows what loss within. A few office structures still stand but with massive fire damage. This is something you don’t usually see in large office buildings, for under normal circumstances such fires are quickly dealt with and contained to small sections. But that day there was no stopping the devil’s deadly woe. Truly “on earth is not his equal.” This was confirmed ever more poignantly later in the night when I toured the vehicle section of the Staten Island landfill.

There I beheld hundreds of vehicles that had been crushed, twisted and burned like so many bunches of thoughtlessly discarded aluminum foil. Most prominent and most desolate among them, resting in their own special section, lie dozens of fire apparatus. Hook and ladder trucks, pumpers, ambulances and the like that, as our Lord Himself, had succumbed to the fate from which they had saved so many others, but in the end would not save themselves.

At “ground zero” we talked to many of the hundreds of people working to bring these remains (human and otherwise) to their final resting places. I have never seen such a spirit of cooperation in my 51 years. The spirit of humility and of reverence long absent from American soil was most encouraging.

Truly the Law of God has been preached here in all its severity without a single word being spoken. One familiar with the Bible could not walk those grounds without thinking of our Lord’s words regarding Jerusalem: “There shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down” (Luke 21:6). But a person familiar with that same Bible will also find hope! It tells us that we are “strangers and pilgrims on earth” and that “here we have no continuing city.” Instead by virtue of our connection to Christ we are headed for a heavenly city, one whose builder and maker is God. This is a city with foundations that will never fail, not now and not ever. For God is in that city and our dear Lord Jesus Christ rules it with His love and grace. All who have been baptized into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are heirs of that city and can take refuge in this blessed truth, even when steeples are falling.

Once we reached our intended destination, the Staten Island landfill, we met with many people glad to see God’s presence among them in the person of a Christian pastor. There I was pleasantly surprised to see two people from United Airlines with whom I had worked in Pennsylvania. I didn’t recognize them and at first they didn’t recognize me. But as we talked and the subject of Flight 93 came up both men said, “You’re the chaplain who did the service at the crash site in Somerset, aren’t you?” Having confirmed their suspicion I was most gratified to hear that they had received much comfort from that service and that one had sent a copy of the sermon to his mother who also obtained strength from it. How comforting it was to find such people in what many would call a God-forsaken place.

And so it seems to all but the eye of faith.

Hundreds of people sifted through rubble in the cold and the dark and the wind and the rain and the smells in 12-hour shifts; dressed like actors in a second rate sci-fi movie; working like so many ants. People turned up evidence and are piecing together a story yet to be told that only these blessed ministers of God’s justice from the FBI and NYPD could ever find. Talking to them in the rest tent where they had to be decontaminated to enter, I found many a forlorn person. As we talked and the subject of fear came up,

one burly NYPD detective, whom I am sure has seen it all and more besides said, “We’re scared, chaplain.” A brief silence ensued. I wish I could say that I had some great words of wisdom for him but at the moment I didn’t. As the conversation wound down and they went back to work I offered each of them the booklet God’s Word of Encouragement which I customarily pass out. They each opened their white, zippered suits and signaled for me to put it in their inner pocket. I am sure (or I would be at home right now instead of in this God-awful city) that my presence and the Word of God gave them something that will benefit them much. This, along with your prayers for their well-being, will give what no other agency on earth can.

Later that morning I was present for the 5:30 a.m. roll call. I offered to the Lieutenant that I would open up this shift with prayer if he liked, to which he readily agreed. This was no time for innovation. I offered a very few feeble words of my own and then closed on the highest possible note by inviting them to pray a prayer that God will never deny, the words given us by the Son of God Himself. How heartening it was that everyone present, perhaps 75 detectives in all, knew those words by memory and called together on “Our Father.”

On the lighter side everything you have ever seen or heard or read about New York City is true. Five minutes into the city last Sunday and I thought I had been magically transported into a television program. It is loud, fast, weird, never sleeps, filled with taxi cabs, hundreds of different smells, restaurants, theatres, thousands of (literally) hole-in-the-wall cheap trinket shops. No one speaks English without an accent of some sort including, maybe especially, the natives and some large percentage don’t speak English at all.

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain FBI Cleveland Division Cleveland Safety Forces

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

Chaplain’s Field Report Wednesday, October 10, 2001

New York City, New York

Dear Friends,

Let’s begin on the lighter side tonight. After all there’s been plenty of the other and we will cover some of that as well.

Here’s a simple test you can give your friends to determine their intelligence. Question: What color is a “black box?” If you said “black,” you would be wrong. The correct answer is “orange.” Then why do they call it a “black box?” That I can answer in one word: tradition. Among other people at the Staten Island landfill are people from the airlines and the National Transportation Safety Board whose main function is to wait for the “black boxes” to be found. Each jet contained two of them.

Here is a simple sanity test for you as well. Borrowing from the comedy routine “You know you’re a Redneck if. . .,” allow me to create the new and hopefully informative category “You know you’re crazy if. . .”

 if you hang around abandoned garbage dumps in the middle of chilly autumn nights, lit by hundreds of klieg lights, working 12-hour shifts, wearing a respirator so you don’t contract who-knows-what.

 if you prefer porta-potties and decontamination rooms to your own cozy bed and shower.

 if you favor eating in mess tents with dirt floors and seeing hundreds of people walking around in space suits.

 if you pass your break time reading safety posters advising you to wash your personal clothes twice and apart from the family’s regular laundry.

 if you like the non-stop sound of heavy machinery moving piles of rubble that were once arranged in a way most pleasing to an architect’s eye.

 if you don’t mind dealing with human remains and possessions which once served fellow human beings well.

If you do this day after day with like-minded individuals, then you might just be a little bit off. Or you might be an FBI agent, a Secret Service agent or an

NYPD detective who does this duty by choice. “Greater love hath no man than this. . .” (John 15:13).

A few days ago I mentioned that I had met fellow Lutheran Mark Niendorf from Michigan. He is working on restoring the Verizon building just a few hundred feet away from the WTC site. He has been away from home for several weeks and has not had a day off even to go to church. Learning of my presence in New York City he wondered if I would meet with him for the purpose of receiving the Lord’s Supper which we will do tentatively tomorrow evening. I told him to inquire if there were others and invite them as well. Since that time I met a woman in the hotel laundromat who I also an LCMS Lutheran working with the Small Business Administration. She is here to help people re-establish their businesses since the disaster. I also informed her of our communion service. So it may be two, three, or even a few more. I will let you know.

The state of Christianity in our country is still very poor. Though many people are talking about a god, whom they desire to bless America, it seems that few if any know who he is, how to get in touch with him, or if he is even interested in us. To quote from St. Paul’s missionary speech in Athens (Acts 17:23) “As I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.”

With these words he began to preach the true Woed of God to them – the good news of creation, preservation and, most importantly, that crowning message, the Gospel. He preached the Good News of God’s love for our lost world – the giving of His Son who suffered death in our place and for our sins and who was resurrected from the grave to give non-ending life to all who put their hope in Him.

The greatest offenders against this very specific and often offensive message of the Gospel and of its simple access via the Word and the Sacraments are the clergy of our own land. Clerics from every denomination, including fellow Lutherans who for fear of the consequences, deny Christ before men. What

can one say about a physician who has good medicine but will not give it to the sick and dying to relieve their pain and save their souls?

How horrible it was yesterday as I witnessed a “wolf in shepherd’s clothing” assault the simple Christian faith of an FBI agent. The agent wanted to tell the clergyman about his reading the Koran – how he began to read it in connection with his part in this investigation and how he had found it wholly offensive, violent and degrading of all non-Muslim people, especially women. The “wolf” listened for a moment and then quipped that the Bible is a violent book also (how greatly he misunderstands the Scriptures) and that the Koran is not as bad as everyone is making it out to be.

By the time he was done with his politically-acceptable exegesis, he had elevated the Koran and completely undermined the agent’s faith in God’s true Word, the Bible. This is the very same Old Testament Word of God in which our Lord Himself in His earthly life found strength and true comfort. I watched the agent’s face as the color noticeably drained from it (and this is a person who does “poker faces” for a living). His body language began to show signs of extreme nervousness. Meanwhile the “wolf” obliviously bayed on. At that given moment I could not effectively intervene, so I just watched and awaited my opportunity. A few minutes after the conversation ended I introduced myself to this agent and told him that there is quite another side to what he had just been told. Great relief seemed to fill him that instant and I said we could talk later if he liked. We did and will continue to talk because when the assignments were given later that evening, he was made my partner.

Our night at the landfill together passed very successfully, working and complementing each other all for the welfare of these truly blessed heroes whose love for their neighbor is larger than Staten Island itself. He cared for their needs of body and mind, I for their souls.

I think one last incident from our night is most telling. I closed the 5:30 a.m. NYPD roll call (shift change) with Scripture, prayer and a few words of encouragement. Being somewhat sensitized to this church/state nonsense myself I announced that we would now have a short Christian prayer service

for their strength, comfort and encouragement, but that if anyone had duties that could not wait, they were free to leave. The roll call Lieutenant said (in his heavy New York accent no less and in a way that will always endear this miserable city to me) words which I will never forget. He said, “Forget about that stuff, chaplain. We all want what you do and need what you do, so do it for us now.”

God bless you, Lieutenant! With the help of the NYPD even “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians. 4:13).

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain

FBI, Cleveland Division

Cleveland Safety Forces

Appendix B contains a copy of the Christian prayer service that was printed and distributed to the personnel on October 10, 2001.

Chaplain’s Field Report

Thursday, October 11, 2001

New York City, New York

Dear Friends,

Since I’ve probably driven you to sensory overload with my previous reports, I will try to keep this one short. It is now 6:10 p.m. on Thursday, October 11. My partner and I finished our shift at about 6:00 this morning and tried to get back to Manhattan before rush hour. We had another good night, he caring for bodies and minds, I for souls.

The highlight of the night was once again opening the 5:30 a.m. roll call for the NYPD. The Word of God was read and preached to approximately 80 personnel, giving them strength for their work and the dignity it deserves –for their profession is created and blessed by God according to St. Paul in

Romans 13. I read Psalm 91 to them and prayed the prayer on the sheet that you all received with yesterday’s field report. My partner, agent Jerry Richards who sits in the back of the tent while I do this, took note of the reactions of the officers both days. He reports that all was received well, all came across loud and clear. Though he is working here at the landfill, besides his “employee assistance” duties he is actively involved in the investigation of this crime. So he too needs this mighty Word of God to uphold and defend him, a Word that he receives most gladly.

In a spirit of unity with our flock Jerry and I donned space suits last night and spent two hours raking with the troops. The drill is this: Bring the truckloads of debris from the WTC to this landfill on Staten Island. Then sift the debris through giant construction sifters with ¼-inch mesh (probably used normally for road demolition, to separate dirt from chunks of asphalt, etc.). Check the dirt, examine the remains (human or otherwise), and log the ones deemed useful. All human remains are reverently handled and taken to the morgue in Manhattan. The larger debris – very large pieces of the towers, parts of the planes, etc. – is then picked up by front-end loaders and spread over large areas and systematically raked through by FBI agents, Secret Service agents, NYPD officers and others. The goal is to recover human remains, the “black boxes” and anything else of evidentiary value which will better help piece together more details of the story.

I found a soupspoon and butter knife (both bent) and what appeared to be a Chinese or Japanese coin. Of less value I found pieces of carpet, a tablecloth (perhaps from the restaurant), clothing (most likely from one of the many stores in the building) and much violently twisted and broken metal, concrete, compressors, pipes, I-beams and who knows what else.

If you have ever doubted how transitory human life is and how passing its accomplishments you would only need to come to Staten Island for a few minutes. But to properly understand this whole event of 9/11 and put it into its most proper and comforting perspective, you would need to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest Psalm 90. This by the way is the Psalm on which Isaac Watts based his immortal hymn “Our God Our Help In Ages Past” (TLH 123).

Without apology it tells us that God turns men and our accomplishments back to dust; that He sweeps men away in the sleep of death; that we are consumed by His anger; that He sets our iniquities and secret sins before His face; that all of our days are nothing but trouble and sorrow; and that we should learn to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

But then this same majestic Psalm in its latter verses preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ by means of prayer, a prayer answered 1300 years after Moses first uttered it from the depths of his mortal grief, answered by the sacrificial death and victorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ very early Easter morning. The prayer was answered by that great act of salvation that freely gives resurrection hope and resurrection power to all who put their trust in Him and roundly trumps death and the devil.

It is a prayer He answered for you in baptism and will always answer for you even now. It goes like this: “Relent, Oh LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning (Easter morning) with your unfailing love (Calvary), that we may sing for joy and be glad all the days of our lives. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble. May your deeds (deeds of salvation accomplished for us on the cross) be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children. May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us (and it does); establish the work of our hands for us – yes, establish the work of our hands” (Psalm 90:13-17).

I will tell you one final story about a man whom for anonymity’s sake we will call Tom Pierce. While walking through the landfill greeting the officers and bringing them God’s peace in Christ, I noticed one particular young officer in his 30s more or less wandering about his given area. He had his rake lying horizontally over both shoulders with his arms hooked over it. We talked for a while in that hallowed place and he told me of his little daughter and his upcoming days off. As I was saying my farewells I offered him one of the already mentioned prayer sheets. He asked me to unzip his space suit (it’s actually called Tyvek) and put it into his coat pocket. He then said, “Chaplain, I’d like to show you something.” He took off his safety helmet

and pulled out a laminated photo from above the webbing. It was of two boys, perhaps seven years old, sitting at a kitchen table with their seven-yearold smiles. Pointing to one of the boys he said, “This is me, Chaplain.” Pointing to the other, he said, “That’s my friend Tommy Pierce. He’s in here somewhere and I want to bring him out.”

In closing we can pray the words of Psalm 90:17 for this officer and for all of my law enforcement flock and for their chaplain. “May the favor of Christ our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us – yes, establish the work of our hands.”

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain

FBI Cleveland Division

Cleveland Safety Forces

Chaplain’s Field Report

Friday, October 12, 2001

New York City, New York

Dear Friends,

It is now 10:00 a.m. on Friday, October 12 and I need to get some sleep, but I think this might be my only chance today to report last night’s activities. My niece Kate Kavouras is an Americorps volunteer and is here in New York City. We had a quick breakfast and she’s doing well. What an experience for a 20-year old!

This evening I’ll be having dinner with my partner at his home somewhere in New Jersey about 40 minutes from Manhattan. From there we will go to Staten Island for yet one more tour of duty.

I will most likely be spending Saturday night and Sunday morning in Greenwich, Connecticut at the home of Pastor and Mrs. Jimmy Coffey who have been so very helpful to me since my arrival. I will preach at Pastor Coffey’s church and there enjoy some much needed fellowship of the Word and the Sacrament. Sunday night we report back to work at the landfill. Those are the plans so far. But remember the words of James (4:13ff). “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’”

About 2:30 this morning things went from zero to sixty in an instant. I was making my rounds, walking the grounds talking to people, sometimes just a friend chatting, sometimes answering their questions and concerns, always leaving them with God’s blessings in Christ and a piece of good literature for later, always the Christian pastor. I had made my way to the far end of the site and was walking back hoping to get about 2 to 3 hours sleep in my car when an officer on a golf cart sped up behind me calling, “Chaplain, chaplain, hurry! Get in! We need you!” He reported at first that body parts and the badge of a police officer had been found. But as so often happens in emergency services, the early reports are not accurate. Only the badge was found, but what a big find it was, justifying the grueling labors of love extraordinarily performed by these ministers of God’s justice.

It seems that an eagle-eyed detective standing on an observation platform noticed a police officer’s badge quickly pass on the conveyor belt. The following words are a near quote from the official NYPD incident report: “The shield fell into a large pile of previously sifted debris. The sifter and conveyor belt were immediately shut down. All the assigned officers assembled at the front of the belt, at the debris pile and began an exhaustive search. A secondary search was made using hands, rakes and shovels in a relentless effort to retrieve the lost shield. After several unsuccessful attempts approximately 7 to 10 yards of rubble, consisting of dirt, metal, and rocks were gathered into a front end loader and placed back into the sifter… The

undersigned was present during the recovery operation for the shield. The members that participated in this effort were extraordinary. Approximately seven to ten yards of heavy debris was sifted through by hand two times for about 90 minutes. All members were in place and the shield was recovered. The perseverance and extreme physical measures to locate the shield paid off. Each member assigned is commended for their work and should be recommended for the appropriate department recognition.”

The badge was that of a Port Authority police officer. All work stopped. This was a sad and sacred and joyful moment for the crew in that they had helped bring back whatever remains they could for the fallen officer’s family. I would like to encourage you not to use the word “closure.” This will not close. Not now. Not ever. The officer’s loved ones will, by God’s grace, adjust. But I have walked portions (only portions) of that tortuous road to “adjustment” with the widows of police officers and others who have lost dear ones in death. Let us not talk about “closure.” Let’s talk rather about God’s promise to St. Paul and to you as well which says: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” May St. Paul’s response be yours as well: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest upon me.”

At that moment these bone-weary public servants wanted only one thing, for their chaplain to come and pray. They were not interested in flowery orations about the rocks and the trees but in strong medicine to stop the bleeding of their souls. And from the all-powerful, all-sufficient, life-giving, soul-restoring Word of God such was given.

About 100 people working in that general area of the landfill reverently gathered. I read to them from Psalm 23 and from 1 Thessalonians 4:13ff where St. Paul writes these words under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who have fallen asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring, with Jesus, those who have fallen asleep in him.”

Based on these words I explained to them that it was good to grieve but to do so as people who have hope, even here, even now. According to this Word of God, all who believe that Jesus died and that He rose victoriously from the dead for the sins of the world don’t die, but only sleep. They close their eyes here, but open them up in heaven where there are no more tears, no more sorrow and no more death (Revelation 21:4). I invited each of them to renew their faith in this promise and in the One who gives it, both now and always.

Though I did not know this officer’s faith, I made the assumption that he was baptized (a safe one in this heavily Roman Catholic area) and was thereby robed in the righteousness of Christ (Galatians 3:26ff). Further, I cannot imagine a scenario where any person who has ever heard the Christian message or named the name of Christ would not call on Him to save in circumstances such as these. He will always answer that prayer in the affirmative for He is the very “Yes” of God. In Him all God’s many promises find their “Yes.”

We closed with a committal of his body to the ground followed by an extemporaneous prayer, the Lord’s Prayer and the apostolic benediction. All attending were grateful and then returned to work.

Such is war.

The NYPD captain in charge included these words as point four of the official report: “Upon learning the details surrounding the found shield, all members involved in the recovery detail assembled together for a brief prayer service lead (sic) by Reverend Dean Kavouras, FBI chaplain.”

And now you know the rest of the story.

While it’s not normal pastoral practice to have burial services for people when we are unsure of their faith, the service was conducted as much as possible without prior notice in such a way and with such a stress that it was done for the living and not for the dead. In it I preached the Law and the Gospel to the people present urging them to put their trust in Christ, the solid Rock.

Thank you all for your excellent comments of appreciation, your prayers and good thoughts. I receive them each day via my wife. Thank you for the financial assistance to make my presence here possible.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain

FBI Cleveland Division

Cleveland Safety Forces

Chaplain’s Field Report

Sunday, October 14, 2001

New York City, New York

Dear Friends,

This report comes to you from the home of Pastor and Mrs. Jimmy Coffey in Greenwich, Connecticut. It’s now Sunday afternoon, October 14. I spent a most pleasant Saturday evening enjoying the Coffeys’ hospitality, staying the night in their guest room, and taking a much needed break. I preached the sermon this morning at First Lutheran based on Romans 3:25 which proclaims this good news to our sin-sick souls, that atonement has been made for our sins and that we are now at peace with God “through faith in His (Christ’s) blood.” No matter what happens now we know that we are in Good Hands and that “whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8).

But don’t be so quick to consign our land to a chemical or biological graveyard. Instead, let us live our lives and do what Jeremiah did when Jerusalem was in far greater danger than we are. He bought a piece of land. Do the same. Turn off your television and live your life. Carry on each day as a Christian should “in faith towards Thee and in fervent love towards one another” as we say in the post-communion prayer.

On Friday evening I had dinner at the home of my partner Jerry Richards of the FBI’s Newark Division. There I met his wonderful family and helped celebrate his father’s 77th birthday with a home cooked meal and birthday cake. What an oasis it was to be with this beautiful family and for a time put aside the cares of the work. About 10:00 p.m. we left his home and made our way to Staten Island about 30 minutes away. There the blessed work began again.

We passed the night walking the grounds and talking to people individually or in small clusters. Though we are supposed to wear respirators it is impossible to talk with them on. Mine in particular covers my clerical collar, which attracts people like a magnet. The Environmental Protection Agency personnel there assure us that the asbestos levels are within reason most of the time and that the methane gas that bubbles up like milk in many of the puddles is not a threat. I hope they are right and I think they are.

People’s response to having a chaplain on scene proves to me again and again that our work is good and right. Much of our ministry is done while the agents and officers are awaiting the next load of debris to be spread out for their careful examination. They sit on folding chairs and relax in the interim.

It was on one such folding chair in the middle of this garbage dump that I had the opportunity to speak with a U.S. Customs agent whose normal duty is drug interdiction at Kennedy Airport. He told of the very real fear of attack at his airport on September 11 and 12 and about his family who had been at home without their beloved man as he protected other families. What a sacrifice the families of our policemen make! Don’t ever take them for granted again. He told me that he felt compelled to be at the landfill doing this particular work though it was assigned on a volunteer basis. He told me also in the course of our discussion that he was a Roman Catholic, but had not attended Mass for many years. This afforded me opportunity to give him many Gospel assurances from the Word of God. I spoke of our Lord’s unjust death in that He was sinless and deserved no such thing, but that His blood was shed for our transgressions and to save us from God’s judgment. I spoke to

him about “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” I reminded him of what he received at baptism – the forgiveness of sins and membership into an eternal kingdom. He was most appreciative of a chaplain’s presence in the dump that night. I left him with a sermon I had preached this past Easter called “The Death of Death” based on 1 Corinthians 15:26: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”

He also requested a copy for his partner who was catching a quick nap. He showed me his partner’s hard hat and said, “This is what keeps him going, Chaplain, but he’s very depressed.” On that hard hat, written with indelible marker, were the names and ages of all the children who had died on the planes.

Meanwhile my partner was talking with an Evidence Response Team from a distant field office who had been rotated here, but this time the subject was not the present pain. Rather it revolved around an investigation they had done several years ago, involving a crime so gruesome that I will not even repeat it here. Jerry, with over 30 years in the Bureau and a great love for his fellow agents, was able to bring them much peace by his experience, presence and concern for them. God bless you, partner. They also received a copy of the previously mentioned sermon.

The final experience of the night was in the NYPD command post trailer where I was getting a cup of coffee before the morning roll call. A detective approached me and introduced himself. He said how grateful he was that the FBI and the New Jersey National Guard had sent chaplains. He said that his own department’s chaplains were all centered at “ground zero” and the morgue. Everyone had seemed to forget about the forlorn souls at the landfill working through the long dark night. This is all the more dismal because starting next week the FBI will only be sending a chaplain to the landfill for a few hours per day. Alas we too have a manpower shortage. I hope to return for another week or two later on since this operation will continue for months. I will talk with the NYPD’s man in charge here offering, if possible, to find some good pastors to come.

Though we were dragging by the end of our shift when we arrived back in Manhattan, Jerry asked if I wanted to take a 20-minute tour of the city. It was Saturday morning and traffic was almost non-existent. Twenty minutes turned into two hours. In that time we drove by the Empire State Building, United Nations, Rockefeller Center, Little Italy, the Upper West Side and the Upper East Side. We stopped at a real New York deli for a bagel (what else?) and met a woman with a thick New York accent carrying a poodle in her arms (honest).

Well, enough for now. I’ll be heading back to Manhattan shortly and getting ready for tonight’s shift, my second last one. I will dislike leaving these people as much as I will love to go home. As the night drew to a close I asked my partner, “Jerry, what is it that feels so absolutely good about being in this horrible garbage dump/graveyard in the middle of the night?” He said that it was the total unity of purpose of every person there and our coming together for a just cause. I think he’s right. At that moment I realized that I had not felt this much national pride since I was a Cub Scout in the early 1960s.

There’s something else besides – the honor of descending into hell with not a single weapon but the Word of God and observing its power to bring light to the most stygian darkness.

Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain

FBI Cleveland Division

Cleveland Safety Forces

Chaplain’s Field Report

Monday, October 15, 2001

New York City, New York

Dear Friends,

This morning at about 6:00 a.m. my partner and I completed our second last shift here. I had been up for 24 hours by that time and could not keep my eyes open to drive back to the hotel. Jerry, barely more awake, took the wheel and by the aid and protection of one of the Lord’s many angels we made it safely back.

The night was quite unpleasant in that it rained very hard and for a long time. This made the dump an even worse mess than it normally is. Besides the smell, the noise, the dark; besides the methane gas bubbling up through puddles of standing water due to broken gas lines below from the constant pounding of heavy equipment on the ground; besides the devastation and the death piled there, the weather meant that the personnel had to don rain pants and rain coats in addition to the Tyvek suits normally worn. This made things more cumbersome and seemed to slow the work down. I don’t know what they will do when winter sets in.

Jerry and I put on suits and raked with the troops for a while. They seem to greatly enjoy the chaplain’s presence here and find solace from it. During breaks we were able to speak to people. I conversed with one particular NYPD officer for about 10 minutes and as we parted he thanked me again and again for being there. He asked if I had taken notice of the person working over to our right. I said that I had. The officer then told me that this man had lost his brother, a fireman, in the attack.

Following my modus operandi of “loitering with intent” I was later able to strike up a conversation with this homicide detective. We sat together in the rain on the fender of a large portable generator which gives power to the klieg lights. There he told me his story without prompting. He related it with no particular emotion as if we were discussing a baseball game. He told me that his younger brother had been promoted to the rank of FDNY Captain and that 9/11 was his first day at work bearing this new rank. He informed me that this same brother, two years his junior, had been seriously burned at an alarm several years ago and had been off work for a very long time.

Everyone tried to talk him into retiring, but he would not. I asked whether or not his parents were still alive and he told me that his father was. What a terrible thing for that father to bear and also for this fireman’s wife and five children who are now fatherless. How awful for us all. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

I also learned that this detective was a decorated hero in connection with several actions above and beyond the call of duty. He had been shot and nearly killed a few years ago. He didn’t tell me this himself. Another officer, somehow divining what our discussion was about, approached us and joined in the conversation. (I guess that’s why he’s a detective.) Hopefully by my pastoral concern and by the prayers we prayed in that sacred swamp, he received at least some modicum of peace.

For the immeasurable amount of work that has gone on at this forgotten location, only five people have been definitively identified, four civilians and one fireman. Each day new human remains are recovered, not many but some. Each recovery, however minor, brings great satisfaction to the troops. For as Joseph of Arimathea claimed and recovered the body of the Lord from the cross, a most consecrated and blessed duty, so these people carry out their sacred and final obligation to the people for whom this loving Savior gave His life and by whose resurrection we too shall rise from death. These people do what policemen have always done. They enable the dead to tell their final story. They speak for those who are no longer able to speak for themselves.

There are two forensic anthropologists on scene. All human remains are brought to them and with lightening speed they are able to identify each bone, each part. Because there were many restaurants and therefore large amounts food throughout the Trade Towers, some remains recovered are not human, but animal. The personnel sifting through the rubble cannot tell the difference but the anthropologists can. They instantly identify and discard the animal remains. Tonight is my final night, so I plan to spend some time in their trailer and learn more about what they do.

This may sound gruesome and it is. But we must remember what Holy

Scripture says about our lives in Psalm 103: our lives are “like grass” and like “a flower of the field” they flourish. Then the wind blows over them and they are gone.

What we learn here is that mortal man is no more enduring than a blade of grass and, like a flower, our fullest bloom is also the beginning of our demise. Psalm 103:16 says that “the wind passes over him (this grass-like man) and he is no more.” Poetically speaking, the wind is an emblem of every form of peril that threatens our lives and it often seems that a mere “breath of wind” is all it takes to snap it off.

However, in the midst of this plant-like frailty, this mystery we call human existence, there is one strong ground of comfort. There is an everlasting power which elevates all. That power is “the love of the LORD” (Psalm 103:17).

Now in the Psalms the Lord is Christ and by virtue of His sacrificial death and glorious resurrection on our behalf, we are assured that even death cannot destroy us. In Christ, non-ending Life is ours. Jesus Himself declares, “I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me, will never die” (John 11:25-26).

Read and mark these beautiful verses from Psalm 103 and they will be adequate to carry you through this and all other crises of life:

“The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him; for He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is

with those who fear Him, and His righteousness with their children’s children –with those who keep His covenant and remember to obey His precepts” (vv. 8-18).

Tonight I will complete my work here, sad to leave and happy to return home. When I return and catch my breath I hope to render one final report to you summarizing the work and giving credit to the many people who made this ministry possible. The peace of God in Christ be with you all.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain

FBI Cleveland Division

Cleveland Safety Forces

Chaplain’s Field Report

Tuesday, October 16, 2001

New York City, New York

Dear Friends,

Our last shift is now over. Partner Jerry Richards and I said our good byes. For my part I have been highly honored to work with him. Together we made a great team and accomplished much for the mental and spiritual wellbeing of the people who so tirelessly serve us all.

We both entertain hopes of working together again, but we also dread that prospect because chaplains and Employee Assistance Units are never called out unless the worst has happened.

We are 911 for the FBI. Our last night could not have gone better. We had some goals in mind and accomplished them all. The first was to get to know the forensic anthropologists, photographers and dentists a little better, because we were curious about their work. They are the ones who identify human remains at

crime scenes and other disasters in which human life is unrecognizable due to the extremity of the circumstances.

Truly, our life is “a vapor” (James 4:14).

We introduced ourselves to these folks and in short order they asked us into their trailer for refreshments. Reading between the lines I perceived that this was more than a simple invitation. This particular team had logged approximately 1000 fragments of human remains, a daunting task under any circumstances but one made worse by the nature and number of the deaths and by the desolate location of the work. Jerry and I visited with this group, and conversed with them about their work and their families. They were most pleased to have our company. As we prepared to take our leave I inquired whether they would like to hear some comforting words from the Scriptures and to have a prayer for their well-being and success. All seemed quite amenable to this so I read to them from Psalm 23 (which has been getting a lot of use lately) and prayed a prayer focusing again on Joseph of Arimathea. As he recovered the body of our Lord from the cross, these people were following in a holy train by their special work. In the prayer I reminded them that Jesus had met with death in order to pay the penalty for the sins of all people and that He was raised from the dead as the first of many – He being the first, we being the many to follow. The team was grateful for this special blessing.

This done we took our leave and moved to our second objective – to work with the crews again. Jerry raked in the fields and I spent time at one of the giant sifters examining all that came by on the four-foot wide conveyor belt. There are ten people stationed per sifter, five on each side, carefully probing all that passes. In about one hour I watched an estimated ten to twenty tons of debris that was once the World Trade Center move by. I observed large pieces of metal twisted and torn in every way as if it were paper. Rock, cement, papers, mud, a used disposable diaper, a man’s shoe showing wear on the heel, a skirt, pipes, fire hose, fire alarms, fluorescent lighting fixtures, carpet pieces, computer boards, a bone with strands of tissue at one end and much, much more went past. I immediately plucked the bone from the belt

and was later informed by the anthropologist that it was a collar bone. The personnel were happy and, I hope, encouraged to see God’s presence among them in the person of a Christian pastor.

I mentioned in a previous report that one Evidence Response Team member had spoken to my partner about a particularly ghastly incident in which they had been involved some time ago. I was able to speak to another team member and plainly asked him about it, telling him that Jerry had mentioned it to me. He was willing to talk about it. I was able to listen and offer him some good literature. I pray that the Word will take root in him for the healing of his wounds.

God’s Word is well able to do this because it gives us the eternal perspective of things, one far larger than any problem this world can concoct. Luther catches this spirit in his hymn, “A Mighty Fortress,” when he writes: “And take they our life; goods, fame, child and wife; let these all be gone, they yet have nothing won; the Kingdom ours remaineth!” Or as St. Paul writes in Romans 8:18 “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

There were other contacts as well, sometimes just a handshake, a warm greeting or word of blessing, which in this hellhole became important gestures of God’s love and blessing to these beloved men and women.

The “ministry of presence,” as it is called, is important. But it is not the be-all and end-all of a chaplain’s work as most of cowering Christianity supposes. It can, however, be potent if the Word of God dominates and is plainly offered to one and all.

Our final NYPD roll call prayer focused this group too on Joseph of Arimathea. I spoke of the death and resurrection of Christ for the sins of the world and the heaven it promises us all. I told them that I had been honored to serve with them and that there were no better hands on the planet to carry out this sacred task than theirs. We closed with a portion of the committal service from the Lutheran Agenda: “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust” in

honor of the dead. We prayed the Lord’s Prayer and I gave the Apostolic benediction. This done, we concluded our service to these good people.

Last evening before going to the dump I took one more brief tour of “ground zero.” It’s still smoldering and words cannot do it justice. I briefly spoke to some of the firemen working there, gave them encouragement and assurances from God’s Word and left literature with them for their later perusal.

I am now hoping for a few hours sleep and to take my leave, loving this city much more today than ten days ago. Then I was unimpressed by it; now I am sorry to leave.

As previously promised I will give you at least one more summary report and attempt to publicly thank all who made this work possible. Thank you, one and all.

”I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain FBI Cleveland Division Cleveland Safety Forces

Chaplain’s Final Field Report Saturday, October 20, 2001 Cleveland, Ohio

Dear Friends,

The peace of God, the peace which passes all understanding, may that peace keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus our Lord. While there are other antidotes for the disquiet of the day, each is illusive, short-lived and not very potent. But the peace which our Lord earned on the cross, peace between man and God, will never let you down – not in life and not in death.

Though this will be the final field report from my duties in New York City, you can anticipate more from time to time as my ministry continues to Cleveland’s fire and police divisions and to our local FBI personnel. This is, after all, my primary flock. This is a very tense time for them especially with the added burden of following up on anthrax calls.

A brief word on that subject: According to sober sources your chance of coming into contact with anthrax at this time is only one in two million. So calm down, turn off television’s talk terrorists (the enemies within), and live your life to the full extent of the blessings which God affords you each day. When He does call you home, as you close your eyes on earth you will open them in heaven. Those you love, upheld by God’s grace each day, will one day follow. “For it is appointed unto a man once to die” (Heb. 9:27) and “God who has called you is faithful” (1 Corinthians 1:9). There will be a reunion at that time, the grandest ever, when once again we meet face to face with all the dear people who have been separated from us by death. There we will greet departed loved ones with tears of joy, unending embraces and the solemn promise “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee”. There we will reconnect with spouses and children, brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents, friends and neighbors who have been united to Christ by faith.

Regarding New York City I ask that you remember to regularly pray for those involved in the recovery work which will take many months. Pray also for those doing the investigations, which will take many years. These are most effectively prayed for whenever we pray the Lord’s Prayer, for under the petition of “daily bread” we ask God to give us all that we need to support this body and life, which includes good and effective government. Likewise in the petition “deliver us from evil” we ask our Heavenly Father to guard us from all forms of evil, including war, terrorism, anthrax and the like. Check out your catechisms on this point. For more true inspiration on the subject, see the Large Catechism. You will be astounded at how contemporary this 500year old statement of faith is. Further, when we confess the first article of the Creed we are saying that we believe that God does in fact answer these prayers. My friends, there is no more potent weapon against the present troubles. In Joshua 1:9 the Lord says to His people “Be strong and courageous, do not be discouraged, do not be terrified for the LORD your God will be with you

wherever you go.” Besides a great comfort, this verse gives us occasion to pray, to confess our faith and to believe in the One who is able to do more than we can ask or even think.

While on the subject of prayer we should also remember the pastors and chaplains who live in New York, for while I have the luxury of coming home, they do not. Perhaps some of you pastors out there might want to contact the brethren in New York and spend some time there encouraging them, visiting with them and working with them.

Also regarding New York City I am inquiring whether or not it is possible to send other good pastors there, especially to Staten Island, because nearly all chaplain efforts are being directed to the World Trade Center site and to the morgue. I have a plan in mind and have spoken to some pastors who are also police chaplains. Additionally there is a good chance that I will return one or more times for the pastoral need is great and the resources small.

May God preserve us, but this is not over! Never before in the history of this country have our safety forces needed such pastoral care and direction as now. What can give that care and direction like God’s Word?

Firemen have always been American heroes but never before did we appreciate them as we do now. Before 9/11 many saw policemen as a necessary evil, but now they are our best friend. One FBI agent told me yesterday that before 9/11 people in general were very reluctant to talk with federal agents about anything. Now, he tells me, people invite him in and give information along with coffee and cookies. We will depend on these ministers of God’s justice more than ever before, so let’s give them our best.

As for myself, I am slowly recovering from this very draining experience. They say you can’t catch up on sleep but I seem to be doing just that. While in New York I got an average of 4 hours a day. For the last four nights I have been getting about twelve. I am just starting to feel rejuvenated today. Last evening my wife and I went to a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD) which is a very helpful tool of psychology. It is for people who have

encountered situations which are beyond their normal coping mechanisms. This was beneficial. Actually we could use a CISD for the whole country since we have all been through a critical incident. Yet there is nothing as salutary as the Divine Services in God’s house each Sunday morning. There, by means of the reverent music, great hymns, liturgical formulations, creeds, assigned readings from God’s Word, Christ-centered preaching, prayers and the Sacraments; there I say, the Balm of Gilead is richly imparted to our hearts and minds. If your church offers these you have enough, more than enough. If they don’t, either get your congregation back on track or find a church which gives what is truest and best.

But this need not be limited to Sunday. Perhaps this would be a good time to establish the practice of evening or morning prayer at your church on weekdays. Now might be a good time to make use of your hymnal at home for family hymn singing, for gathering church friends together at home to sing hymns and read psalms, and for inviting your friends to church where they will hear the Word of eternal life. There is much that can be done.

Finally, thanking people by name is a risky business lest anyone be forgotten but please bear with me as I try. I want to thank FGF Gregory Hoshek who first got me involved in safety forces chaplain work with the Cleveland Fire Division; Cleveland Fire Chief Kevin Gerrity for his encouragement; Patrolman Tom Suva, Patrolman Jim Simone and Lieutenant John Bocchicchio of the Cleveland Police Division for their assistance in logistics and their encouragement; Mr. Scott Screiber for assistance in creating sound Christian literature for handing out; SSA Rob Daniels who is in charge of the FBI’s chaplain program for inviting me to participate in both the Somerset crash site and in New York City; Pastor Dan Hahn of Johnstown, Pennsylvania who assisted me in Somerset; Pastor Jimmy Coffey of Greenwich, Connecticut who assisted me in New York City; SSA Steve Spruill, SA Tim Fox-Moles and SA John Wills for their assistance in Somerset; SA Jerry Richards for being a great partner in Staten Island; FBI chaplain Richard Turner (LCMS) who preceded me at Staten Island and gave me valuable advice; the following NYPD police officers Kate McCauley, Danny Malo, Captain Ron Facciponti, Lieutenant Bruce Bovino, Sgt. Dominic Longo, and Inspector James Luongo.

On the home front I thank Rev. Jay Lemanski and Rev. Tim Landskroener for their theological advice and assistance. Again I thank Christ Lutheran Church and my partner Rev. Lloyd Gross for allowing me to do this work. Special thanks go to Rosemary Martinka, my administrative assistant, whose competent work made it possible for me to travel at ease. Finally I would like to thank my family who let me leave during a time of great national crisis, especially my wife, Barb, for being the faithful assistant, helpmeet and conduit in getting information to all of you. I thank each of you for reading, for praying, for your e-mails of encouragement and support. If all goes well we should have a modest website in the next couple of weeks which will include these field reports and some pictures. Thank you again.

“I have done all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain FBI Cleveland Division Cleveland Safety Forces

Chapter 5 Cleveland, Ohio

For many weeks now people have been discussing the differences between our holy Christian faith and the religion of Islam. Many Christian clergymen have stated in public that Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship the same God. This is not true. Any god that is not approached through Christ our Lord is not the true God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – but an idol. St. Paul states it even more poignantly in 1 Corinthians 10:20 when he says, “They sacrifice to devils.” I used my sermon for the festival of Reformation to explain the differences, while staying within the framework of a Reformation remembrance. It was preached at Trinity Lutheran Church in Warren, Ohio. Appendix C includes the entire sermon.

Chaplain’s Field Report

Monday, December 3, 2001

Cleveland, Ohio

Dear Friends,

If I were to title this report it could be called “The Beat Goes On” because that’s exactly what is happening with me, as it is with you, I’m sure. Each of us must live our lives, clean our houses, pay our bills, get ready for Christmas, etc. I wanted to keep in touch and let you know what goes on daily in my chaplaincy work.

One important thing that has not gone on is to formally acknowledge the tremendous support you have all given me with your financial assistance, your

words of encouragement and, most importantly, your prayers. A door has been opened wide to preach the Gospel of Christ and give the encouragement and wisdom of God’s Word to some very special people – our safety forces.

It appears that our national fervor for God and country might be fading a bit since 9/11, but it still seems that there are two people that we want to have very near these days: the fireman and the policeman.

We must be eternally grateful to them and to our Lord who has given them to us, for they have done more than you will ever know to unravel what has happened and to prevent more of the same. As ugly as it can ever get on earth, they have gone there for us. They have done for us what we could never have accomplished for ourselves. And they continue to do it even as we speak.

This makes my lack of formal thank you letters all the more lamentable. If and when the other shoe drops, I will be bold enough and helpless enough to call on you again for more of your selfless support so that these blessed heroes can receive the courage, willingness and God-given strength to offer even more of themselves to us all. So thank you for your understanding until the formal ‘thank yous’ arrive.

Since returning from New York in mid-October, besides the many new demands that domestic war has put on me, I have also carried out my normal duties.

In early November I spent the day in Federal court with some of my agents who were prosecuting a child sex predator. This is a case which had been developed for over a year and was due to come to trial this September. Though the attacks delayed it – for virtually every agent’s attention was turned to national security – law and order must still be maintained even in times of war. The pressures to present a coherent and effective case at a time like this, against such a craven criminal as this, were beyond imagination. But the good guys won as the 57-year old defendant was convicted on all four counts of the indictment and will spend many years behind bars where he can no longer harm young teenage girls.

The chaplain’s presence and his prayers with these agents seemed to encourage them greatly, for not only were they dealing with an oily character, but they had spent many hours compiling evidence, pictures and tapes of the most lurid sexual behavior one can imagine.

Coincidentally, just this past week I did similar duty on the local level for a Cleveland police officer. He had arrested a man several months ago for crimes against a stepdaughter which I need not repeat here. Suffice it to say that, not only did the man show no remorse, he seemed proud of his crimes and held his stepdaughter in contempt. Try being the policeman on that case and see how long you could maintain your professionalism.

In both of these cases, I spoke to the people about the blood of Christ which purifies us from every sin and restores us to the original innocence and perfect fellowship we had with God before sin entered the world. In so doing, I found verse three of the hymn “Hark the Glad Sound” to be a powerful tool. This excellent stanza proclaims what the Savior would accomplish by coming to earth and shedding His sacred blood for our sins.

“He comes, from thickest films of vice, To clear the mental ray; And on the eyeballs of the blind To pour celestial day.” (TLH 66)

Besides these more dramatic cases, there is the everyday work: visiting injured firemen (many burns, bruises, punctures, strains, etc.) and policemen who sustain relatively minor injuries, but which nonetheless are unnerving to both the personnel and their families. They entail pain, time off from work, medicine, treatments, doctors visits, paperwork and too often chronic problems in later years.

There are also ongoing matters. There are people I have visited for many months or even years. One seriously injured officer comes to mind. He had to jump off a freeway overpass to the road below in order to save his life from an oncoming car which was driving in the berm instead of the lane. Though

this happened nearly two years ago he is still off work, has had many surgeries and may never fully recover. If you ever get tired of working or take your health for granted, try sitting for two years.

There are also two police widows, young mothers with small children who, along with their husbands, have made the ultimate sacrifice. While everyone seems to forget about these folks after a few months or a year they still need the comfort of Christ. It seems to mean so much more coming from the chaplain.

There are many others I stay in contact with as well – those who have lost children, parents, spouses. It might be a brief phone call, a cup of coffee at their kitchen table, a beer at the pub, a personal visit to their fire station or police car, an e-mailed sermon or note of encouragement. No drama. No glory. Just the milk of human kindness delivered by the Christian pastor, always the Word of God’s love for them in Christ and a reminder of the heaven which we will inherit by virtue of our connection to the Savior, made when we were baptized into His name.

I also spent one week in Quantico, Virginia at the FBI National Training Academy. It was an in-service for all FBI chaplains and a wonderful opportunity to meet and compare notes. We spent one of those days in Washington, D.C. at FBI headquarters, met with Director Robert Mueller and had a chance to ask him questions. We spent another session dissecting our experiences from the Pentagon, New York City and Somerset sites. This too brought new stories to light and made us all better equipped for next time. It was an excellent event which helped us and which served to make the program stronger. This is good for everyone concerned.

Among other benefits, I heard a theme from one of the chaplains which well describes our work: To protect and serve those who protect and serve. That is what safety chaplains do.

By the mighty Word of God and the glorious, eternal promises it gives in Christ, we protect these protectors from sin, death and the devil. We give

them the imperishable words of eternal life, when everything around them spells out in vivid detail how temporary and frail human life is in this sinful world. We are there to serve them and their families and to help them know (or regain) peace, sanity and security in this amazing adventure known as law enforcement and the fire service.

In closing I will relate one final story which again illustrates how vital the safety forces consider their chaplains. One of my fellow FBI chaplains was standing in the pit at “ground zero” when a Battalion Chief approached him and asked, “Chaplain, are you going to be here very long?” The chaplain, thinking he might be in the way, said, “Did you want me to move?” The chief said, “No, just stay exactly where you are and don’t move. We just want to be able to see you while we’re working and know that you’re here with us.”

I leave you with the words of Solomon from Ecclesiastes 3:1-9: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain FBI Cleveland Division Cleveland Safety Forces

Chaplain’s Field Report

Tuesday, January 15, 2002

Cleveland, Ohio

Dear Friends,

Very recently I received the following article about the work going on at Staten Island. Because it is a better description than I myself could give, I enclose it in its entirety. Lt. Bruce Bovino (in the article) is the NPYD Lieutenant I spoke of at the close of my field report from October 10, 2001.

The Lutheran Heritage Foundation has asked me to weave these field reports into a book. I am working on that presently and hope to include this article as part of it.

Currently there is nothing special to report, only the daily chaplain’s work: visiting the sick and injured; counseling with firemen, policemen and FBI agents on the fears and frustrations of the job as well as the normal array of personal dilemmas; spending time with them in the office and in the field, a safe and trusted friend – always there to support and encourage them with the Word of God.

Here is the article. Remember these people in your prayers.

From: News and Views | City Beat | Sunday, January 06, 2002

Anguished Search For Traces of the Missing Grim Task at Fresh Kills

By RICHARD T. PIENCIAK Daily News Senior Correspondent

Standing amid the transplanted ruins of Sept. 11, the immensity of the task underway at this makeshift City on the Hill is difficult to comprehend. Death and its aftermath are spread out everywhere.

The 175-acre encampment, born of the World Trade Center attacks, ultimately will serve as the final resting place for the countless tiny pieces of humanity that will prove to be irretrievable from the 1.2 million tons of “ground zero” debris.

Any failure to decipher completely the minute fragments of human flesh entombed in the mounds of waste will not be for lack of effort, though.

Literally billions of pieces of debris are being scrutinized meticulously at the reopened Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island in the hope of finding a victim’s body part or a personal belonging that can help give a heartbroken family a bit of solace.

“It’s a corporal work of mercy,” said NYPD Deputy Inspector James Luongo, who heads the sifting and retrieval effort. “We’re helping to bury the dead.” The site has a second mission, although the importance of that has diminished over time: The search continues for a chunk of incriminating evidence and for the so-called black boxes from the jetliners that hit the twin towers, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Already 900,000 tons have been processed in this arduous effort, including heavy steel that has been recycled. At the center of the operation are several work areas, each equipped with three large conveyor belts: one for fine soil and particles, one for solid pieces as tiny as one-quarter inch, and one for larger chunks.

Working daily from 5 a.m. to midnight, hundreds of NYPD detectives and federal agents dressed in protective gear stand watch along the conveyor belts — as many as eight to a belt — searching through every fragment. When warranted, a piece of debris is picked up and given closer scrutiny.

Items such as a ripped woman’s shoe are examined carefully, but usually are put back on the line because they lack any identifying feature.

Possible body parts are placed in plastic buckets, which are handed over to

the NYPD Crime Scene Unit. Stored in freezers, the body parts are quickly passed on to the medical examiner’s office.

A forensic anthropologist is often on site. Because there were many restaurants in the WTC complex, investigators have been finding animal bones among the debris.

So far, 2,900 human body parts have been recovered at the landfill, an average of about 30 a day — and an average of about one per victim.

46 Victims Identified

By last week, 46 victims had been identified from remains retrieved here, some by fingerprints, some by dental charts and some by DNA. Many more human parts are being tested for DNA. Special Agent Richard Marx, the FBI’s lead representative here, said one victim was identified recently from a four-inch piece of bone.

The most dramatic reminder of the terrorist attacks is the collection of burned-out and crushed vehicles — row upon row of civilian cars, NYPD police vans, patrol cars and a wide variety of fire apparatus. There are more than 1,200 wrecked vehicles here already, with another 800 expected when crews at “ground zero” get to the Trade Center’s subterranean garages.

The cars are stacked up to four high. Alongside, there’s a Con Ed truck, a Verizon van, a sport-utility vehicle that was used by an NYPD undercover team. In between are mangled motorcycles and police scooters.

The graveyard of fire trucks is a sobering and humbling sight. Several of the trucks are so squished they are barely recognizable. The long ladders of several trucks had been softened by the intense heat of the WTC fires, then reshaped into half circles.

The contents of car trunks and back seats reveal clues about their former owners: a Wilson Hammer 5.0 tennis racket cover, tattered pages from a Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys Super Mystery paperback (“Murder on the Fourth of July”), a kid’s two-wheel scooter, stuffed animals, a shopping bag from Saks Fifth Avenue, a VCR tape of “Seinfeld,” cell phone bills, a jumpsuit, exercise equipment, a hair dryer, a box of wedding invitations.

One day the searchers found hundreds of shopping bags from a Gap store. Another day, they found a large selection of Gap clothing, with the price tags still attached.

Engine parts from American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the north tower, sit outside the FBI trailer, next to several landing-gear tires.

Searchers have found several box cutters, though they don’t know for certain if these were among the ones used by the hijackers.

While the larger pieces of debris “bring the message home,” Luongo said, the retrieval operation is the heart of the City on the Hill — the reason for its being.

“There’s no glamour, no Hollywood here,” said Luongo, contrasting this barren parcel to the celebrity atmosphere exhibited from time to time at “ground zero”. “This is the non-sexy part of the operation. This is where the work is being done.”

300-350 NYPD detectives, drawn on a rotating basis from across the city, staff the site, carved out of the 3,000-acre landfill that was shut last March after 50-plus years. They are joined by Sanitation Dept. personnel and up to 60 federal agents, including representatives of the FBI, Secret Service, Customs, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Agriculture.

While much has been written about the bravery and heroism displayed at the WTC site, there are many unsung heroes toiling here, too.

“It is important that people understand the dedication of the detectives working up here,” said Luongo, a 21-year NYPD veteran and father of four.

Luongo’s top assistant, Lt. Bruce Bovino, who had a Sept. 11 birthday dinner reservation with his wife at a WTC restaurant, added, “We’re the lucky ones. We’re getting to do something.”

John Paccione, 36, a 12-year NYPD veteran who usually works out of the 60th Precinct Robbery Squad, said, “You hope that by working here you can help bring some finality to the families, whether they are police or fire or civilians.

“We all have to do our part,” he added. “We’re at war.”

Paccione, who’s been reporting to the landfill one or two days a week for three months, has been part of teams that have found clothing and pieces of human remains. “The most important thing is to find bodies, or at least body parts, to help bring about that finality,” he said.

Health and Safety Paramount

The investigators work in a highly compartmentalized environment. At the start of each shift, they’re given a brief introductory speech, then outfitted in protective gear — full-length white Tyvek suits, half-face respirators with HEPA filters, hard hats, goggles, hearing protection and protective footwear.

Concerns for health and safety are paramount. The air is sampled regularly for asbestos and other contaminants. Test results are posted prominently.

Before meal and coffee breaks, and at the end of the shift, all workers undergo decontamination, including showers, if needed.

The site had been operating on two 12-hour shifts, starting at 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. “But the mission has changed appreciably in recent days,” Luongo said. “There are fewer big pieces. The debris stream is much finer now; it needs

more care and attention.”

Last week, Luongo added a third shift, starting at noon. Equipment maintenance and repairs are performed in the remaining five predawn hours.

Site methodology has come a long way, too. Assisted by Bovino and Marx, 33, Luongo started out supervising detectives sifting through the debris with garden rakes, or manually, on their hands and knees.

Today, the work force uses sophisticated heavy equipment, much of it fabricated from the commercial recycling industry. One of the new machines, made by a company in Ireland, consists of a long, round cylinder that resembles a giant clothes dryer. It spins big hunks of debris to loosen and separate fine particles that had clumped together around one or two large pieces.

“It is a constantly evolving situation,” Marx said of the developing technology.

The so-called City on the Hill is now its own community. There’s a mess hall, complete with hot food, the Salvation Army and elderly Southern Baptist Convention volunteers from Florida.

Up to 700 meals a day are served at “The Hilltop Cafe.”

All of the eating, changing and decontamination centers are heated. So are many of the outside raking and sifting areas.

Inside the food hall, there’s a Christmas tree in the center of the eating area; photos and brief biographies of victims serve as ornaments. There’s a bigscreen TV at one end of the hall. On Friday, a cabaret singer, accompanied by a piano player, entertained the landfill troops, sort of like a USO show.

The mess hall walls are filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of supportive letters and drawings from school kids throughout the nation. Outside stands the only surviving tree from the outdoor areas around the WTC.

Bovino, a 46-year-old father of two, acknowledged he and his colleagues had

heard the complaints and concerns from some victims’ relatives that at times there hasn’t been enough reverence paid during the sifting process. “I’m not going to say that we’re going to find every piece and every bit,” Bovino said. “We may miss things. But it won’t be for a lack of trying. It’s just that there’s so much debris. We’re doing the best we can.”

Officials hope to close the operation by September. The most optimistic view has the job being completed by July. But much work remains to be done. And heated tents notwithstanding, winter is setting in. Once the retrieval operation is completed, and the remains of so many are buried here, Luongo and the others hope the city erects a memorial.

“This wasn’t only a police and fire tragedy. This wasn’t only for New York,” Luongo said. “This was a tragedy for the whole country.”

New York Daily News, L.P. reprinted with permission

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain

FBI Cleveland Division

Cleveland Safety Forces

“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the law.” Romans 3:28

Rev. Kavouras preaching at the Pennsylvania crash site on Sunday, September 23, 2001.

FBI and other federal agents attending the Sunday morning service in Shanksville, Pennsylvania

Bronze plaque with the names of those who perished on United Airlines Flight 93 at the memorial site in Pennsylvania.

Fire apparatus crushed by the World Trade Center collapse and taken to the Staten Island landfill.

A symbol of Hope...the cross found by rescue workers at Ground Zero in the World Trade Center rubble.

NYPD detectives in Tyvek coveralls taking a break from their work in specially constructed areas which allowed them to take a short break without going through the decontamination process.

Port Authority Officer Paul Jurgens’ badge became the cause for an informal funeral service on October 12 at the Staten Island landfill.

One of many memorials set up around Manhattan to honor lost fire fighters.

Chapter 6 The Reaction

There are two reasons Lutherans are reluctant to dwell on the palpable results of the ministry we perform, be it in the battlefield or the sanctuary. First, according to Scripture we believe the Word to be powerful and able to accomplish that which God sends it out to do (Isaiah 55:11ff). All power resides in the Word and none in the person conveying it. Pastors are merely the privileged instruments who transmit it. Second, also according to Scripture’s own promise, we know that God “gives the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:6-7), which is to say that He Himself brings about the gracious results when and where He chooses. Therefore, in many ways the ministry of Word and Sacrament is the easiest work there is. God commissions us to preach the Gospel and removes the responsibility of the outcome from our sphere. Preach we do, be it the spoken Word – in the form of direct readings, sermons, prayers, liturgies or hymns -- or by means of what Lutherans call the “visible” Word of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

This being said, as a final chapter I include some of the responses people have made to the work I was privileged to do and to the field reports themselves, received by people around the world on e-mail postings as the dates on the reports themselves indicate. Many individuals have stated that reading these accounts of how the Gospel helped others in their mortal anguish also proved beneficial to them. While this was an added benefit it comes as no surprise, because St. Paul plainly tells us that the Gospel is “the power of God unto salvation for all who believe” (Romans 1:16) and every American suffered a “critical incident” on 9/11 for which the Good News is the ultimate cure.

Each day as I recapped my work in the form of these field reports I e-mailed

them to my wife, who in turn e-mailed them to friends, family members and fellow Lutherans around the country. Many of these people in turn passed them on to their friends and fellow Christians. Here are some of the responses and words of encouragement I received back.

This first response is from fellow pastor and Navy chaplain Rev. Craig Muehler.

Wednesday, September 19, 2001 4:10 PM

Subject: Chaplain field report 09-18-01

Aloha Dean,

This is Craig Muehler, Navy Chaplain. Thanks for the update and for being a faithful Chaplain who preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its truth and purity. Your comments about the other “Christian” chaplains is the same that I have witnessed here in the Navy as we held our prayer services and memorial services. Many lost friends in the Pentagon and it makes me ill to hear some of these Chaplain’s (sic) who try to comfort people with a crossless, Christless, prayer service and/or message. I, as you, proclaim Christ and Him Crucified and Risen. He is truly (as you eloquently write) the Balm of Gilead.

Thanks again for your work and I just wanted to let you know that amid your frustration and feeling like Elijah, and that all have bowed to BAAL, there are a few of us Chaplains who continue to preach the Law and Gospel to our Sailors, Marines, Airmen and Soldiers.

Our prayers are with you from the Warship USS INCHON (MCS 12). God grant you strength and courage to remain faithful The harvest truly is plentiful and the workers are few. Preach the Word, in season and out of season.

In Christ’s Service, Craig Command Chaplain USS INCHON (MCS 12)

This next missive is from Mrs. Barb Mulvey, a fellow Lutheran in Fulton, New York. In it she sends her thanks by way of my wife and faithful scrivener, Barb.

Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2001 11:01 AM

Subject: Thank you

Dear Barb,

I have tried to write this note about a dozen different ways and it always comes out too long and too confusing.

Please tell your dear husband that he has not only helped those in need in New York City. With his reports, he has also helped me with my grief (in the passing of my Mom). I am very grateful to your husband, and to the Lord for choosing such a man, and to you for passing along the reports. Thank you.

Love in Christ, Barb Mulvey, Fulton, NY

This brief note comes from Lisa Stapp of Houston, Texas.

From: Lisa M. Stapp

Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 7:14 PM

Subject: Chaplain Field Report NYC 10/14/01

You’ll never know how utterly encouraging these are! Thanks!

From a woman in Cleveland, Ohio we received the following:

Thanks for making us part of your heartfelt tour of duty. It is comforting knowing that there are people like you to help these people through this terrible part of their life. You have helped me also as I read what you tell them - I feel like you are talking to me also.

Prayers are with you.

Doris Karger

From fellow pastor Rev. Lincoln Winter in Chicago.

From: Lincoln Winter

Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2001 1:35 PM

Subject: Your work

Pastor Kavouras,

I could no longer refrain from writing to you to share just how important your work, and the reports which you are sending out, have been to Christ’s church. They have been an inspiration to me at this time as I try to serve the church, and they have been a shining example to our synod of how one can speak clearly of Christ in a pluralistic and relativistic world. Such words are needed now more than ever…I do not wish to simply complain about our [church’s problems in proclaiming a clear message at this time] but I had to let you know that in the struggles of our own beloved church body, you are the most potent weapon against false teaching and practice at this time – not because of anything which is in you, but because you wield the sword of the Spirit – that is the Word of God - keep up the excellent work!

+INJ+

The Reverend Lincoln

C. Winter Pastor, Bethany Lutheran Church

These comments are from fellow pastor, Rev. Robert Dibell in Oklahoma.

From: Rev. Robert Dibell

Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2001 9:34 AM

Subject: Chaplain Field Report NYC 10/9/01

Dear Barb,

Thanks again for passing on Dean’s words to me. I get a great deal of comfort from them, and I pray for God’s continued blessing on him and his ministry to the FBI, police, firemen, medical personnel, and all who so diligently search the debris for bodies and identities of those lost in that horrendous disaster.

Please pass on my support to Dean, and let him know that we who are far from the front lines of this effort do indeed support him with our prayers.

Your brother in Christ, The. Rev. Robert Dibell

From a pastor’s wife in Milwaukee, Wisconsin:

From: “Timothy May”

Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 6:47 PM

Subject: Chaplain Field Report NYC 10/15/01

Dear Barb,

Just wanted to thank you for sharing your husband’s letters with all of us. I passed several of them along and found out tonight that my mom even used one of them at a Seminary wives meeting in St. Louis. So his words have done a lot of people a lot of good. I really found his perspectives very meaningful, especially after being bombarded by the liberal media. There’s so much trite sentimentalism out there that tries to be spiritual comfort these days. The chaplain’s letters were such a relief in the midst of this all!

God’s blessings, Kathy May

In this next epistle Mrs. Kay Moldenke made us aware of the wider audience well-affected by the field reports.

From: Kay Moldenke

Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2001 3:10 PM

Subject: Chaplain Field Report NYC final 10/20/01

Many thanks for your faithfulness to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! I have appreciated these almost daily communications more than I can say, and shall miss them, for they have been food for my own soul. I have wept with those who weep and rejoiced with those who rejoice. You have perhaps personalized these tragic days for me as no other communication Your steady, consistent proclamation of the Word has been a sure anchor for turbulent times. And your own humility and acknowledgment of total inadequacy have spurred me on also to rely more fully on the One through Whom alone we can do all things.

These past weeks with you have been a spiritual journey. While your primary call was to those in Somerset and Staten Island, you have ministered to your readers also--and in ways that I’m sure differ for each one of us. Your flock is far larger than you realize!

Today’s message is particularly relevant for me since I will be heading for Morocco and the Ivory Coast next week. I plan yet today to read the portions of Luther’s Large Catechism to which you referred. What a comfort and source of encouragement you are! What precious words from The Word! What a Living Hope we have! What a faithful God!

May He continue to bless, strengthen, and use you mightily in all your ministry. I see in you a faithful servant of our Lord Jesus Christ, one who with all his heart and soul is living to praise His glorious Name by telling the Good News, unapologetically, but with the love and compassion of Christ Himself. There IS no other Name!

I once heard Harry Wendt use the expression “doing feet” in relation to our call as servants of Christ. You have been “doing feet” most eloquently in these past weeks-

-with a passion and with the Master’s heart.

Thanks for the blessing you have been to me. Look forward to that web site you are setting up.

In His Name, Kay L. Moldenke

O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good; for His mercy endureth forever! Psalm 107:1

Chapter 7 Return to New York City

I returned to Staten Island in April 2002 for a six-day tour of duty. Although this trip was not made at the request of the FBI, I was granted official permission to serve as a Bureau chaplain and so performed my duties.

Chaplain’s Field Report

Tuesday, April 23, 2002

Fresh Kills Landfill (Dutch name meaning ‘fresh water’)

Dear Friends,

This report comes to you from Staten Island, New York. My arrival here this morning for a six day tour of duty has been a wonderful and somewhat heartrending enterprise so far. Your encouragement, interest and prayers have carried me through difficult times in the past and, as I compose this letter, I am comforted knowing that you will once again share the inexpressible events of this place with me.

My presence here is due to LCMS Pastor Richard Turner. Pastor Turner is a chaplain with the FBI’s Houston Division and the Baytown Texas Police Department. When our respective tours of duty ended last fall we agreed that they were too short. We both wanted more than anything to come back and extend our opportunity to bring the light of Christ to this darkest national disaster. At that time my fellow pastor, big-hearted fellow that he is, suggested giving the troops a Texas barbecue and that’s what he did. He

raised the funds and sent some twenty-eight Baytown policemen and civilians here to do exactly that. Four of them left Texas six days ago and drove two pickup trucks complete with giant pits and everything else needed to make New York salivary glands pucker. Today the rest of the crew arrived at Newark International and are holed up at Mount Manresa, a Jesuit Retreat House on Southern Staten Island in the shadows of the Verrazano Bridge. Sadly Pastor Turner’s wife became quite ill. Unable to leave home he asked if I could stand in for him for the week. He didn’t have to ask twice.

Coming back to this place after six months was, as stated above, both happy and sad. I was pleased to see some old friends still at the landfill (and they to see me) and very glad to walk once again the compound and bring the Glad Tidings to these folks. Most importantly, as part of the Barbecue I requested and was granted permission to hold a special Service for the entire compound on Thursday.

The moment I entered the landfill, drove up the winding roads, heard the noises and smelled the smells, all time between October and now instantly vanished! I had never left.

I briefly checked in with the FBI and NYPD command posts to let them know I would be on scene for the week and immediately began to pound the pavement. Dressed in clerical collar and FBI regalia, armed with the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God, and packing my digital camera (to save myself thousands of words), I began to walk that familiar territory. The response was extraordinary. The so-called “ministry of presence” is not the be-all and end-all that cowardly Christianity has made it out to be, but it is something. The collar, the pastoral concern that comes with it, and the Word of God (spoken and printed) were as welcome as ever. Though there are many Biblical metaphors the prophecy of Isaiah 35:7 most readily comes to mind, “The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs.”

Though most of our nation seems to have slipped back into their preSeptember cultural coma, the people here have been living a non-stop horror

just by coming to work each day. With only the slightest scratching I found some very raw souls anxious to talk, wanting to tell their stories, and to express the significance of why they were here and what they were doing.

One woman, a Salvation Army volunteer from Fargo, North Dakota, is employed as a computer specialist for a company who serves United Airlines. On Monday, September 10 she received a late-night call about a computer glitch from an United booking agent. With some patient work she was able to fix the problem and get the agent’s anxious couple booked on a flight for the next day – a flight which never made it past the World Trade Center. That is why she’s here.

On today’s photos on the website you will see a picture of Vinnie and DJ, two civilian contractors working at the site. They too were eager to talk to the chaplain, to ask questions, but mostly to communicate their concerns and fears of what might happen next. They worried about the serious moral decline in our land and what judgment we might be bringing on ourselves. I left each of them an Easter sermon based on 1 Corinthians 15:54 which promises that “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true, Death has been swallowed up in victory.” May this pledge of Christ our Risen Savior give them both the consolation they seek.

Some of the NYPD command staff attended a dinner yesterday for several families of those who perished in this mass murder. The staff told me how through the work done here they were able to present still-grieving relatives with sometimes only the scantiest of remains (in one case, DNA-identified teeth).They related the abundant joy such relics afforded the bereaved. Then, in a rare candid moment, the staff told me how touched they were and how they could barely keep their own composure at the gratitude shown to them.

I also visited with the auto recovery unit in their special area of the landfill. It is their job to examine hundreds of vehicles to identify them by their VIN (vehicle identification number) and to search the vehicles for any human remains or personal possessions which might be returned to families. The

extreme condition of destruction meant that many of the vehicles had to be cut or spread with the “jaws of life” so a thorough search could be conducted and items could be recovered.

This was my first 90 minutes.

Later back at the command post I was able to view some of the recovered items -- clothing, driver’s licenses, wallets, walkie-talkies –items difficult to look at if your not careful and let yourself think about them.

It looks like I will be in for some long days this week and request your prayers on behalf of this particular ministry. My day will start at the landfill about 7:30 a.m. and end about 5:30 p.m. I will open both NYPD roll calls (8:15 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.) with prayer and Scripture. I will also meet with the two FBI Evidence Response Teams (ERTs) on site which are composed of eight agents each. In addition there is prep time, field reports, travel and laundry (which must be done each day as the dump is laden with enough interesting things to keep several EPA-types busy all day long). While the first tasks are labors of love, the last two activities are necessary evils.

As I understand, a Texas barbecue takes several days to prepare. The briskets started cooking today and will be continuously cooked/smoked until Thursday at which time they are supposed to melt in the mouth. Because of this special event there will be a longer lunch period than usual. Before lunch we will conduct the special service. An area priest told me that when he led Ash Wednesday and Good Friday services he was allowed only 15 minutes. Since I came 500 miles I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask for more time than that. I contacted the NYPD man in charge of the site, Inspector James Luongo, and asked if I could have about 45 to 50 minutes. He readily agreed and so it will be. I have enlisted the assistance of Pastor Bill Wrede from Queens to assist me. Pastor Wrede (LC-MS) is an area chaplain who has spent untold hours preaching the Gospel to people in connection with September 11. He is also an organist and will round up a keyboard to play the hymns, prelude and postlude. As an added bonus his family is visiting from out of town and will join us to help lead the singing. Thank you, good Brother.

Lodging was arranged for us at the Jesuit Retreat House. Father Jack Ryan and his crew are tireless servants whose love and dedication to one and all is remarkable.

Thank you again for spending these moments with me and for your multifaceted support. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain

FBI Cleveland Division

Cleveland Safety Forces

“Jesus lives! The victory’s won! Death no longer can appall me; Jesus lives! Death’s reign is done! From the grave Christ will recall me. Brighter scenes will then commence; This shall be my confidence.” (TLH 201)

Chaplain’s Field Report

Wednesday, April 24, 2002

Fresh Kills Landfill, Staten Island, New York

Dear Friends,

Today was a good day. Nothing extraordinary to report but a few highlights are in order.

The weather was beautiful for New York this time of year. It was a brilliant day in the mid-50s. I opened the NYPD roll calls with Psalm 3 and a prayer from the Lutheran Book of Prayer. This little booklet, published in 1951, has prayers for many occasions. While there are a few clunkers, mainly in terms of being legalistic, most of them are top-notch. Since the human spiritual condition never changes, our prayers need not fluctuate either, especially to suit modern sensibilities. Though I have grown to love the King James English, I do update it very slightly for nearly everyone except older people

whom I feel certain would be familiar with it. Note what a fine Gospel proclamation this prayer gives and how apropos to people who sift through remains for a living.

“Again, O Heavenly Father, You have granted me strength to rise to the tasks of the day. I thank you for your mercy and love. Without Your power upholding me I would be unable to live. Give me a spirit of gratitude for all Your gifts. Above all, dear Father, keep me grateful for the gift of the forgiveness of all my sins through the merits of Jesus Christ, Your Son and my Savior. Grant that whatever need, whatever sorrow might beset my day, my faith in this forgiveness may remain steadfast and firm. Let no grief or pain, no doubt or gloom, come between me and the certainty of Your love. If it be Your purpose to try me this day with difficulties for the body or the heart, grant that by your Spirit I might conquer in this trial and hold fast to your mercy, knowing that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory You have in store for me. Make your Word my joy, Your counsel my guide, Your presence my peace. In Jesus’ name, Amen.” (Lutheran Book of Prayer, p. 28)

After the prayer Lt. Bruce Vovino reminded the troops of many of the safety rules as there have been a few injuries, mostly fractures and the like. They were also routinely reminded of things such as looking into any shoes that are found in case there are feet or parts of feet inside. Working here is not your normal day at the office.

I did suit up and go into the fields today to greet the agents and detectives there. To enter the “hot zones” it is necessary to put on a full Tyvek suit, respirator, latex gloves beneath work gloves, eye cover and hardhat. Additionally, boots are available for those who don’t want to decontaminate their own work boots each day. The volume has greatly decreased since last fall but there were still many sad things to be found among the bricks and mortar -- items such as office supplies, driver’s licenses, keys, badly torn articles of clothing, silverware –and more. When returning, the Tyvek suit goes into a special plastic bag and is discarded. Large heavy-weight garbage bags are handed out each day so that people can take home their personal clothes without contaminating

their cars. As you leave the dump there is a wash station. Two or three men rinse off each car with power washers.

Though there were no remarkable stories in my specific conversations with folks, I did hand out a good amount of sound literature which will feed the soul. Each person I met or waved at seemed genuinely pleased to have a pastor present.

I learned today that this operation is winding down. There are estimates anywhere from a few weeks to a couple of months. Once the final sifter completes the last load there will be a few final steps. Fresh Kills is an abandoned landfill that has been covered over and piped for the purpose of recovering methane gas. Before the debris of the Towers was brought here several layers of foundation were poured. I am not sure why. When all is complete the contractors will dig up that layer and some distance lower to sift it in order to find anything that might have been pressed down. In addition, they will go to each and every barge used to transport the debris and dig out the sharp inner corners by hand since the machinery unloading them can’t get into those places. There are levels upon levels of thought and care (and politics) that have gone into this work. I do worry about those who have made it their life. I don’t know if they will ever get over it either physically or emotionally. There is concern about respiratory disease for people who have been here from the beginning and, in my mind, a serious apprehension about “post-traumatic stress disorder” when they leave the work and the people who have become closer than family to them. “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend” (John 15:13). Here is a worthy subject for prayer. Please don’t forget these people. I hope and pray that our Service tomorrow will go a long way in comforting, healing and strengthening the souls of these extraordinary public servants. The Service is entitled “In the Valley of Dry Bones” and depends heavily on Ezekiel 37:1-14. From what I hear the whole operation will cease and everyone will be directed to the mess hall for church. I will encourage the people to keep the Service and hymn sheet and take a copy of the sermon for future meditation. The hymns alone are priceless, especially “I Know That My Redeemer Lives,” which is one of the purest and most beautiful presentations of the Gospel I have ever heard.

Roll call will open with Luther’s morning prayers and Jesus’ calming of the storm from Matthew. I will share a few brief words reminding them that as the Ruler of wind and wave saved His disciples, He will also calm the storms of their lives caused by sin, death and the devil.

Until tomorrow then, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain

FBI Cleveland Division

Cleveland Safety Forces

“Jesus lives! The victory’s won! Death no longer can appall me; Jesus lives! Death’s reign is done!

From the grave Christ will recall me. Brighter scenes will then commence; This shall be my confidence.” (TLH 201)

Chaplain’s Field Report

Thursday, April 25, 2002

Fresh Kills Landfill, Staten Island, New York

Dear Friends,

This report comes to you from the basement laundromat of Mt. Manresa Jesuit Retreat House in Staten Island, New York. Here fifty-something, pure New Yorker Father Jack Ryan (“just a humble janitor” as he calls himself) and his cadre of authentic servants provide all the simple wants of life to anyone and everyone. No questions. No charge.

An example you ask?

Kavouras: Father, who do I pay for the hundred legal-size, two-sided copies I just made on your photocopier?

Ryan: Fahggedabowdit.

Kavouras: No, Father, I’m serious. This all cost…

Ryan: Relax. (Brief pause.) Can I get you anything?

Kavouras: (In a daze, but quick to learn the terse New York style.) I’m good. (The blink of an eye – Phillip is gone and this Ethiopian quickly shakes his head and wonders what just happened. Moves on. Work to do.)

Thanks for teaching this old dog a new trick, Father.

Since September 11, Mount Manresa has provided food and lodging to thousands of visiting safety forces assisting in the recovery operation. Oh, and they do retreats, too. Each of the seventy rooms, doubles and singles (“Joette, find the chaplain a single if you can” as he carried one of my suitcases on Tuesday) has a bed, wing chair, desk with chair and a sink; a lamp and one electrical outlet; a common shower and restroom. No phone, TV or radio. Everything is clean, simple and adequate – a welcome relief from the pampered life we’ve become accustomed to. The laundromat consists of one washer and one dryer (no coins needed). Both times I’ve used them, I have had to take someone else’s wash out and put it in the dryer, then fold it to get mine into that second phase. All in all a nice little system, a welcome relief from the daily hustle, and a chance to sit in silence and do my reports.

Today we did the main service that came as part of the Texas barbecue. The entire operation, except for security and a few other necessities, was shut down to give everyone a chance to attend. This is the first time this has happened since the beginning. The service in the mess tent was well attended. All 100 seats were occupied and an additional 50 to 60 people stood. Five of Baytown’s finest served as ushers and handed out service folders at the beginning and sermon manuscripts at the end. For fifty minutes Law and Gospel were presented by means of liturgy, hymns, prayers, Scripture and

preaching. After the dismissal and a moment of reverent silence, Deputy Inspector Luongo asked everyone to be seated for a moment. Then he publicly thanked us for the service and the special lunch. He asked the men to show their gratitude with a round of applause. Judging from that very hearty and very long show of appreciation, I think all was well received and we have much for which to thank God. Even in this miserable garbage dump, this valley of dry bones, the life-giving Spirit of God lifted up human hearts from the miry clay to the very gate of heaven with His Gospel.

Again my special thanks goes to Pastor Bill Wrede who came all the way from Long Island to play the organ for this service. On short notice he was able to borrow a keyboard, and amplifier, to make the long drive (in miserable weather) with his visiting family in tow, and to grace us with the beauty of song. As I have said many times before, I doubt that we could effectively conduct theology without the gift of sacred song. God grant that through our humble efforts raw souls were soothed.

I would like to convey one more story. The FBI command post where I work shares space with the two airlines involved in September’s events. Since first arriving I noticed that one of the airline people on scene always calls me “Pastor” instead of “Chaplain.” I suspected and later confirmed that he was a Lutheran since very few people use that form of address. We talked a good bit about the events and about digital photography. In the course of our conversation he began to tell me some personal concerns and worries that he had. I listened and, on the basis of God’s Word, afforded him aid in his distress. During our conversation, I don’t remember exactly how, he subtly inquired if he might receive communion. Not wanting to interfere with his usual pastoral care I asked if he was a regular attendee at his congregation. He assured me that he was, but made clear that he would never pass up an opportunity to receive this wondrous gift, especially as he was carrying some heavy burdens. What could I do but thank God for such a beautiful and simple faith and feed it in the best way possible -- not with my meager meanderings but with the body and blood of Christ, in with and under the bread and wine, given for us Christians to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of our sins, for life, and for salvation. We used the private communion service

for the sick found in the Lutheran Agenda. Before we began I explained that though he was not physically ill, the sorrows of life can make us feel as sick as any germ can make us. When God’s Word strengthens our faith even the pressures of life can seem like heaven. To this he readily agreed, and God’s medicine for the soul was administered to his joy and to this humbled and grateful chaplain’s privilege.

But if the Heavenly Father is anything like Father Ryan I know what He’d be telling me right now – Fahggedabowdit. Can I get you anything?

Thanks for reading.

Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain FBI

Cleveland Division

Cleveland Safety Forces

In closing I would like to state what might appear to be two contradictory things. First, the author of this book and of these reports is nothing. I have done nothing deserving of any merit or honor. Indeed the privilege was all mine. I gave nothing that was not first given to me and I received far more than I furnished. I performed no service that my fellow pastors would not have performed given the same opportunity.

At the same time I would hope that these meager scratchings would in some small way inspire all Christian ministers to rely on theology and not psychology, on the power of God and not the power of man’s charisma or

wisdom as the tool by which to bring ultimate comfort to people in crisis. Others can supply the funds and the array of other services needed at times like these. But to skillfully apply the healing Word to people’s debilitating grief is the sole bailiwick of the Christian pastor. It is the Word and the Word alone, presented in its truth and purity and simplicity, which caused any good and salutary result in the souls of men, as told herein. For the church the day of silence and fanciful theories is over. Either we gather with Christ or scatter without Him. By His grace and goodness, His life-giving death and glorious resurrection on our behalf, He calls to us all, clergy and laity alike to hear His word and to hold it dear. For it is indeed the font of all joy and source of all health.

Appendix D contains a copy of the sermon printed and distributed to the Fresh Kills personnel on April 25, 2002. The Service is on the http://safetychaplain. tripod.com website.

Appendix A

Here is a copy of the service and sermon referred to in the final field report from Somerset, Pennsylvania. The service fit nicely onto both sides of one page, the three hymns onto another page and the sermon on both sides of yet a third page. Many people kept these materials and used them for personal devotions.

In The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death

Somerset, Pennsylvania

September 23, 2001

A Christian Service of Comfort, Strength and Healing

Notes: 1) Plain type spoken by Chaplain; bold type spoken by Congregation. 2)If you know the hymns, or possess enough musical knowledge to sightread, please help to lead those who are less familiar with them. If you wish to just listen or follow along silently, this too is acceptable. 3) You may keep this service for personal devotional use for yourself and your loved ones.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. And also with you.

Hymn:

A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

Responsive reading of Psalm 91 (Please remember that ‘the LORD’ in the Psalms is your dear Savior Jesus Christ.)

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence.

He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.

If you make the Most High your dwelling-- even the LORD, who is my refuge—then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

“Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.”

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.

Joint reading of Psalm 23: The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Epistle Lesson: Romans 8:18, 28-39

Gospel Lesson: Gospel John 10:11-18

Hymn: Our God Our Help In Ages Past

Sermon: Based on Romans 6:23 “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.”

Prayer: Create in me a clean heart Oh God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit.

Apostle’s Creed: I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate; Was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy Christian church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.

Let us pray: Heavenly Father, God of peace and harmony, You would have Your children on earth live together in peace and quietness. Never the less, in Your wisdom You have permitted this attack of terror to be unleashed against our nation. Watch over, we pray, all those whose lives have been touched by this disaster. Heal the injured, comfort those who mourn, and give patience and strength to those who now wait to learn more of their loved ones. We pray especially for those relatives and friends connected so intimately to this particular site in Somerset, Pennsylvania, the ones we have personally come to know and sympathize with; the ones whom You have called us to serve. Give your kindest blessings, and the peace which the world cannot give, to all rescue workers, evidence recovery teams, law enforcement agencies and investigators; to all who examine the remains, and labor for an orderly and

reverent treatment of them; to all the support people who feed and house and clean up after us and plan and provide the services that we would never think of. Bless our military, here at home and abroad, with courage and victory. We pray for all your people in this area who have been sorely affected by death in their own backyards, and thank you that they have valiantly risen to support us and encourage us and pray for us. We thank you for once again welding our nation together, even if in the forge of fire. Smile upon our families back home whom we miss and who miss us and worry about us. Assure them that we are all in your tender care, in life and in death. Yea, even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, for Thou art with us.

(Interment Service)

Lord’s Prayer: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Benediction: The LORD bless you and keep you. The LORD make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The LORD look upon you with favor, and give you His peace. AMEN!

Closing Hymn: I Know That My Redeemer Lives

Officiant: Rev. Dean Kavouras, Chaplain

Federal Bureau of Investigation, Cleveland Division

Organist: Mrs. Kathleen Shaffer of Hooversville, Pennsylvania

Thank you, Mrs. Shaffer, for your service to God and country.

“...the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun will never set again, and your moon will wane no more; the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your days of sorrow will end”. Isaiah 60:19-20

This sermon was preached at the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 to approximately 150 agents of the FBI and members of other federal agencies. The agents themselves requested that their chaplain come down to the site and hold a service on Sunday morning and speak any words of hope which the Scriptures might hold for them at such a time as this. This was their thirteenth day of 12-hour shifts recovering human remains and other physical evidence at this crime scene where true American heroes had given their lives to save others. Judging from the rapt attention, the many thanks afterwards and the numerous requests for copies of the sermon, I believe that God’s Word did its job for these people.

Somerset, Pennsylvania Crash Site Sermon

Text: Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Dear friends in Christ Jesus our Lord, today is Sunday! The day which every week commemorates for us the resurrection of our Lord from the grave. His resurrection after what could only be called the most senseless and unjust death of all history proves that He is in truth “the resurrection and the life” –and He became those things for you! For all who have been baptized into His name, all who put their hope in Him, all who call on Him to save, especially in times of crisis – will likewise leave their graves, however humble or anonymous or ignominious those final resting places may be. And so this morning, let Him be your hope, your comfort and your only source of strength. Not just here in “the valley of the shadow of death” where we have all lived and worked and cried and anguished for thirteen ghastly days, but always. Because our status as God’s beloved children and the glorious liberty we have in Christ is always challenged by the devil. But fear not little flock, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. And He is able to make good on His every promise of love to you. So again may the glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ lift your drooping spirits this Sunday and restore the joy of salvation to you.

Dear friends, I would be a fool to stand before you today and offer you

anything that I know or possess of myself. Dean Kavouras as such is nothing and has nothing to give. My sympathy, my concern, my emotions, those are all nice things but they will do little more than soothe your psyche for a short time. My presence will not deliver health and healing for your wounded souls.

Rather I stand before you today as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; and I assume those of you who have come here today have gathered to hear, or at least to investigate, what message the Word of God might have for such a time as this. And I dare say that fully one half of the Bible’s message speaks of nothing other than what we see hear today – the death brought about by sin. But the other fifty percent, the more important, precious and life-giving fifty percent tells of the life freely offered for each of us, to win us from sin, from death and from the power of the devil, offered by the Son of God – who loved us, who gave Himself over to a death more gruesome than the ones we’ve beheld for the last thirteen days in our beloved land.

But while these deaths were senseless, our Lord’s had a reason; one planned before the foundation of the world; carefully timed and orchestrated by the Heavenly Father, all with only one good goal in mind – to do battle with death and to conquer death, and to give each one of us – our Lord’s dear and beloved children – the non-ending life and non-ending glory of Heaven.

Now I can give two answers to the questions that trouble us today. I can give you the “feel good” answer. I can spray pixie dust in your eyes and play patty-cake with you and make you warm and fuzzy for a spell. Or I can give you the real answers! The ones that at first, and let me stress that, “at first”, are hard to hear but in the end will give you true peace, lasting comfort and hope to take home with you from this place.

I think today I’ll give the real answers and that for two reasons. First, only they will satisfy you and as none of you has been derelict in your duty, I will not be derelict in mine. Second, I would not last five minutes as a chaplain, serving such an august body of investigators of veracity as yourselves unless I told you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Though you

have become accustomed in your daily work to hearing hard truths, today you will hear, in addition, the most soothing message and powerful medicine ever given for stricken souls. Dear friends, the answer to the current crises can be encapsulated by one short verse of Scripture, St. Paul’s letter to the Romans (6:23) where he writes under the guidance of the Holy Spirit “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The biggest question people are asking today is “Why did this happen?” And now I’m going to answer that for you on two levels. The surface answer is this – because sinful people did sinful things. Because a self-appointed, selfrighteous, supercilious son of the devil could not sleep at night unless he shed innocent blood, in direct opposition to God’s fifth commandment “Thou shalt not kill”. A commandment which by the way does not apply to the work you do when you apprehend these people “bringing them to justice or . . . justice to them”. God says in the Bible about the government’s agents: that you are His ministers and that you don’t bear the sword (i.e., “the gun”) in vain.

Bad people doing bad things. Okay so far. But why do people do evil? Because, dear friends, all of us have been infected with a congenital heart disease known as sin. We inherited it from our parents and live out its twisted dictates in all we think, say and do. Sin drives us. Each of us make regular and generous contributions to the boiling cauldron of the world’s sin each day. But God’s penalty phase is always the same, as we read “the wages of sin is death.”

Each violation of God’s unrevised, universal code; the ten best and truest commandments ever given to men by which to live; rules that if followed would make our world heaven on earth (have no other gods; use God’s name with reverence; keep the Sabbath day holy; honor parents; don’t murder; don’t commit adultery; don’t steal; don’t lie; don’t covet) – each transgression of duty to God or neighbor carries a mandatory sentence of death. Death now and death forever. What we saw here thirteen days ago, beloved, was only one of the smaller manifestations of God’s judgment on us all. But stay

with me here, for the cleansing of the wound is now over and the healing is about to commence.

Please understand and hear me right. God does not do evil! Our Heavenly Father does not take pleasure in evil! But He will use even this to bring about good for us; to exalt us in His own way and His own time; to lift us up high above our enemies; to impart to us the things which will make for true peace –for us and for our children; humility, faith, hope, a greater love for Him, a mind-set of authentic service, lips to praise Him and a greater and more genuine tenderness for one another as we travel the storm-tossed seas of life together. A love I dare say most admirably displayed by you all and which has not nearly reached its conclusion.

Please note that every person born into this world dies. Do we have any doubt? Some young, some old, some justly and some unjustly, but one and all we perish. Even our Lord was not exempt, but His death was different than all others – and that in three ways.

First, He was innocent of all sin. He was the holy and righteous Son of God who had no sin for which to receive the “wages” He received.

Second, He died in the place of another – and you are that “other”. It was a substitutionary death; a life-giving death; a death-conquering death; accomplished for us and in our place. And by His sacrifice, our guilt, our curse, our penalty for all sin is removed. The wages of our sins were paid to Him, collected by Him. On the cross, our record of wrongs before Heaven’s court, was expunged and in the sight of God you and I are now holy! Think about that for a moment, for that is the chief truth of the Christian religion, that our sins have been removed from us and we now stand justified, innocent and holy before God – all by virtue of our connection to the crucified and risen Savior. That’s why the Bible calls every Christian a saint. However beleaguered your soul may be, however weak and flickering your faith, you are a saint. By faith in Christ, you are Righteous in the truest sense of the word. A righteousness you cannot buy with any currency; cannot merit by good behavior; cannot win though you suffer oh so terribly in this life. For it

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is in fact a gift. The gift! The gift of God, bought and paid for by your Lord Jesus Christ.

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God (1 John 3:1).

Third, His death was different in that He did not stay dead. And the great hope of the Christian church, the message that we believe, teach and confess with all vigor; the thing every believer in Christ confidently expects and looks forward to – our own resurrection from the grave. The Bible says that Jesus was the “first-fruits”, which is an agricultural metaphor meaning “the first of many yet to follow.” He was the first; and you dear friends are the many. For when you were baptized into the strong name of the Trinity you were made a beloved child of God. At baptism you were united to our Lord’s death; you were buried with Him; and you were – and yet will be – raised with Him, by the glorious power of the Father into new and abundant Life.

And it is for this reason that the Scriptures constantly and confidently give us words of encouragement; words such as those spoken to Joshua as he was about to commence the taking of the promised land; and words which every Christian can take as his own in the battle we all fight each day with sin and death; words which are able to prop you up in the face of grimmest death. (Joshua 1:9) “The LORD said to Joshua: Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” He is with us here. He is with us in the crater. He is with us in the grim woods. He is with us in the morgue. He is with us in the offices. He is with us at the hanger. He is with us on the streets and in the dark places where criminals hide. He is with us in our hearts and in our homes. And now the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Appendix B

The following Christian prayer service was printed and distributed to the personnel on October 10, 2001.

A Prayer at the Staten Island Landfill

(You may keep this sheet for future devotional use for yourself and your family.)

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to take me by the hand and lead me safely through this tour. Watch over me and all the people I work with. Give your tender love and powerful care to the people I love who worry about me even as I worry about them. Be my strength in this crooked and perverse world; my Rock in the hour of temptation and my Refuge in every trouble.

As you have rescued me from the kingdom of darkness by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ from the grave, preserve my faith, weak as it is, little as it is, assaulted from every side as it is. Fill my heart with the joy of your forgiveness and let me walk with you every hour of every day praising your name in the name of all I do and say.

Uphold me with your everlasting arms of mercy and goodness, which are more powerful than any weapon an enemy can employ against me. Truly a thousand may fall at my side, then thousand at my right hand, but it will not come near me, for you have vowed to rescue me.

Let me not be discouraged by the trials of the day; but let me remember that you turn all things around and will use them for my good. Oh Lord I do this work out of deep love for You and for my fellow man. In your mercy remember the families whom we serve by the vocation to which you have called us, in this particular duty and in each one we perform.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

The Apostle’s Creed: I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate; Was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy Christian church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.

+The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen.

Appendix C

This sermon for the festival of Reformation is how I explained the differences between our Christian faith and the religion of Islam, while staying within the framework of a Reformation remembrance. It was preached at Trinity Lutheran Church in Warren, Ohio.

Through Faith in His Blood

Text: Romans 3:25 “…all are justified freely by His grace; through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as the satisfaction, through faith in His blood, in order to show His righteousness for the remission of sins…”

Beloved in Christ, today is Reformation Day – a remembrance which seems to become more important with each passing year. As people develop greater appetites for every wind of false doctrine, as the Church faces assaults from enemies without and enemies within, there is nothing we need more than to be reformed by the Word of God and the Savior which it proclaims.

There are many within Lutheranism who tell us that we don’t need this celebration anymore because its divisive and that it causes more harm than good. But the truth is that these people cause more harm than good as they persist in deconstructing our Christian Faith until in a time of crisis it can hardly be found and as they continue to import silly fads into God’s house meant to entertain the sheep rather than to feed them. But today I ask you to thank God for this sacred remembrance, for by it we have all we need to see us through this present crisis and the ones yet to come. Because of this day you and I are heirs of the genuine Christian faith. You and I can stand firm “though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea”. You and I are assured of the eternal rest of heaven! Not a heaven attended by 70 virgins, but one marked by “everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness” and attended by a loving Heavenly Father.

I for one am not willing ever to stop remembering this day, to use this day as a potent weapon with which to communicate the truth and to expose all comfort-robbing doctrines to the contrary. Whether from within the church or from the ancient error called Islam, which everyone seems to be trying to make “warm and fuzzy” these days. Islam does not worship the One, True God! I pray that they may come to this knowledge, but until then they are idolaters and, contrary to Oprah Winfrey and more than a few misguided Lutherans, they worship devils (1 Corinthians 10:20).

I for one am not willing to abandon this festival, because the Reformation restored life’s most important truths to man – that our eternal salvation comes by God’s grace alone, that our salvation is received through faith alone and that these truths are safeguarded for us in Scripture alone. Never before have we needed reform so badly, as liberals who desire the praise of men more than the praise of God systematically dismantle our Christian faith. Our Christian faith is systematically dismantled by the legions of “contemporary worship” in their never-ending attack against the sacred ordinances of God’s house as they replace our Christ-centered hymns and liturgies with irreverent, mancentered formulations that have no power to help us, for they are founded in men’s words and men’s works. Now, in a time of national crisis when we need our faith more than ever before, we find little left on which to rely. Somehow “Shine, Jesus, Shine” doesn’t communicate the same comfort as “I Know That My Redeemer Lives”.

I for one am not willing to abandon this festival when Christian clergy of all denominations don’t seem to know the difference between Allah and the One, True God, even though St. John tells us plainly that “he who denies the Son does not have the Father” (1 John 2:23).

The words of the Reformation Epistle lesson will help bring that much needed reform to our church today so that we can stand confidently under all the crosses and the crises of life. From Romans 3:25 I again direct your attention to these five words: “through faith in His blood”.

The first thing the text teaches us is that the Christian faith is a religion of

blood, but not in the way that Islam is. In Islam the blood of 3000 Americans may promise a deceptive paradise to 19 people, but Scripture proclaims to the contrary that the blood of Jesus His Son purifies us – all of us – from every sin (1 John 1:7). The Christian faith proclaims that One died for many, rather than that many died for one. This is our Gospel. This is our message. This is our hope! And no other religion except Christianity has such supremely Good News. If nothing else, this truth alone – that Christ has rescued all, paid the price for all, suffered the judgment of all, and conquered death for all by His mighty resurrection – this fact alone, I say, should be enough to convince all men of the goodness and truth of the message we preach. This message alone should lead all men to abandon their sinful ways and call earnestly upon the Beautiful Savior. In every other religion you must shed your own blood – whether literally or symbolically. In every other religion, you must do enough, give enough, suffer “enough” (that elusive term) that you “might” (but you never know for sure) receive God’s benediction.

There are many things about our Lord that were a blessing to men. His hands healed many. His feet took Him to out of the way places to bring God’s grace to even the most forsaken. His eagle eye caught view of Zaccheus (as short in stature as he was short of the glory of God) in a tree branch above and called him to salvation that day. His lips taught us the words of eternal life. His shoulders bore the weight of the world’s sin. His ears heard cries of help from those enslaved by the devil. The mere hem of His garment, we read in Matthew 14:36 and also Matthew 9:36, exuded healing from otherwise incurable diseases. Yet the most important “part” of the God/man was His blood -- that divine and vital fluid of Life, which as it left His body, gave a transfusion of Life to the world.

The Bible makes this very sobering statement that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin” (Leviticus 17:11). That’s how serious sin is. When we transgress God’s holy Law, we must pay for those sins with our very life.

Now the world is willing to accept a bloodless Christ. We can well tolerate Jesus the psychologist, Jesus the economist, Jesus the social reformer. No

one is offended by a tidy Christ or a wimpy Christ, but we don’t want the bleeding Savior of the Bible. Jesus the sorrowful, Jesus the sufferer, Jesus the sin-bearer whom Paul preached and whom the Reformation restored to the world. But I declare to you this day, beloved of the Lord, that such agony as He experienced on the cross was due and owing to us; that it was the wages of our sin He was collecting there; that it was our guilt that drove the spear into His side until His last globule of Life was gone and nothing came out but “water”. To understand the Christian faith we must realize that this lifeless Savior hanging on the cross fastened by crude nails with a crimson tide staining the beams of His cross and quenching the thirst of the earth below; this lifeless Savior poured out like an Old Testament sacrifice – this Lord of Life was suspended there in our place; brought to justice on account of our transgressions, for our reckless disregard of His Word, His will and His ways for our lives, and for our unwillingness to be liberated from the sin and the pride which so easily beset us. But such intractable pride as ours, dear friends, always leads to a fall.

If you could have walked with me through the Staten Island landfill earlier this month to where the World Trade Center is still being carried away by the truckful and seen acres and acres of piled rubble that had once been most pleasing to an architect’s eye now collapsed as easily as a house of cards and intermixed with segments of computer and pipe and concrete and people and mud and clothing and lunch bags and carpets and tablecloths and disposable diapers and wallets and eyeglasses, then you would say with Moses in Psalms 90:7-9: “We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan.”

Yes, we would like a dainty Christianity, but the message of Scripture is a rugged message from a rugged cross of real blood shed for real sinners -- and we are those sinners.

But thankfully, we are sinners who are in receipt of the ever-enduring mercy of Christ.

The second thing we must highlight this Reformation Sunday is that little pronoun “His”. Earlier I stated that the underpinnings of our faith have been dismantled for decades and that the wretched condition of Christianity in our land today was never so obvious as under our current crisis. We ask a vague and nameless God to bless America, but we don’t know who He is, what He is like or how to get in touch with Him. We have no earthly idea whether He loves us or hates us. Yet while the world’s greatest thinkers can only give us the most limited understanding of the Almighty, the Bible has no such hesitation. Jesus says in John 10:30 that “I and the Father are one” and in John 14:9 “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” In John 17:3 He says, “This is life eternal, that they know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”

Many today would like to have God without Christ. For the past seven weeks I have heard presumed Christian clergymen shrink from closing a prayer in the name of Jesus. I watched them cave in to the demands of the American Red Cross which flatly forbade the name of Christ to be mentioned or the Bible to be read in what was reputed to be a “Service of Comfort” for the families of the heroes of Flight 93. For fear of offending man they offend God and rob men of the only true comfort there is. But our Lord and Savior is not impressed with multiculturalism and without Christ we cannot know God. Apart from faith in the Sacrificial Lamb of God, who on the cross cleansed us from all guilt, God is a frightening judge and a consuming fire.

Finally on this Reformation Sunday we need to talk about “faith”. Now faith is not something we summon up within ourselves. It is not a “sustained positive feeling” towards something. It is not faith in faith, faith in yourself, faith in the goodness of mankind, or faith in “god by whatever name you might choose to call him.”

Rather St. Paul is talking about a new faculty created in us by the Gospel. A new “sense”, if you like, which is in addition to our five normal senses. He is talking about a new receptor within us which perceives and receives and believes all that the Bible says about Jesus and about His shed blood and His

resurrection from the dead on our behalf.

There were three crosses on Calvary that Good Friday, but only the middle one reaches across the ages and across the continents to bring Grace and Mercy and Peace to sinners in Warren, Ohio today. The faith mentioned here by St. Paul is not a psychological phenomenon, but a theological reality created and maintained by the Holy Spirit using the Gospel and the Sacraments. This faith receives the grace of God and gives us access to Him, to all His blessings and all His power, all His comfort and all His promises. It upholds us when we are awake and when we are asleep, when we are thinking about it and when we are not. It supports us when nothing else can and nothing else will. “Therefore we conclude”, writes St. Paul, “that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:28). Yes salvation is attained by faith. It is not accomplished by driving airplanes into buildings. It cannot be purchased or prayed for 5 times a day or suffered for or worked for – it is a gift received by faith.

Thank God for this because all have sinned and all have fallen short of the glory of God, but we are lifted up by Christ. That’s what Reformation does -- it resurrects us from the dead and seats us in heavenly places with our Lord (Ephesians 2:6), presently by faith, but later in real time. Until that time we possess much, thanks to the Reformation. We have the Holy Scriptures and a right understanding, that is to say, a Christ-centered understanding of them. There we read God’s Word about our Savior and the heavenly home which He has won for us. There we read and receive all manner of comfort and hope and strength which will carry us now and for all eternity as well.

I propose to you today that we never stop remembering this day, never stop heeding its message, never stop singing its hymns, never stop thanking and praising God for it. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the only true God. Amen.

Appendix D

The following sermon was preached at Fresh Kills Landfill, Staten Island, New York on Thursday, April 25, 2002 during the service held prior to the Texas barbeque.

In The Valley Of Dry Bones

Text: Ezekiel 37:11-14 “Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are completely cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the LORD God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it,” declares the LORD.”

Fellow Redeemed of Christ, May He who is able to breath living breath into dry bones invigorate you today by His Holy Spirit and give you a vision like Ezekiel’s vision of opened graves and restored lives!

Today we have a question before us and a very strange one at that: “Can these bones live?” Lately I’m sure we’ve all been asking some very strange questions.

Can these bones live?

Is there any hope after a disaster such as this? Is there any future worth living for and looking forward to – for without a tomorrow, today has no meaning, and we might as well all just lie down and die right here and right now, and mix our bones in with theirs.

Can these bones live?

Can anything good come out of this monstrous criminal act larger than the

combined experience that every policeman here has ever seen. This overt act of war -- of which most our sleepy nation is still ignorant, but of which you are not. Of which you know every grisly detail down to the last shoe, the last wallet, the last diaper, the last badge, the last bone. You who have breathed the dust of this place…and of these people…and have incorporated it into your own being…and become one with them in the strongest way we could ever use those words. You who have lived and worked and wondered and cried and anguished and become numb of soul, in this valley of dry bones.

Son of man, can these bones live?

That is what God most High asks Ezekiel! Son of man, can these bones live? And poor, awestruck, dumbfounded, burned out, “critical incident stressed” Ezekiel replies “Oh, Lord God, you alone know.” That’s what he said. But you and I know what he had to be thinking. What do you mean can these bones live? Do I look like a genius? What do you mean, God, by asking can these bones live? Can the Trade Towers come back together and transport themselves back to Manhattan and re-assemble themselves? Can all the lives and all the sanity (such as it was) be restored, like some kind of backwards running video tape? What do you mean “can these bones live?” Have you, the Great Sane One, also taken leave of your senses?

Never the less the question stands. It reaches out over 2,600 years of history; over mountains and oceans; cultures and theologies; and today God asks Staten Island, “Can these bones live?” By that question, which God answered in the affirmative when He raised Christ from the dead – by that question he invites us to put our trust in Christ Jesus who is the Living God, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Firstborn from among the dead, the Resurrection and the Life, all things which He has become for us.

Can these bones live?

Is this all we will ever know, one war after another; one homicide scene after another; brutal act after brutal act; blackness built on darkness built on blood stacked on death? Dear friends, what we behold before us in this ‘valley of

dry bones’ is the wages of sin. Just one small example of where man always ends up when he worships false gods, chooses his own lifestyle, and asserts himself against the paths of Righteousness revealed for us in the Word of God. The results can rise no higher than this. Such arrogance is storing up for itself the fullest measure of divine wrath. What we see here is only a paradigm of the future that sinful men can expect apart from Christ Jesus the Savior and His redeeming love for us all.

Can these bones live?

Is there hope for the future? Do we have a reason to live and to move and to have our being, when this might be the first of many scenes to which we will be called to give our lives up to?

Can these bones live?

Not divorced from God’s revelation in Scripture. For human wisdom can teach us nothing about morality, nothing about life and nothing about life everlasting.

Can these bones live?

Not if we focus on them or on our own personal disasters, instead of looking to the One who is able to save to the utmost all who come to God by Him, Jesus Christ, our dear Lord and Redeemer; whose Spirit in Baptism washed us clean of every sin, clothed us in Christ’s Righteousness and established an unbreakable covenant with us that He would be our God and we would be His people for all time and in eternity besides. He is the key to life; the key to joy; the key to peace; and the key to hope. He truly is “Our God; our Help in ages past; our Hope for years to come; our shelter from the stormy blast; and our eternal home” (TLH 123). It is He and no other who invites you today: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

Can these bones live?

Ezekiel had a vision. We read it a few minutes ago. What I am about to say is at this time only a vision for us as well. But because of God’s promise we will one day possess in fact what we now hold only by faith. For the same Lord who spoke to Ezekiel is faithful. He is faithful and He is able. He is able and He is willing to fulfill our expectations and make “all things new” (Revelation 21:4).

Can these bones live?

Yes, but only because other bones, holy bones were crushed. Only because 2000 years ago there was a place similar to this one, a place also scattered with bones, a hill far away called Calvary but which everyone called “the place of the skull”. The place of the skull, a ‘valley of dry bones’ where the people were brought to die, slow, ugly and excruciating deaths for crimes committed against the empire. There divine blood was shed for sinful men. There the eternal Son of God, bearing the sin and sadness and misery and death of all mankind, died the most unjust death of all history to free us from our sins! And though Jesus had done nothing wrong, nor was any guile found in His mouth, He willingly died this shameful death to give Light and Life and Hope to all mankind. Not for crimes He had done against the state, but for crimes we have done against God, against our neighbor, and against all that is good and right and holy and true. It was your sins for which He suffered, your guilt for which He felt the whip and the thorns and the spear and the nails. As Isaiah tells us, “The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah. 53:4). But this should not frighten us or make us sad, because on Calvary our Lord Jesus Christ was gladly and lovingly paying the enormous price for human sin, setting us free with His own blood, and making us fit to live with Him in His glorious and heavenly home.

Can these bones live?

The Life and the Death and the Resurrection of Christ our God answer that question in the affirmative. But He has done more besides. He commanded

that this good news be published and preached to sinful man, so that at the cross, God’s mercy seat, sinners might always find hope. He has given the Church the Scriptures, the cleansing waters of Baptism, and His Body and Blood in the Eucharist so that we would never go, even for a single moment, without the forgiveness of sins and living hope for a bright future. We don’t need to wonder, as Readers Digest wrote a few months ago, “where to find God in uncertain times”. All times are uncertain without Christ! But wherever Scripture’s Gospel is preached and the Sacraments administered according to the Gospel, there we find the Father of all mercies and the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3). There we find all that our wounded souls need to be healed from what now oppresses us.

Can these bones live?

Jesus answers that question in the affirmative when He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (John 5:24-25).

Can these bones live?

As Christ rose from His grave all who put their trust in Him will likewise rise from theirs. This is why Easter is the holiest day of all, because Christ is our Head and what happened to the head, will also happen to the members. Apart from Him there is no life, only an eternity of what you see before you today. But with Him there is resurrection from the dead, and nothing, not even the grimmest death can have the final word over your life. This is the Gospel. This is the Good News which the Church has preached for thousands of years. Though we have no power within ourselves to believe it or maintain it, the Holy Spirit has created faith in us, and He sustains it in good times and in bad; awake or asleep. It is He who will open your grave and usher you into the goal of all humanity, heaven – the palce of everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness.

So call on Him moment by moment, day by day, to give you sanity and peace and comfort and forgiveness for your many sins, and hope and strength to do your work – and vision to keep your eyes on the heavenly prize which Christ Jesus has won for us all. Don’t depend on yourself, your own strength, your own good works, your suffering, your emotions or your pain – those don’t buy anything in the heavenly economy – the Strong One has given Life to you already and He will never let anyone pluck you out of His hand.

And know that the Living God, Christ Jesus your Lord is with you! He’s with you on the sifters and in the fields; in the trailers and the tool sheds; the checkpoints and the command posts. He’s with you when you come here and when you go home each day. He promises: I will never leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5). He encourages you: be strong and courageous; do not be discouraged, do not be terrified, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9). And Christ Jesus our Lord promises: Behold…I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).

So continue on in faith in Christ and know that your weary bones will live! Know that the One who is ALL-Mighty will bring you into your own land; a land flowing with milk and honey; a land of eternal day where we need no light, nor lamp nor sun for Christ will be our Light. The LORD has spoken it, and He will do it. Your bones will live. Amen.

A Tribute and Memorial To The Victims And Valiant Responders

Of September 11, 2001

by: Rev. Dean Kavoruas, Chaplain Cleveland Emergency Services FBI – Cleveland Division

September 11, 2011

Thank you for the invitation to lead you in this Tribute and Memorial for the victims and valiant responders of the events that took place 10 years ago today.

I’d like to start by defining our gathering, first in the negative and then in the positive.

First we should know that even though a clergyman is standing before you, this is not a church service. I am all in favor of church services and highly recommend them and the blessings they confer, but they are best held among people of like faith, and I am certain that many different faiths are represented here today.

Secondly, I sincerely hope that we have not gathered for a national day of self pity, even though the scars will never go away, because that would give great joy to our enemies, and that we must not do. Nor have we gathered because we necessarily approve of the way this attack against our nation has been handled. There are some who consider 10 years of indecisive war to be a blundering tragedy in its own right.

But then why are we here? For noble reasons, indeed!

First to remember the many who died and their survivors who suffered such great loss, to assure them that they are not forgotten. To let them know that the milk of human kindness swells within us. If you look around you will see, not virtual reality, but flesh and blood human beings willingly assembled in a show of support for their fellow Americans who were monstrously murdered 10 years ago, and for their spouses and children, their parents and friends who can never forget what was taken from them on that dark and doleful day.

We gather, too, to let the world know that we will always respond when our people are threatened, injured or killed. Those familiar with Cleveland’s Fire Dispatch procedures know that the first thing the officer says when he picks up the apparatus mic is, “wheels rolling.” He doesn’t first inquire after the religious or political views of the person in distress. He doesn’t ask: do you have insurance or, how will you be paying for this little visit? His first words are, “wheels rolling.” And though the jargon is different for EMS, CPD and all the other outstanding agencies represented here today, the result is the same, when duty calls, we go.

We also convene today in order to pay tribute to those who answered that call 10 years ago, who ran into the peril as everyone else was running out, and who sacrificed so much. I can testify to the mighty dedication that was elicited from all of you following the attack. We can all remember what we were doing that day, the moment we first comprehended that war had broken out on our soil. Our first thoughts went to our loved ones! But having the vocation we do meant that we had to leave them behind in order to protect and serve others. And they – in their own breathtaking act of heroism – said to us, go! and we did! Attending to the work with vigor we did not even know we possessed, standing guard over our city with our own bodies, for no one knew where war would break out next.

We remember the following days: the anthrax, the crazies who came out of the woodwork, the freeway snipers 12 months later. While others regained a modicum of stability with time we were on the highest possible alert, with no time to think about our own well-being because we did not take this

job to be served, but to serve and to expend our lives for the well-being of others.

I can also personally attest to the dedication of the people who operated in Pennsylvania and New York City, our brothers and sisters in the military and safety services, who gave their all to the recovery efforts. Who breathed in the dust of their fellow human beings 24 hours a day, seven days a week, until finally in July of 2002 the labor was complete – at least as complete as such a thing ever can be.

I witnessed members of agencies from all over this great nation converge on Pennsylvania, and then later on New York City to do their “duty to God and country.” The FBI, ATF, ICE, the National Guard, D-Mort, the airline disaster response teams, myriads of private contractors with the knowledge and equipment to do what needed to be done. And in addition a mass of selfless, nameless volunteers waiting outside the scenes to offer relief, encouragement, food, drink, clean clothing and to meet every possible need in support of the endeavor. It felt for all the world like the Old America, “the home of the brave” when every American sang from the same score, and what a feeling it was.

And like they did in that by-gone era, many people returned to their faith for solace and for answers. The clerical collar was like a magnet then. Everyone wanted to talk, to hear a word of God from Scripture, to begin and end their shifts with prayer so that they might gain spiritual strength in the face of sadness and danger. It was an uplifting and liberating time when people understood as never before what King David says in the 46th Psalm that, “God is our Refuge and Strength, a very present help in trouble.”

I recall one incident, working third shift at Freshkills, the reconverted garbage dump on Staten Island that was used to sift through all the debris, to search for human remains, evidence, and personal belongings to return to grieving families. About two in the morning an eagle-eyed detective caught glimpse of a badge going over the edge of the sifter and get lost in the

rubble below. All work ground to a halt and that badge became the focus of an intense search!

When it was found another intense search ensued, this time for the chaplain whose presence was urgently requested because everyone had gathered there, and wanted more than any other thing, to hold an immediate, impromptu funeral service for the fallen Port Authority officer, whose badge would soon be returned to his family. It’s not the kind of thing they prepare you for in the seminary, but God’s Word did its work that night and for many more, healing the wounded souls of those who jeopardized their lives, their health and their sanity for the love of their fellow man.

Based on such devotion we have also gathered today as Cleveland’s safety forces to re-dedicate ourselves to the same, each according to his God-given vocation. In this Jesus is the best pattern, who says, “greater love has no man that this that a man lay down his life for his friends, I have called you my friends.” Following the example of His perfect sacrifice, which brings the forgiveness of sins and redemption to the world, we devote ourselves to the daily task of saving life, relieving affliction and restoring those in danger to normalcy.

I hope, too, that we have come together for one other important purpose: to reclaim the blessings of liberty! We are not the perpetrators here but in the last ten years we have been treated as if we are, and not just at airports. We have lost large swaths of our privacy, our freedom of speech our freedom of movement and other important liberties in the name of security, and this is intolerable. It was Benjamin Franklin who said that: those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.

Lastly we have also assembled on this 10th anniversary in hopes of gaining, by God’s gracious blessing, a degree of closure if possible, the power to move forward if we can. There is something about the number ten that helps that happen. That does not mean that we will or should forget, we must not. But instead, may the events of the past make us ten times stronger, and

ten times more resolved, to rise to any future challenge and to meet it with courage. God grant us the grace to do that; and also to put our wounds behind us; our sorrow behind us, and to know a brighter future.

Thank you for your kind attention.