Taken from: Charisma magazine

God at Ground ZERO
Responding to America's Crisis

by Andy Butcher

[Christians working near the site of the September 11 tragedy say the Holy Spirit is moving in special ways to soften a city known for spiritual resistance.]

The morning it all changed, Rick Del Rio was at a breakfast meeting with friends at a midtown Manhattan hotel. When he learned of the attack on the World Trade Center he jumped on his motorcycle and rode to his Lower East Side home as fast as he could.

There he took out his hooped gold earrings and found a black shirt and clerical collar to replace his more usual street clothes so that he would look more like a typical pastor, if anyone should ask. Then he headed for the horror.

Although it is not something he boasts about, Del Rio was commonly held to be the first minister on the scene--which was to become his virtual second home in the coming weeks.

He helped people scramble away from the ruins, hunted for survivors and hugged rescue workers devastated by the carnage that confronted them. Only later did he reflect that if his meeting had been any closer to the Twin Towers he would have arrived in time to be lost in the collapse with some 3,000 others.