Close to 100 students gathered at the Union Sports Annex Wednesday night in hopes of hearing a 9/11 survivor's story. Yet Sujo John spoke of more than surviving the traumatic event. He also spoke of his great faith in God.

"Don't remember me for my story; everyone has a story," Sujo John, a 9/11 survivor and self-proclaimed evangelist, said prior to his presentation, sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ. "Remember me for my faith. There is a God out there."

Brought up in a middle class family in Calcutta, India, John claimed he was more interested in the girls at church than the message being preached. That is, until he turned nine, when John watched his younger sister die of leukemia. "I turned my back on God and on my family," he said.

At age 15, an American missionary directed John to the ways of Christianity.

"This has been a 360-degree turn in my life," John said. "My faith is the only thing that held me through 9/11."

John worked for a broadband communications company on the 81st floor of the North Tower in the World Trade Center complex. His wife Mary, four months pregnant at the time, worked for Morgan Stanley on the 71st floor of the South Tower. Both had taken the day off on Sept. 10, 2001.

John was sending a fax when American Airlines flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles slammed into his building, only a few stories above where he stood.

"I thought my eardrums had burst," he said during his monologue. Fireballs of flaming jet fuel shot up the elevator shafts as steel creaked and the building swayed, and John hit the floor next to the crater that only moments before was floors of offices.

He frantically attempted to reach his wife in the South Tower via cell phone with no luck. New York cell networks would remain jammed for the majority of the day.

Co-workers attempted to reassure John about his wife's safety, but "I knew their promises were empty," he said. "They had no idea what was going on in that building."

However, John's wife did make it to safety.

"I am blessed that we were both spared," he said.

Bethany Baker, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, is a four-year member of Campus Crusade.

"He has a really powerful message of how God touched his life on 9/11," Baker said. "I think that every student should have the opportunity to know God in a more personal way and to grow in their faith. That's why (Campus Crusade) brought him here."

Mike Lavender, a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences, agreed.

"He really puts a face on what happened that day; it's a real wake-up call to God," Lavender said.

John has spoken in more than 400 cities across the globe since late September 2001. Audiences have ranged from small high schools to major sporting events. Recent university visits include Purdue, the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and UW-Stevens Pointe.

More information on Sujo John's mission is available at www.sujojohn.com.

This article was published in The Marquette Tribune on September 8, 2005.