Author, latest, God Has Not forgotten About You, Bethany House 2009
Former Director of Operations, Kemper Insurance Company, only one of two African-American directors in the northeast region
Founder, Safe Hugs – a ministry to help victims of domestic violence, homeless women and children
Son, Elliott, 21
GUEST
Leslie Haskin: Trusting God in a Post-9/11 World
CBN.com
– YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN
Leslie Haskin is on a mission to deliver a message of hope. “Be encouraged on your journey,” she said. “There's a lot of pain out there and people wondering why God can't help them. I'm saying God is big enough to go into the small places in life.”
Leslie's new book, God Has Not Forgotten About You, was inspired by a trip she took overseas. “There are so many hurting people out there dealing with all kinds of things. It's up to us to get out to the streets, because our enemy is serious. We're bringing knives to a gunfight,” she said. “We need to put our works where our faith is and our faith where our works are. I want to be caught dead in the inner city somewhere doing what He said do.”
THE UNTHINKABLE
Leslie was in her office on the 36th floor of Tower One. At 8:43 a.m., she was working out a solution with her assistant when the building shook violently. The building swayed back and forth slowly for a few seconds and then stopped. Leslie says, “From that precise second, time was both accelerated and suspended.” Loud bangs resonated from the north side of the office. The floor was in full tilt. The windows were shaking and glass exploded from everywhere. There was a non-stop shriek of what sounded like bending metal. Everything in the office flew right out the windows. Panic was instantaneous, and a mad dash toward the exit stairs began.
Looking out the window, Leslie saw debris falling from above, banging against the sides of the building. The sky filled with paper, stone, furniture and people. “It was the ugliest and most dreadful thing I had ever witnessed,” says Leslie. Her legs went weak and her legs struggled to keep standing. Then her body went numb. She tried to call her cousin, Ronnie. “I’m not sure why,” she says.
The building swayed, office workers scrambled in all directions and screamed at Leslie to leave. She calmly hung up her phone and left. She had no idea that a plane just crashed into the building.
Leslie proceeded to the one exit available to her. With space enough for two people per step, people crammed down the long, dark stairway. The heat was insufferable, and the smoke was rancid. “It was no ordinary smoke,” says Leslie. It was pungent and fuel-saturated. “It burned our throats and eyes,” she says.
Everyone in the stairwell descended slowly. Leslie closed her eyes and prayed, God help us. “Those three words changed the course and consequences of my entire life,” she says, “because they changed me.”
At last Leslie reached the lobby. What wasn’t burning was glowing intensely. After what seemed an eternity of wandering in circles trying to figure her way out, a firefighter pushed her forward. He said, “Keep moving. Run.” And so she did. Leslie made it out of the building closest to where the Financial Center ferry docked. She and a commuter friend pushed their way on and boarded.
Suddenly there was a terrible sound and Tower Two collapsed. Leslie got off the ferry and boarded a train at Hoboken train terminal. As the train left New York City, she saw that both towers were gone. “I believe every eye on the train filled with tears,” says Leslie. “The heart of all of New York City went off course forever.”
MILES TO GO BEFORE SHE SLEEPS
In the months after the terrorist attacks, Leslie experienced severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A year after the attacks, Leslie was talking to her pastor, John Torres. She gave him a minute-by-minute account and he listened to her for an hour, and then interrupted. John said, “It’s okay to still be disturbed by what happened. It’s even okay not to be okay. God’s grace is never ending.”
Soon after that, Leslie was in her garden pruning her roses. Then a plane flew overhead. She ran down her driveway in a panic. Today she is past that. “I stopped running from death and found life in Jesus Christ,” she said. Part of her therapy included keeping a journal of everything she could remember about that day. “To me, I didn’t know every day wasn’t 9-11 ,” she said.
Over the years, the writings helped her get past the crippling mental distress. The Lord pressed on her heart to share her experience with others. “Every day something reminds me of September 11, 2001. But it’s only by God’s grace. I am living proof that His grace is sufficient for our needs.”
Though raised in a Christian home, Leslie did not embrace Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior until months after her 9/11 experience. When the Lord finally restored her mind, she cried out to Him, “I don’t know You, and I don’t love You. But I want to get to know You if You’ll still have me.”
MOVING FORWARD
Today Leslie is engaged and getting married on November 1, 2009. A screenplay movie is in the works for her first book, Between Heaven and Ground Zero. She's also working globally with Save The Children, a non-profit organization working to create positive, lasting change for disadvantaged children in the United States and 41 other nations. Her passion is spreading hope in the inner city to the homeless and lost.
With the help of a few partners, Leslie is planning to start a global prayer ministry with one purpose: to travel city to city to pray and stand in the gap for communities and to lift people up. “ This is the time where we need to rise up. We've got to humble ourselves and pray,” she said. “That's our job. We need millions to join.”
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