When Ben Hoffman went to sleep on September 10, 2001, he could see the World Trade Center towers from his apartment window. Tuesday morning the young actor awoke to his roommate's shouts and the ghastly discovery that a hijacked airplane had struck one of those towers.

Soon the skyline was scarred, and America's nightmare had begun. The streets of New York hosted a citywide wake, with posters on every corner bearing the faces of missing fathers, friends, wives.

This shocking, searing reminder of mortality awakened many from spiritual slumber as well.

"Death is the 'smelling salts' of life," explains Chuck Price, vice president and U.S. director of Campus Crusade for Christ. "A lot of times, we are going along in life passed out, anesthetized to what's going on around us."

Carol Sands would agree. The Campus Crusade staff member develops computer databases for He re's Life Inner City in New York. "I have gone along living life aware of death," she says, "but not to the point where I [think] that people are not going to be here tomorrow."

The attack on the towers changed all that.

"This is a wake-up call," she points out. "I am much more aware of the non-Christians around me."

The weekend following the tragedy, Carol had been planning a trip with a friend. Instead she joined her office in a trip downtown to the armory, where she sought to pray with passers-by. Moreover, the team made themselves available to explain a relationship with Christ to anyone seeking eternal hope.

"I was scared," Carol admits. "I don't do street evangelism very often. I was praying, 'Lord, do this for me because I'm too scared.'"

That morning the short, freckle-nosed woman met Michael, a young man who had stopped to re a d posters about the missing people. Michael accepted Carol's invitation to pray with him, and after ward she spoke to him about eternity and knowing Jesus personally. Soon the two we re reading the Four Spiritual Laws evangelistic booklet . "

We got to the point where I read the prayer to him about asking Jesus into your life," says Carol. "I asked him, 'Would you like to pray this prayer for yourself?' And I was shocked—he had not said anything with conviction up until then, but he said, 'Yeah, that's what I want for my life.'"

Like Michael, many non-Christians have been awakened from a spiritual slumber since the September 11 attack. Jen Walton, for example, who works in marketing at Country Living magazine, turned to her best friend, Karen Hart, for answers.

Jen knew that Karen had committed her life to Jesus Christ two years earlier. "Karen's been through a lot," says Jen. "I've seen her religion become a source of strength, through church and now Priority Associates, and I think that is great."

But the shock of the terrorist attack provided Jen with reason to look closer at her friend's source of strength.

The two New Yorkers, who share a friendship spanning 20 years, we re on their way to give blood in response to the attack when Jen said she wanted to join Karen at a church service that night. They walked in to a prayer meeting at Karen's church, then five times over the next seven days they attended church services or meetings sponsored by Priority Associates, Campus Crusade's outreach to young professionals.

"I haven't been a very religious person," says Jen. "But I've gone to church more this week than I have in the last three years." Though Jen admits that part of the draw was the sense of community she found in church, still she was looking for deeper help: "Something like this turns you upside down, and you look for some explanation."

Chuck Price understands. "There is incredible pain h e re," he says, "and incredible openness to the gospel." Chuck continues, "God has given us some one-of-a-kind opportunities for ministry as the Holy Spirit opens up New York and, I believe, potentially, the entire nation."

Motivated by that reality, Priority Associates staff member Rebecca Swaim contacted people she'd met with earlier that year who had been unwilling to commit their lives to Jesus Christ.

One such woman, Jennifer, had come to several Priority Associates outreaches during the spring. Rebecca phoned her back. "I told her how we can have an understanding of God but still not have Him inside of our life," Rebecca says.

Jennifer prayed that afternoon on the phone, opening the door of her heart and inviting Jesus inside for the first time. For her, too, this has been a wake-up call.

Indeed, many New Yorkers found it quite literally hard to sleep following the tragic events. Thunder sounding like bombs, grisly images in people's minds and general anxiety created restless nights.

As they've learned to cope, most have returned to sleep. Even the angry honks of taxis and the wailing of police sirens will not stir them.

But when actor Ben Hoffman looks out his window, he doesn't see the towers anymore. Three days following the crash, he had said, "I keep waiting for the smoke to clear, like I will see them standing again."

Ben knows he was not dreaming. When the terrorists struck, he woke up. And the shadow cast by the absence of those towers may be even greater than the shade once created by their walls.