India native Sujo John considered it a blessing from God when both he and his wife, Mary, landed jobs in the World Trade Center shortly after moving to the United States from Calcutta in February 2001.

She worked on the 71st floor of the south tower; his office was 10 floors above hers in the north tower.

Just after 8:45 the morning of Sept. 11, John heard a “thunderous explosion” Â the unforgettable sound of a hijacked passenger plane careening into offices a few floors above his head.

“The walls started breaking and there was fire,” John told several hundred people, most of them Christ Community Church parishioners, Saturday night at Free State High School. “I thought, ‘This is it. The building is going. I’m never going to see my wife or my unborn child again.'”

Mary John was 3 1/2 months pregnant when the tragedy occurred. Sujo John convinced himself, during his perilous 50-minute, 81-floor flight to safety, that his wife surely must have died.

Only later did John find out that his wife had just reached the ground floor when the first plane hit. She, too, had been sure her baby would never see its father, John said.

Saturday night, John, a fervent Christian, recounted his 9/11 story from a religious perspective, describing his harrowing experience as a call from God to minister about Jesus. He has spoken to thousands since an e-mail he sent a few dozen friends and relatives on Sept. 12, framing his escape as a spiritual experience, became well-circulated and led to an interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

John, 27, recalled Saturday that as he stepped onto the mezzanine above the ground floor of the north tower, he saw “the most horrific scene I had ever seen in my life.” A plane engine lay at the base of the tower, dead bodies strewn around it. As he and a group of fleeing men and women reached the ground floor, so near escape, they heard the deafening rumble of the south tower collapsing. They huddled together, John said, and began crying out “Jesus, Jesus.”

A few minutes later, John moved away from the group, only to turn back and see that the men and women had been crushed by falling debris.

“It wasn’t part of God’s plan that something should hit me,” he said.

John found his way out of the thick smoke and rubble by the red light of an ambulance and walked to Chinatown. Hours later, a cell phone call from his wife brought sweet relief.

The couple’s son is now two months old.