Remembering 9/11: The Redeemer Church Holds a Festival and Dreams Big

Father Samer Youssef remembers the moment he walked, shakened, into his razed church in Los Altos Hills nine years ago, accompanied by FBI and ATF agents.

The April 2002 arson of the church was seen by federal authorities as a possible hate crime, aimed at the predominantly Arab Christian church seven months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The altar of the had been reduced to ashes on the charred floor. There lay the Holy Gospel, its ornate, metal cover blackened and melted. Father Samer carried it out into the sunlight. Sixty-two pages had burned away, and what was still legible, despite the intense heat, leapt out at him. It was Matthew: 5:38-39:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evil-doer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”

It was, he said, a message from God.

He did not want his devastated congregation to be blinded by sorrow—and anger. The church, on Magdalena Road near Interstate 280, has a Arab-American congregation that is mostly Palestinian but includes congregants from many other Middle Eastern countries, as well.

From that moment on, "We focused on Him and his message—of love of peace, of peace of the Lord Jesus Christ." 

The broader community responded. The religious leaders in Los Altos and Mountain View came out and stood with him that first day. They said a prayer. "It was very meaningful to me—that I was not alone," he said.

Youssef was invited to give the invocation to the House of Representatives that summer in 2002, where he talked about the message of the charred Gospel with members of Congress.

The congregation focused on rebuilding, shifting the few hundred thousand dollars they had started saving for a future community hall to their new place of worship. In the meantime, they had no place for the 250 families to worship. So they made a makeshift altar in the small building that houses a meeting hall and office and raised a tent in the courtyard to create an L-shaped worship house, half indoor, half outdoor. 

They worshipped for three years like that. Even with the tent, the winter wind and rain chilled them. Sunday service could mean wet feet. "We learned we had to install gutters," Father Samer said. 

He has other memories of that first winter outdoors. 

"I remember the children's choir at Christmas," he said, his face brightening. "They were practicing for the Christmas pageant under the tent." The sound of the rain joined their voices. "It was such a joy; even in our sorrow and suffering, it was a taste of God's love."

To see the perseverance of his congregation was a lesson. So was the love and support.

"The love of our neighbors encouraged us," he said. "They supported us not just by words, but financially, and visiting us many times."

Seven rabbis pledged support in rebuilding and in the investigation. A class in the Mid-Peninsula Jewish Community Day School in Palo Alto raised $1,300 with a bake sale. Individuals sent checks. Churches joined together for a choir concert at the that raised $23,000. Insurance paid $1.5 million.

In 2008, a new church was consecrated  with Bishop Joseph of the Diocese of Los Angeles and the West officiating its joyous rebirth. Slowly, they began to fill out the church with its iconography.

Youssef hopes the church can eventually return to its pre-2001 dream to build a community hall for the Sunday school program, the third of a three-phase plan. For now, it exists only as an architectural drawing as the church struggles to rebuild a capital fund.

"One of the goals of the church is that we would like to do a project where all the community could benefit," he said. It could be a preschool or a day care, or simply a place where outside groups could meet, but its use would extend beyond members of the church.

"We live in this community and we have been touched by the love of this community," he said. 

This weekend the church's annual food festival is the beginning of that next phase of dreaming. The church had relied on a Mediterranean food festival the weekend after Labor Day as its annual fundraiser for much of its 50-year existence. 

This year, the food festival falls Sept. 10-11, from noon to 9 p.m. both days. Sunday will include a special prayer for the victims of 9/11 and a moment of silence.