It has been two weeks since the hurricane. We have not had much time to travel the wider area where we live, so we have not yet seen the damage done to places such as Callaway, Mexico Beach or Port St. Joe, which if we do not prefer Apalachicola, might be our favorite little town on the Gulf Coast. Panama City Beach fared well after the storm, most businesses are open, food at the markets and gas from most stations have been available for the past week. There is still a 10PM curfew so most businesses are closing by 8PM.

Much of Panama City still looks like the outlying areas of Dresden may have after the allied fire-bombings of civilian neighborhoods, and so does the adjacent city of Lynn Haven. Never would I have imagined so much destruction may have come from even a category four hurricane. Then every couple of blocks you see a ramshackle building that survived and wonder how that happened while many better-looking structures were destroyed.

Of course, there is still no internet or electricity at our Panama City home, and we are compelled to move to a house which, quite fortunately, we had recently acquired but in which I did not want to live in or work in full time. I had other plans which now must be emended, and I can only repeat the cliche, that Yahweh works in mysterious ways. But here there is only satellite internet, which is too slow for live podcasts and often not even good enough for Skype, so I will have to change the way I work - at least temporarily - and maybe even alter my podcast schedule. Cellphone service is not an alternative, as it is so remote that it is not even sufficient for vcoice calls.

I have also spent much of the past week moving computers and books, desks and other furniture from our old house. I will be moving books all this week and next, as it is difficult with the traffic to make more than one trip each day. Today I hope to move the last pieces of my office, so hopefully orders for books made recently at Christogenea.com will be shipped later this week. We do have enough inventory which survived the storm to meet current outstanding orders.

I wanted to resume my podcast schedule this week, however that is impossible since I will be tied up with the insurance adjusters and moving books, which really do need to be moved as quickly as possible since they are not entirely secure in our old home. I certainly do hope to resume podcasts next week. I will also be present at the weekly chat server Bible Study beginning this evening, for the first time in three weeks.

Praise Christ!     

William Finck