Love thy neighbor

My biggest struggle has been maintaining my Christian witness while on the phone with insurance companies. Even pastors struggle.

We moved to Panama City from Port St. Joe in 2015.

Our long-time Panama City neighbors had no intention of evacuating for Hurricane Michael.  

It gave us the confidence to stay.

If the locals weren’t worried, we shouldn’t be either.

When it looked like the storm was going to make land fall as a Category 4, we decided our house, surrounded by trees, wasn’t going to be safe.

Along with three other families, we packed up clothes and snacks and headed to North Star Church in Panama City.

I watched the storm tracker on my phone and about the time the west side of the eye hit, all the electricity went out.

We huddled into the church office and watched the windows bow in and out. I had never seen the wind blow that hard in my life.

We moved away from the windows into another office until rain started pouring in.

We eventually ended up in the church’s sound proof recording booth and rode out the rest of the storm there.

While we waited for the storm to pass, we talked about how we were going to serve the community.

We wanted to hit the ground running.

This building would have been ideal but there was too much damage already.

After the storm passed and it was safe, we made our way outside. We looked down 23rd Street and saw an overturned semi-truck. Downed power lines were everywhere. It was clear we weren’t driving home.

We spent the night in the church. We hadn’t planned on it. So, we piled couch cushions on the floor and we went to sleep in our clothes.

The next day before each family left to check on their own home, we made a plan to check in with each other on the top of the hour using the long-range radios that the children’s ministry had stored at the church.  

When my family and I started driving around it looked like a third world country. Over the car radio they were pleading with people to stay off the roads and evacuate, even now, if possible.

We heeded their request and drove to Georgia to stay with family. After a week in Georgia we returned to Panama City to help our community rebuild.

North Star Church set up a drive-thru distribution center on the east side of town. It was pretty cool to see people just pulling up their cars as we loaded them down with every kind of supply imaginable. From gas to dog food to diapers. We had it all. And the lines got longer every day.

We spent a solid two weeks working long hours distributing much needed items. I didn’t have much time to check on my own house or assess the damage but one trip home I found someone else had.  

The tree that was on our roof was gone. The branches blocking in my car had been cut away. Tarps now covered our roof. I started calling people immediately. I needed to thank this person.

I finally found him. A North Star member owned a general contracting company and he had sent a crew out to check on my house.

“They knocked it out in no time at all,” he said.  

It is that kind of ‘Love thy neighbor’ mentality that I hope continues.

This situation has changed us but I think in some ways for the better.