My church was seriously vandalized
Late Wednesday night people broke into my church. They ransacked the pastor's office but found no cash, took nothing. Then they turned off the water and proceeded to remove all the copper pipes from the building, so we will have no running water (or working bathrooms) and heat until this is fixed. The church secretary discovered this yesterday morning, the police investigated, an insurance claim has been filed. So far, of the congregation only the council members have been notified; pastor sent us an email last night.
Stripping a building of copper pipes is a "big city drug addict" thing that simply does not happen up here in the distant burbs. Our building is located right in town but on a side street and not really close to any houses, so I imagine it wasn't that hard to pull this off in the middle of the night. The biggest question to me is, why this church when there are so many others, many rural and isolated, around here? I can only suspect that we were "cased" by someone attending a Narcotics Anonymous meeting that is held our building. Makes me sick that someone would violate a house of worship that does a lot of good in the community. Sometimes you hear about a church being vandalized simply because the criminals want the thrill of destruction; this was strictly an act of desperation for money.
Truly a church is not a building, it's the people, and as a congregation we will get through this. I don't know how long it will take to get things back in order to use the building again but we cannot hold services or Sunday school without functioning bathrooms and heat. I'm sure we will be welcome at the other Lutheran church in town for a while. The hardest thing to me will be explaining to my 3-year-old granddaughter, who loves going to Sunday school and church with me, why we're going to another church now. Hopefully not for long.
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