Thieves

When we went for our Church retreat we took our own instruments and sound equipment with us. Once we arrived there we realized that a box with mics and wires and some other equipment was not there. We searched and called and looked but finally fingured it got lost somewhere along the line.

This was a big, expensive blow and our pastor, worship leaders and sound guys were pretty discouraged. We were left with only 2 cordless, fickle-ly mics.

Then on Sunday morning before church when they were setting up the sound system, they realized that the little bit of sound equipment we had left was also missing (including the fickle-ly mics). After the service several people started searching all over our school building (our church meets in our school and 2 classrooms of children meet in our church from Mon to Sat.)

Amazingly, a small adaptor was found hidden on the roof under some construction equipment. That's when we realized we were dealing with thieves. The original missing box must have been taken before we left on the retreat and then the thieves came back afterwards for some more.

We suspect it is someone who works in our school. During the day the church hall is always open because classes meet there. The lock on the cabinet where we keep the material was pryed open and won't work. (We thought school children had done it just to be naughty, we now know better.) It seems as if, during daylight, "working" hours someone came and hid the smaller equipment on the roof and then probably came back at night to squirrel it away.

We have a watchman who stays on the 1st floor of the school but the church is on the second floor. Two nights ago the theives tried another attempt to get into the church. They broke a window, but by God's grace could not get it open.

We had someone sleep in the hall last night. We need to get a big steel box or something to keep everything in, but we're talking about drum sets and keyboard and all the sound equipment boards and stuff. Big things. (The small stuff is already long gone.)

Needless to say our pastor and worship/sound people are feeling pretty bad. And right before Christmas too.

This just emphesizes to us all the more how much we need a separate church building. And soon.