Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Nothing is Sacred

Sorry for the delay in updates. My church had a break-in.

Last Thursday I was scheduled to leave for the airport at 2AM to pick up some guests, specifically members of Joyce McMillan's family. Before/after I left, some rogues came in from behind and raided our church. They popped the lock handle off one of the windows and made off with about 20 computers (including the one recording our security cam footage) and a flat-panel TV.

I'm better now, but I'm in a bad place. I was livid the first couple hours when I heard. I seriously thought the day would end with me charged with assault, and part of me wanted it to. I managed to shut myself away from everybody and slept through the anger.

I keep staying up till like 3/4AM, hoping maybe that by staying up, I'll be keeping the church safe for a little longer. I'm real tired, though. So I'm not in a very bloggy mood.

Is nothing sacred? Why would they choose a church, a place of worship, of all places? Putting aside whatever prejudices you might have about organized religion, if it was just the building of an organization that does charity work in the community it would be unpardonable to steal from them. And that's pretty much how it is out here.

I mean really, I've been out here for almost a year, and the
main goal of this church has just been to help the community, religous conversion aside. We run Saturday morning English lessons for elementary kids. Three times a week we have computer classes for adults. We have a joint park revitalization project with the local government and nearby Buddhist temple.
There's monthly visits to nearby schools for story time. There's is no in-your-face evangelism or theologically-based exclusion.
We're just people getting together and doing good works.

Doesn't that count for anything?

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