A Less than Stellar Sunday for Seagoon

[68ROX]

<> Seagoon

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

The money taken will somehow be made up, and used for the right purpose.  Good people have a way of making that happen.

It's great to be security concious, but not paranoid...the next raggedy, disheveled, individual to walk in just might be an angel....who knows.


Just a prediction.

My prayers are with you.

68ROX

[JBA]

Seagoon,
where can I send the check? Is the address on the WWW a good one to use, and to who so I make it out to and whos attn do I send it?
 I can't send much but I will try and help.

[Seagoon]

Hello All,

Just wanted to stop by quickly to say thanks again for the kind words. The Air Force officer's wife I mentioned, Marge Legg, died last night at 3:00 AM so I will be going over to the Legg's in a little while. I'm also going to be talking to the local newspaper - hopefully if someone knows someone who suddenly had a lot of money on Sunday afternoon they might be willing to turn him in if they know its a church - generally people are appalled by the idea that someone would rob a church and steal the Pastor's wife's purse to boot. I'll also post a link to the sermon that morning when I have it, along with the time where you can hear the window being hit and the alarm going off (after which every soldier in the place stood up and piled into the parking lot - I think I mention that on the tape as well).

The congregation has a great attitude about it though, for instance the Rummage sale itself was thought up and run by an SF medic's wife despite the fact that her husband is deployed to Afghanistan, she is pregnant, and she has a special needs child. After all her hard work (as well as that of everyone else who volunteered) all the money was stolen probably to pay for drugs and yet she mentioned that she was grateful we'd had time to fellowship, to get to know people in the community, and to share the light of the gospel. As I said to my wife last year, "these people deserve a better Pastor than me."

Anyway, I covet prayer more than anything else, but our contact info is:

Providence PCA Church
2801 Ramsey St.
Fayetteville, NC 28301
(910) 630-1215



- SEAGOON

[68ROX]

I sent the story to Fox News, the Raleigh News & Observer, and the Charlotte Observer...

Let us know if you get called by them.


68ROX

[ChickenHawk]

Sad to hear about your Sunday.  I've recently had property stolen from my truck and a couple windows in my wife’s minivan shot out.  I was surprised at the emotions I felt for what I know is just worldly material possessions that don't mean much in the long run.  It's hard to not feel hatred for the thief and to realize that what they really need are our prayers and pity because they are hurting themselves much more than they are hurting us.  I'm sure much of your congregation will be struggling with this for some time.

I do hope you will keep an eye on your new "guard" at the door.  It would be a shame for someone who is searching for something greater than themselves to be intimidated at the door and turn away.  Even if nothing is said, human intuition can pick up on hostile suspicion.

[lasersailor184]

I've often wondered about pressing conspiracy charges in situations like this.  The police refused to respond to the situation, therefor are conspiring to steal that money.  It might not be successful, but the police department might consider changing how it does its business when 2-5 officers are being held on conspiracy charges.

[Chairboy]

Sorry to hear about it, Seagoon, that's a pretty dang crummy thing to do.  Best of luck finding resolution to this.

[Sikboy]

Sucks man. We had a rash of break-ins at the Church back in '05, but the perps were making a habit of it, (not just the Church I attend, but others in the area) to the point that even the police were able to discern a pattern. Once they were caught, it was over and done. But we were hit more than once. I want to say there were three separate incidents.


-Sik

[AKIron]

Bummer Seagoon. Maybe something good will come from it.

[nirvana]

Sorry to hear, Andy.  Having been burglarized 3 times , I know the feeling.  Your extra security sounds good.  The local police department has the same operating procedure.  All 3 times they didn't do a thing but file a "report" and giving us a case number, after which we would hear nothing else.  Around here you have to call the county police to get a timely response.

Best of luck to the future.

[Seagoon]

Hi Guys,

Just a quick follow-up, I'll have something more this evening. The local paper ran a story on the events which was surprisingly accurate (the Observer has a reputation for "fact gaps"): http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=268111

We did not get contacted by any other media, although local newsradio also picked up the story and we've gotten a few sympathy calls.

- SEAGOON

[Elfie]

Seagoon maybe with some media exposure the police will get pressured to investigate crimes like this.

It isn't just in Fayetteville that police act like this though. One of my wifes uncles stopped at a lumber yard on the way home from work a number of years ago. He was inside less than 10 minutes, when he came out, the back of his truck had been broken into and $4000 worth of tools were gone.

The policeman that came out told him that there was nothing that could be done because the crime happened on private property. (This one just boggles my mind, by this reasoning the vast majority of crimes can't be prosecuted/investigated because they happen on private property) The officer wouldn't even file a report on it, my wifes uncle had to go to the police station the next day to file a report just so he could collect the insurance on the tools.

[Seagoon]

Hi All,

Unless we actually hear something about the thief himself (there is an outside possibility we might be able to get video of him as he tried to use my wife’s credit cards at a gas station and convenience store) this will be my last update on this.

Some good has already come from the local media exposure, in that the Sheriff’s office heard about it and contacted the City PD about a case with a similar M.O. they had. I’ve also had some calls from other churches offering advice about security and have gotten to meet some other pastors in town, the congregation has also been strengthened by the experience, and it has done a lot to teach some lessons about man’s depravity and the value and permanence of money. Also as one person pointed out, its good we learned we need greater security via the loss of money rather than a child.

I did talk to the community relations officer at the Fayetteville PD and he has indicated that the responding officer is receiving counseling on how to interact with crime victims, including rule #1 – get out of your car and rule #2 – act like you care and will do something about it.

Speaking of robbing the church, as I was writing this we had a guy do a walk-up asking for “money to catch a bus to visit a sick relative” – this is canned scam scenario #4 from the grifter’s manual of methods to extract money from churches. Unfortunately, the church office admin. heard his story and gave him some of his own money before I could stop him (and he doesn't have money to burn). After the guy walked out using suitably cliched Christian expressions, I said to the admin “Go watch to see if he goes to the bus stop” (it's at the end of our property) sure enough he came back in with a glum expression. “Ok, well I guess I won’t be doing that again…”

I think I'm going to be glad when this week is done...

BTW - the audio of the sermon I was preaching at the time including the car alarm and my dumb comments when most of the guys were getting up to go check out what was going on (the guys in the back heard the glass being hit) is available here:

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?sermonid=72507112311
or here for the direct link to just the audio:
http://media02.sa-media.com/sermons017/72507112311.mp3

[BTW]

I thought when people got too far way, that was what the trigger was for?