Robbed again

As you can see from the title of this post, our church in downtown Santiago was broken into again. I can't go into too many details right now, but here’s a quick summary:

(1) Thursday night/Friday morn (May 22/23) – thieves bent back a zinc (tin) roofing sheet and came down through the ceiling tile in the back third of the church (only front two thirds has cement roof). They took the CPU of a computer and a DVD player (I hope they watch the Communicating Christ DVD that was in it.) On Friday, we filed police report and cleaned up the broken ceiling tiles, replaced tin sheet and secured it as best we could.

(2) Saturday night/Sunday morn (May 24/25) – thieves broke in again, this time they completely removed the burglar bars at the women’s bathroom (we see now they were poorly installed) and forced open the louvre window. This time they cleaned us out: 29” TV, water cooler, the rest of the computer (monitor, speakers, etc), window a/c unit, wall fans, Missionary Monday’s tool set, even a 3 liter bottle of communion wine! By God’s grace we had removed the congregation’s cash on hand lock box after the Friday morning break in, so they didn't get that.

After a delayed Haitian service on Sunday, I attempted to file a police report, but was told to come back on Monday. Obed, one of our Haitian seminary students, and I replaced the burglar bars (temporarily) with cement, and cleaned up except for four items that had obvious fingerprints. Following EFL classes and the Spanish service in the afternoon we removed anything we thought the thieves might come back for (used batteries, three fans that remained, etc).

Mon morning we planned for a “work day” at church to improve security, only to arrive and find out that during the night they had broken into the veterinary office below us and took their computer and some equipment! Within a few minutes after we got there, news people started arriving. Freddy and I were interviewed. I even got to speak live on the radio with Jose Gutierrez, a well known news and commentary program here in Santiago with a large audience.

The police “CSI” team arrived and after they finished taking fingerprints, we cleaned, fixed the roof better and cut back tree branches to open up visibility. Still in the morning I went to file our police report from Sunday, only to be told to come back in the afternoon. I went back in the afternoon (an hour before they told me to return), and after waiting two hours, was told to come back the next morning!

So on Tuesday I went early to file the police report that we couldn’t finish Sunday or Monday because their computers were down. After close to three hours of paperwork and waiting in lines, the case was put on a list to be assigned an investigator. I finally went to church, hoping to get in at least an hour of seminary classes. Immediately when I arrived at church, however, some of the neighbor businessmen came over and said they knew where our stuff was.

Since our case was still waiting for an officer to be assigned to it, we had to return to the police station personally to inform them. They “immediately” assigned us an officer who took his time waiting for a partner – then he told me that they didn’t have a vehicle!!! “Can you drive us?” they asked. “What if you take someone into custody?" I responded. “Well, we’ll put him in the cargo area...” (I have a jeep-style vehicle.) Next thing I knew, Freddy (one of our sem students) and I were driving around these two officers to do their investigation. So much for teaching any seminary classes...

After asking around and driving to different places looking for information, we are 99% sure that the next door neighbors to the church either are responsible for the break-ins or at least bought the stolen merchandise from the thieves, to resell it later. But we have no confidence that the police will do anything about it--unless we decide to "wet their hand" (mojar la mano), give the police a cash incentive to act. (What we take for granted in the US!)

But God is good. We wait to see what the Lord has in store for us. Your prayers are requested!
Believe it or not, that is the *SHORT* version!

With you, declaring God’s praises!
NW

[By the way, in the third and fourth pictures above, you're supposed to notice what *isn't* there -- no TV on the TV cart, no air conditioner unit in the window...]