The Neighborhood Chronicles: The Church Robbers

The old neighborhood, the world we left behind, was filled with gang warfare--albeit quite sophisticated and organized warfare. A rather strange realm it is, to say the least. Amongst the homes and streets of the very poor, the lords of million-dollar manors reside side by side with those on welfare. One would suppose that the Land of Mountains and Meadows (El Monte) has found the need to clean up the neighborhood. Nonetheless, the bad once again reared the only head it knew the evening of last Thursday.

Father's church, or rather her congregation, fell victim to those who apparently found nothing sacred in this life. They broke through a back window and managed to destroy property, pillage and took away the music--or so they thought. For the musical instruments are not needed to worship the Lord, the lack of a video camera cannot silence a sermon and the lack of choir attire cannot stop the song.

And so the authorities came to church, performed their duties with utmost respect and assured Pastor Dad that the very large fingerprints on the church's safe and windows would make it far easier to track down the culprits. Indeed!

Therefore, in the course of one month, Father will receive over $10,000 (perhaps more, perhaps less) to cover the losses of the burglaries and has already received a new car because the winds of the high desert destroyed the other. The local Tribune, as one would have it, reported that our Desert community suffered close to $4 million in damages. Who would have thought that a couple of hours through a sand storm could cause all that.

In any case, Lady Gatekeeper cannot wash the sand off her pretty red RAV4 and her windscreen buckled a tad bit. She now has two nice cracks running down the middle. Oh joy! The winds are gone, the sands have shifted back and the Gatekeeper is enjoying the empty nest syndrome. But that, my friends, is a post for another day.




Gatekeeper Christianity church robbers