THE United Mission Church in Leonsdale is appealing to the public for any information that will help them get all their stolen music equipment.
The church on the corner of 12th Avenue and 18 Street in Elsies River was burglarised by godelose skelms between Wednesday and Thursday last week.
And according to Pastor Henry Tarentaal, there are no signs of forced entry.
Pastor Henry said they had biduur at the church on Tuesday evening and when they locked up the kerk, everything was still there.
But when the worship team arrived at the church on Thursday evening for practice, they found that all the music equipment was stolen.
The pastoor explained: “When the worship team arrived at the church on Thursday evening they saw that the door was open, but the gate was locked with one slot. It usually has two locks, we picked up the other slot at the back of the church.
"When we entered the church, we discovered that the thieves had entry to the church and stole all our music equipment."
He adds that valuables were also stolen from the kitchen despite also being behind a security gate.
Tarentaal said: "They also had entry into the kitchen and stole a lot of valuable items, but there is a safety gate before entering the kitchen which was also locked and again no forced entry was used.
"Wat my verstand te bowe gaan is that when we entered the church upon discovery of the burglary, all the gates were locked but things were missing. So dit laat mens wonder.
"We are not sure how the thieves entered the church because there was no forced entry."
Pastor Tarentaal said that the value of the stolen equipment is more than R50 000 and says the church does not have that kind of money.
Amongst the items that were stolen were microphones, sound boxes, a projector, electric guitars and an audio mixer.
The pastoor added: “This is the second time the church has been broken into.
"We are a church in a community who are from impoverished backgrounds, we are dependent on fundraisers which is difficult because not everyone can contribute, so it is going to take time for us to buy all the equipment back.
"Despite our shortcomings, we give mense in the community a warm plate of food on Sundays and we extend a helping hand to the community but this is what we get for our goodness.
"We trust that justice will be served and the perpetrators will be brought to book and we hope to get our music equipment back soon."
A police case has been registered and police spokesperson Anelisiwe Manyana said that Elsies River police opened a burglary case for further investigation.
She said that the unknown suspect/s fled the scene are yet to be arrested.
Police are appealing to anyone who may have any information regarding this incident to please contact crime Stop on 08600 10111.