Heartless thieves robbed a church vrot en kaal during load shedding.
According to Pastor Randall Pienaar of the Volle Evangelie Kerk van God Belmont Worship Tabernacle, this was the fourth church to be targeted by skelms over the past month.
He said the three previous break-ins also occurred on a Friday night.
His church, located on Old Paarl Road in Kraaifontein, suffered losses of at least R100 000.
On Sunday, his congregation couldn’t attend church service as detectives were still processing the crime scene.
Pastor Randall says the burglary at the church, which has an alarm system, was discovered on Saturday morning.
“At about 8am, I received a call from our dance ministry leader Clarese September about the break-in. I immediately called the person who installed our alarm,” he says.
“A lot of our things were stolen such as the power amp, monitors, speakers, condensers, cordless mics, my headset, drum cymbals, nagmaal jugs and plates and the TV set. We also discovered that the alarm system was ripped out of the wall.
“The break-in happened during Stage 6 load shedding when we had four hours of darkness.
“We have calculated losses of R80 000 already but more things were stolen, for example the taps in the kitchen and men’s toilets.
“On Saturday night, members slept inside the church in case the thieves came back.
“[On Sunday] we couldn’t use the church as detectives didn’t dust for fingerprints yet.”
Pastor Randall says it seems skelms are targeting the holy places as they are seen as soft targets: “I want to warn other church leaders to be alert especially during load shedding, as the other three churches that I’m aware of were also targeted during blackouts on a Friday night.
“Make sure your alarm systems work and have back-up power to keep working when there is load shedding.
“Die duiwel is daarop uit om die kerke te wil vernietig. They want to make us powerless but I declare that the devil is a liar, God will not let our churches suffer.”
Police spokesperson Joseph Swartbooi confirmed: “The suspects fled and are yet to be arrested. Kraaifontein police are investigating a case of housebreaking and theft.”
If you know anything about the theft or have been approached to buy stolen goods, please contact Pastor Randall at 073 247 7012 or the Kraaifontein police at 021 980 5500.