![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Church-Van-300x208.png\" "\\"Church")
A thief has a change of heart after stealing a church van, then returning it hours later.<\/p>\nA thief has a change of heart after stealing a church van, then returning it hours later.<\/p>\n
We spoke exclusively with the pastor of Lehigh Acres Christian Church who says, this isn’t the first time the church has been a target for crime.<\/p>\n
Minister Steve Kelly says, it was a shocking discovery.<\/p>\n
“As soon as I came I could see that the door had been jimmied, and I saw all the broken pieces” said Kelly.<\/p>\n
“I thought that’s strange. Then I looked and I could see the wires hanging down from the steering wheel; I knew someone had broken into it,” said Kelly.<\/p>\n
On Monday, he noticed the church van was vandalized.<\/p>\n
“Every time those things happen it’s just money out of helping do ministry in our communities, so it’s frustrating” said Kelly.<\/p>\n
He says this isn’t the first time the church has been targeted.<\/p>\n
“In the spring there was a break-in and they stole all of our lawn equipment.”<\/p>\n
Kelly says, thieves have even stolen license plates off church vehicles.<\/p>\n
“That’s why we parked it in such a way that we could see if someone messed with the license plate – but they just came back and stole the whole van.”<\/p>\n
Recently the church installed security cameras, hoping to catch the criminal. An investment that may have paid off.<\/p>\n
“That’s how we were able to at least tell the police officers we know what time this happened and we know what direction they went down the road” said Kelly.<\/p>\n
We obtained the surveillance video that shows the van leaving the church at 10:45 pm Saturday night and returning at 2:20 am Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
“There’s no way of knowing if it’s the same people or if it’s just a crime of opportunity,” said Kelly.<\/p>\n
Kelly says while the crimes have cost the church thousands of dollars, it hasn’t changed their mission.<\/p>\n
“We will continue to try to be a friend to our community. If they steal our stuff, it’s just stuff. It’s not gonna change our hearts,” said Kelly.<\/p>\n
If you have any information about the church van, you’re asked to contact Lee County Sheriff’s Office: (239) 477-1000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A thief has a change of heart after stealing a church van, then returning it hours later. We spoke exclusively with the pastor of Lehigh Acres Christian Church who says,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":33782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33781"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}