I worked as an accountant in the early days of my home town's church when we were using a building covered with tarpaulin. In case you've never seen such a building, it's a kind of structure with just planks as the pillars, beams & frames and a tarpaulin used to cover the wall. The pastor's office (my boss's office) was attached to the building too.
this is similar but with zinc roof and wood stands. Source
We suffered a lot of theft cases, both on money and material things, because the palace was opened without security. Some days we would go to church only to see some of our appliances, like speakers and a wall clock, stolen.
It became a big issue to us to the extent that we devised a means to be packing out the materials to a neighbor's house whenever we close from church. We also employed security personnel for a night watch, and with these, the trouble got reduced.
After some months, the trouble began again when we bought new appliances and a laptop. We had many encounters when they broke in at night and tied the security man and cart away with properties. The only thing left for us was the laptop because we don't keep it in the office; it's either I take it home or my boss does.
There was this particular night that we had an ala carte program. The service began by 10:00 p.m., and I came a little bit late to church that night, so I didn't have time to lay my hands on a lot of things before the service kicked off.
Around 2:00am, in the middle of the service, my boss got up from his seat (in the church hall) and entered his office. Immediately he entered, he rushed out and signaled for me to come over from where I was seated. When I entered the office, I saw the tarpaulin wall perforated (torn) with big openings large enough to allow a plus sized man to pass through. The thieves used a razor or knife to cut a big opening in the tarpaulin wall and entered the office, scattered a lot of things in search of what to steal. This happened when the service was active.
image source
I quickly began to check the things available to see what they cart away with, and that was when I found out that they've succeeded with the laptop because we usually plug the laptop in the office whenever we turn on the electricity. I got weakened because we've secured and protected the laptop for a while, and it's heartbreaking to have allowed the thieves to succeed with it.
Then my boss surprised me, he said he didn't come to the church with the laptop that night.
"Sir, do you mean it?" I asked him with my face filled with surprises.
"Yeah, I was prompted not to come with the laptop," he replied with a smile on his face.
I thought he was joking because we always have electricity scarcity to charge the laptop, so it's hard to believe that he didn't bring the laptop to charge in the "all-night" light. But after much doubt from my end, he assured me that he didn't come with the laptop.
OMG! I became totally relieved 🙇
To be honest, my respect for him increased that night.
After searching and arranging back the office, I noticed that they didn't steal anything; I'm sure they came for the laptop, but they were disappointed to have met an empty office.
Thanks for reading 😍