LAKE CHARLES – Topsy Baptist Church, where Lloyd Carroll has been pastor for 10 years, called the Baptist Message recently to report the loss of four air conditioning units from the back side of the rural church.
He wanted to warn other churches, Carroll said.
“The police came to see if we had lost them,” Carroll said. “Otherwise, we would have found out Wednesday night at church.
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“They [thieves] stole those condensers sometime during the night and took them to Orange County, Texas,” Carroll said. “A sheriff’s deputy saw them on the side of the road and stopped to help, and then noticed what all they had in the back. They confessed to stealing the units and said these were from our church.”
Theft of copper has becoming an increasing crime of opportunity at rural churches across the nation, so much so that at its recent annual meeting the South Carolina Baptist Convention passed a resolution about it that “express[es] our need for Divine intervention to stop the property destruction from copper theft.”
Copper these days sells for about $8,400 per metric ton, according to metalprices.com.
In the greater Lake Charles area, recyclers are mandated by law to get the contact information for people who come in with an inordinate amount of copper.
“They probably thought they didn’t have the same laws in Texas,” Carroll said. “Or maybe they don’t.”
When he saw the vandalism that accompanied the theft, he was shocked and angry before he felt forgiveness, Carroll said.
“They didn’t steal the whole unit,” the pastor said. “They took it apart and stole the copper out of the condenser unit. Someone told me the most they would have gotten was about $200 [per unit].”
Each unit weighed about 250 pounds, the pastor said.
“It’s a shame someone would steal from God,” Carroll said. “I would be afraid to do so. Our first impression was they needed punishing, but then we realized maybe this [trouble they were in] would reach them. God has already handled it.
“Another issue to come up,” Carroll continued. “Our inside units, the airhandlers in the attic, aren’t compatible with the outside units available for sale now, so what would have been a $10,000 loss became a $20,000 loss.” Insurance covered about 95 percent of the replacement cost.
Topsy Baptist Church has a $90,902 budget; it gives 11 percent to missions through the Cooperative Program.
“Our church is real mission-minded,” Carroll said. “We’ve been to Honduras, and to Arizona twice in the last two years. We’re big in disaster relief chain saw ministry, and we’ve got people involved in food distribution in Allen Parish. One of our members is a director of one.”
This actually was the second time Topsy air conditioning units had been vandalized and stolen, Carroll said. One of the 5-ton units was taken about four years ago.