News

Dunseith church broken into and damaged

By Scott Wagar

06/04/2013

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” These are the words of Martin Luther King and on May 21 Pastor Daniel Bean put King’s word into practice when he and his wife, Sandy, found the church they serve, the Anishinabe Church of God in Dunseith, broken into and severely damaged by intruders.

“They had gained entrance to the building by popping the lock on the side door. They had gone downstairs and literally trashed the place. They went through a lot of things we had stored for different give-a-ways and out reaches in the community and had made a huge mess. They destroyed things, threw things out of boxes and storage bins all over the floor. It also looked like they may have tried to start a fire because some plastic was melted to the floor and there were lots of struck matches all over the floor,” Bean said. “They also broke into two locked metal cabinets we had school supplies and other things stored in. They completed demolished it and on one of them completely tore the doors off. We had some offering from the past two week stored in one of them that equaled around $40 and that was taken. They took shaving cream and sprayed it all over the place.

“In the kitchen they took lots of things out of the cabinet and threw them all over the place. They busted the thermostat and took a knife and slit open bags of pancake mix and threw it all over the floor. They also took a knife and made repeated stab marks all over the counter,” Bean added. “They also went upstairs into our sanctuary and tore open and demolished about 30 left over Christmas boxes from our yearly Turtle Mountain Christmas outreach program. They threw the trash all over the sanctuary making a huge mess and wrote some extreme profanity directed toward my wife and hot glued it to the wall.”

Local police were called in to investigate the break-in and three juveniles were brought in for the crimes that took place at the church. Charges were going to be brought against the three juveniles, but Bean stepped in and asked law enforcement to drop any charges against two of the younger boys who were ages six and eight.

“I was given the choice as to what should be done. I believe in mercy and grace, and while these boys should have been given some type of real punishment that would teach them a lesson, I felt that the better course was to show some grace,” Bean said. “These boys deal with enough junk and garbage in their lives. At some point they need to know that there is a God that loves them and that he is willing to give them an opportunity to turn to him.”

As for the third juvenile, who appears to have instigated the break-in, he was later sent home in the day, after law enforcement spoke with him.