I am one angry minister!  Today I finally managed to get some folk from church to come and retrieve the roll of honour from our former day school that listed all the boys who'd won scholarships to the grammar school.  When we unlocked the church and went to the room where it had stood, it was gone.  As was virtually all the copper piping in the building.

Frankly, I don't care about the copper but I am MAD about the roll of honour because there is nothing useful they can do with it and it is an irreplaceable historical artefact.

Now I'm waiting for the police to arrive, waiting for a crime number for the insurers (who won't cover us because the building is closed but I have to notify them anyway) and trying to calm down enough to write a logical press release.  That and pray for the thieves - that they'd find their way out of this path that will ultimately destroy their humanity.  Do I forgive them?  In so far as it is my power, yes, I do.  But it isn't them who has to deal with a wounded congrgeation come Sunday...

(updated - the police have said their media department will put out a press release which saves me the job of trying to concoct something)