A church in Holland, New York, with a congregation of about 40 people, was forced to cancel its worship service on Sunday after robbers stole several thousand dollars worth of equipment and $800 they had raised for an upcoming Easter egg hunt.
The Eerie County church, which sits on about 40 acres of land, is led by Lynne Hill, who co-pastored with her late husband, Mark Hill, until he died in 2018, the East Aurora Bee reported.
Lynne Hill told the publication that she wasn’t in town when the robbery happened, but another of the church’s pastors, Richard Clarkson, recounted to WGRZ how he sensed something was amiss when he arrived at the church to start preparing for service on Sunday.
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“Walking into God’s house, I can kind of tell when something’s a little off or something’s missing, and that was certainly the case this morning,” he told the news outlet. “A couple computers that I normally depend on were missing. There were blinds on one side of the building that were all closed.”
Clarkson said a preliminary audit of the losses show the church lost key equipment such as computers, speakers and microphones, along with the cash he says was a lot for the small church.
“Well, it’s a lot of money, $10 is a lot for a small church. It definitely hit us hard,” Clarkson said.
“This is sad,” Lynne Hill told the East Aurora Bee. “We’re a family community church.”
Despite their small congregation, Hope on the Hill opens up their sprawling campus for use by homeschool groups and other churches from Buffalo and nearby suburbs.
While investigators from the Erie County Sheriff’s Office don’t yet have any suspects, Pastor Lynne Hill said she’s speaking out to help the community stay on alert following a string of break-ins along Route 16.
“We want to make people and other churches aware that these incidents happen,” she said. “We took two steps backward but we will move forward.”
Even though he doesn’t know who robbed the church, Clarkson told WGRZ that he would offer them grace.
“Clearly, there’s an element of like, why would you rob a church?” he said. “I’m not in a place to ask those questions. I’m in a place to forgive them for what they did and just provide them love and offer them an opportunity to let them know there’s something better.”
Laney Hill, the daughter-in-law of Pastor Lynne Hill, has launched a GoFundMe campaign on behalf of the church to recover from the losses suffered in the robbery.
“This is a small church whose congregation have blessed our community and local families in a multitude of ways, regardless of their size. They have big dreams of serving the community — and even bigger hearts as they’re determined to do so regardless of setbacks. They could really use their community now,” she wrote.
“My mother-in-law Lynne has faithfully pastored this church following her husband’s passing due to cancer 7 years ago this July,” she added. “She has weathered countless obstacles and still she is doing God’s work! Your hard-earned funds would be put to incredible use if you were to donate.”
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