Teenage vandals targeted a historic African American church in Virginia twice over the weekend, ransacking and spray-painting the church and a schoolhouse.
Deacon Mike Lewis, who went to classes in the one-room schoolhouse as a child, discovered the vandalism inside First Asheville Baptist Church in Marshall on Saturday.
Church documents kept in a storage room and desk were scattered around. Messages, pentagrams and the vandals’ names were spray-painted on the walls.
The vandals trashed the kitchen, dumping spices, cornstarch and flour. They lit matches, but the gas to the stove was disconnected.
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The sanctuary mostly was spared, but church offices were coated in fire extinguisher spray.
“I didn’t really get angry,” Lewis said. “It’s just that it was just upsetting to see that somebody would come in and do this to the church.”
The vandals returned the next day to do more damage in the school.
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Lewis helped catch the teens after a neighbor spotted their car on Sunday. He followed them as deputies responded to the 911 call.
Averie Pozzo di Borgo, 19, and two juveniles were arrested and charged. Investigators say di Borgo only was involved with Sunday’s vandalism.
A press release from the sheriff’s office says none of the graffiti was “related to race or ethnicity,” but Lewis said he is still very troubled by what was written.
“When you damage and you vandalize a place of worship, that’s animosity against the place of worship,” he said.
“We are called to be forgiving; we are called to be love your enemy,” he said. “It raises a real big challenge for the church to really live what we believe.”
The church, which was founded by freed African Americans in 1874, recently launched a capital campaign to try to replace the roof and make other needed repairs.
“It’s a setback, but knowing we can do it, we can do it,” church member Jean Davis said. “We’ll come back.”
They are brainstorming ways to hold fundraisers and get help from church family and friends to tackle the many repairs.
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