North Portland church bus stolen, found destroyed
By Chandler Watkins
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PORTLAND, Oregon (KPTV) — Grace Christian Fellowship has been in North Portland for decades. Senior Pastor Tony Gies says they do a lot of outreach in their community.
“We have quite a big ministry to the homeless community,” said Gies. “We have a clothing closet. We partner with George Middle School and have a food pantry together. We provide food three times a week to the middle school. We use the bus and take the people at Harvest Homes to run errands once a week to the grocery store and other places, events.”
He says with much of their ministry they use their bus, but on Sunday night someone stole it; the incident caught on surveillance camera. The footage shows someone in a hoodie walking up to the bus, getting the door open, and taking off in mere minutes.
“It all happened very, very quickly,” said Gies. “First thought in my mind is what about all the people that it serves.”
Not long after they reached out to the authorities, someone contacted the church saying they spotted the bus on NE 33rd near the airport. They were able to recover it but quickly realized the bus was not unusable.
“So the ignition got busted out,” said Gies. “They stole the backup camera. They took the car battery. The alarm system was disabled. They took out a bunch of wires. The biggest thing, I’m not even sure why, but they dismantled the handicap lift. The cables are broken and the lift doesn’t work at all. We still have to get an estimate but it looks to be totally destroyed. The back doors won’t shut either.”
They expect their insurance adjuster to come to the church on Tuesday, but Gies believes the damage is likely more than the value of the bus. Despite this setback, they still plan on continuing to help their community.
“We are still committed to reaching this community and helping out,” said Gies. “Obviously some things won’t be able to happen straight away, but our heart is for this community. We are not going to let this stop us from carrying on what we feel called to do.”
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