SPARTANBURG COUNTY, SC (WSPA/WBTW) – A park meant to honor Veterans has been stripped of two important flags.
“Thou shalt not steal” is engraved on a stone in the prayer garden at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Roebuck, South Carolina.
However, Pastor Frankie Taylor says that’s exactly what someone did.
“We are disappointed that someone would come into the Lord’s property and take things away like that,” he said.
Pastor Taylor says when the prayer garden was built, the church wanted to include a way to honor our nation’s heroes.
“We always thought we would like to honor God and also our country,” Taylor told News13’s sister station WSPA 7News.
The pastor says they created a space within the prayer garden to honor every branch of service with a flag and monument.
Earlier this week, several members of the church brought it to the pastor’s attention that the American and Army flag were missing.
“I said well I don’t know what happened to it,” Taylor said. “Maybe someone took it down. Sometimes they’ll get maybe a rip in them and the ladies will take them down and sew them up.”
Pastor Taylor says he asked around and quickly learned that’s not what happened.
“Somebody went into the prayer garden and took the American Flag, which is the large flag we have down there, and then they also took the Army flag,” Pastor Taylor said.
Taylor says they have no way of knowing who took the flags.
He says the prayer garden was created for the community and is never locked.
Now the church is considering adding security cameras to a place they didn’t feel it was needed at.
“It just bothers me that somebody would come on to the property of God and take things,” Taylor said.
Pastor Taylor says his clergy will not hold any grudges against the thief. He just hopes that whoever took the flags will return them.
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