By Tim Clifford

At 8:20 a.m. on Feb. 24 the parking lot to the Highline United Methodist church was completely empty when Pastor Kathleen O’Connor arrived. However, as soon as she walked through the doorway she quickly realized she was not alone.

“I could hear movement behind the double doors that lead into a room we call the social hall, where we do coffee hour on Sundays. I could hear somebody moving around and pulling things out of cupboards,” she described.

Calling out names of other church members or volunteers that she thought might have an extra key O’Connor suddenly saw a shadowy figure dart across the hall and then heard them crash through a door just past her field of vision. While she assumed it was the fire exit that leads outside she could not be certain it wasn’t one of the doors to the nursery, library, or a bathroom.

“I realized the person might have locked themselves in one of those [other] rooms, and I realized I don’t know anything about this person who’s across these doors here or even if it’s just one person,” she explained.

“I decided this 67-year-old grandma does not need a hand-to-hand combat moment today, that doesn’t sound like a good plan at all.”

Rushing back out to her car and locking herself in O’Connor called the police and minutes later was greeted with an over abundance of police force.

“Partly I appreciate that Burien police responded but then I was embarrassed that they sent not one car but it turned out four and a canine unit,” laughed O’Connor.

As the police set up a perimeter and searched through the church O’Connor busied herself explaining the situation to curious neighbors who began flocking out of their homes to see what was going on. The last time police were called to the church was to take a report of dueling gangs using the sides of the white building as a canvass for their territorial graffiti tags.

After searching each room and combing the area all that was found was a pile of candy bar wrappers and cookie crumbs near the cupboards. The “Sweet toothed vandal” as O’Connor calls them had broken into the stash of leftover treats from Valentine’s Day.

While she has no idea what the person looked like or even what gender they were Pastor O’Connor does have a theory as to how this shadowy figure appeared in her church.

“It’s our speculation that this person slipped in the night before and just hung out and woke up and thought ‘Gee, I have ‘til 9 to rifle through the cabinets, get breakfast and get out of here.’”

There are two Girl Scout troops, multiple Alcoholics Anonymous programs, and one Boy Scout troop who all use the facility on different nights throughout the week. This vandal is believed to have slipped in while the boy scouts were on watch.

“So my follow-up has been with all these different user groups, the three scout troops and the four 12 Steps groups, to say please empower yourselves to intercept any character you don’t recognize or once your group is inside lock the door,” she explained.

Along with a greater awareness of those entering the church during these group sessions O’Connor also wishes to impart more consciousness about the homeless community in the area. Just the day before the pastor came into work at about the same time and found a homeless woman sleeping in the doorway.
She brought her inside and gave her coffee and some of the cookies in the cupboard.

“Burien has street people, Burien has homeless people, Burien has hungry people. All of those may well describe this person,” she explained of the mysterious intruder.

“We are an economically diverse community. We have chemically addicted people, mentally ill people, and homeless people. I’m choosing to use both the homeless woman on our porch and this guy; I’ll work them into my sermon on Sunday and we will teach and think about that and use it as a way to widen our perception and sensitivities to those around us,” she promised for the next week’s service.

While she was frightened at the time this harmless incident has not dampened her sense of humor.
“But if we don’t invite them in then they may invite themselves in and look they’re after the cookies, the candy and the treats,” she joked.