"We'd pray for them:" Vandals hit south side Milwaukee church with graffiti



MILWAUKEE -- Spray-painting a place for prayer? While the thought may be inconceivable for many, this is the reality for one Milwaukee church. Insurance will cover most of the clean-up, but the deductible and devastation remain.

"Probably, Tuesday night. It could've been early, Wednesday morning," said Pastor Andrew Nyren.

On Thursday morning, instead of the congregation holding church services at Milwaukee's Prince of Peace Lutheran Church and Day Care, the building hosted restoration services.

"It's all one color, and obviously, well, I think it probably was all done in just as few minutes," Pastor Nyren.

Pastor Andy Nyren says when day care staff arrived at work around 6:00 a.m. Wednesday they discovered the work of vandals on the front and side of the church's sanctuary, as well as on the rear window.

"It's not even the message, so much. The worst thing is just how visible it is, and how much it covers it up," said Pastor Nyren.



Pastor Nyren says police have been contacted -- adding this marks the only significant vandalism the church has suffered since it was originally constructed in the late '50s and '60s.

"This stuff is, kind of, a crumbly material from 40, almost 50 years old, so that's specialty, specialty cleaning." said Pastor Nyren.



Chad Holland of Paul Davis Restoration describes the soda-blasting of graffiti on a church as both unusual and unsettling.

"There's a bit of a sense of urgency. We want to get it off. A lot of people drive-by their church everyday. They go to a church in their community, and they don't wanna see this as much as anybody else," said Chad Holland.

Milwaukee's Prince of Peace Lutheran Church



As clean-up continues, the pastor communicates on behalf of the culprits.

"We'd pray for them. We believe, even as a church, we hope that, whatever they got going on in their life, that things can get better," said Pastor Nyren.

The folks from Paul Davis say they removed not only the red letters, but the area around that graffiti, because, they say, they want to obscure the message that was left there by the taggers.