Sister Mary Johnice Rzadkiewicz is the director of the Response to Love Center, which helps the poor in Buffalo, New York. She is small, and she’s 76 years old. But a thief found out that it wasn’t a good idea to mess with the smart and brave nun.
Last Saturday morning, would-be thieves set up a ladder on the side of the Center, and one of them climbed up onto the roof, presumably to steal copper piping he thought was on the roof. The other thief moved away. That’s when Sr. Johnice went into action. She heard the commotion from the ladder and came outside to see what was going on. That’s when she got some divine inspiration, after seeing the ladder sitting there and realizing what was going on.
She said that at that moment she said a prayer, and suddenly had the strength, despite the ladder being heavy, to pull and topple the ladder over, leaving the thief stranded on the roof. He ended up having to jump to get down and flee. But not before he also got a scolding from Sr. Johnice, who wagged her finger at him and told him to get out of there.
“I said ‘Get out of here, this is God’s mission. What are you doing to his property?'” she said. “I saw the ladder. I saw the guy. I threw the ladder down, which was huge as could be, and lo and behold, they ran away.”
The Center posted their pictures, asking local residents to identify them.
“Do you recognize these two? This Saturday morning these two morons decided to climb up on the building at Response to Love Center to strip our building of our gutters and downspouts to make a few bucks at the scrap yard, thinking our downspouts are made of copper,” they posted.
— Dr. Nickarama (@nickaramaOG) January 20, 2023
The ironic thing: prior thieves had gotten the copper piping years ago, so there was only aluminum piping now.
Another ironic thing? The thieves brought the ladder to steal things, but they ran and left it; now, Sr. Johnice and the Center have a ladder that they needed.
She’s keeping the ladder, calling it Jacob’s ladder, after the story in the Bible about Jacob dreaming about a ladder stretching from heaven to earth. The center never had a ladder large enough to reach the roof, she said.
Good job, guys. And I’m guessing with the pictures that they posted, you’re very likely to be identified soon–if you haven’t been already.
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