Burglary in Berlin

Yesterday, I was herding the children out to the car for church (actually on time, for once), and this is what I saw when I opened the passenger side door to our car:

It took a minute for me to register what I was looking at, but when Brad came outside, I was able to tell him that somebody had broken into the car.  On closer inspection, we saw that the robbers had also broken a rear window to get in.

At least they were kind enough to break the smaller window.

Well, so much for church.  Brad called the police, and they had us bring the car to the station so they could take pictures and collect any evidence.  As we were pulling up to the police station, we saw another black Mercedes finishing up with a police officer.  The rear window was shattered just like ours, and obviously the navigation system had been stolen from that car, too.  As he drove away, the driver of the other Mercedes gestured at our car and we shared a bonding moment over our common injuries.

We found out from the police that they'd had many reports that morning of stolen navigation systems in our neighborhood.  They believe a band of professional thieves came through the area and snatched as many navi systems as they could.  The police officer dusted the inside of our car for prints (I felt very "Law & Order" as I typed that), but she said these kinds of robbers usually wear gloves and they don't expect they will be able to catch them. 

Well, that's why we have insurance, right?  The nice thing about having a company car is that Brad just has to take it into the car guy at work and he will take care of getting it all fixed.  Brad says that Mercedes vehicles are notorious for navigation system theft, because something about the way they are installed in the dashboard makes it easy for thieves to steal them.  Many of the people Brad works with here in Berlin have had this happen.  In fact, when he told a co-worker about the theft, the co-worker just said, "Oh, so it finally happened to you!" 

I am just thankful that this happened when it did.  Brad got home on Saturday afternoon from a 3-week-long business trip to Brazil, and the car was broken into on that same night.  While Brad was gone, I prayed daily that nothing would happen in his absence that I couldn't handle.  So, if nothing else, the robbers were sensitive to the Holy Ghost and waited until Brad was home to break into our car.  If this had happened while Brad was gone, I think I would have lost it.  I love prayer.