REDWOOD CITY, CA (September 11, 2015) — Perhaps Tony Gapastione, an actor, filmmaker, and the creative arts pastor at Peninsula Covenant Church, could make at least a short film about the unlikely events that occurred after a thief broke into his car on Wednesday.
“I didn’t even realize my old phone (now used as kid’s iPod) was in there among books, and chapstick in the console,” Gapastione wrote on his Facebook account. After the break-in, though, he prayed for the thief.
“Hours later my Apple account notified me that a ‘new phone number’ was accessing my Facetime. I called said phone number and got to talk to the person,” Gapastione said.
The voice on the other end said, “I don’t want no trouble.” Gapastione replied he didn’t either, but he did want his phone back.
“I got to tell him God loved him and he is better than that,” Gapastione said. The thief replied that he would wrap the phone in a T-shirt and drop it in a garbage can at a local shopping mall.
“Both of us were scared,” Gapastione said. “I think he thought it was a setup or something. I thought I might get ambushed. Why am I going to Sequoia Station at midnight for a phone?”
But Gapastione did go, and the phone was right where the thief said it would be. Passing local police happened by and helped retrieve the phone.
“Just called the guy on his phone and thanked him,” Gapastione said less than 24 hours after his car was burglarized. “He gave me the passcode he changed the phone to.”
