An eight-month campaign of vandalism to the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Derry, Northern Ireland, culminated in £1,000 ($1,844.60 U.S.) of damage last weekend, leaving church members “living in fear,” according to local media reports.

The Seventh-day Adventist congregation in the Derry neighborhood of Waterside is a multi-ethnic church, Pastor Anton Kapusi explained. “They cannot understand why they have been targeted in this way,” he told the Derry News. “Unfortunately, a lot of the congregation [feel] quite scared and intimidated by the behavior, especially the children. ... It is very depressing that they cannot feel comfortable in their own church.”

The most recent attack, which occurred either late on May 5 or in the pre-dawn hours of May 6, resulted in damage to church roof tiles, graffiti being sprayed on the exterior brick walls, and chipping of several letters on the church sign, which had been donated by someone in the United States.

The church, built through the efforts of Maranatha Volunteers International, a Sacramento, California-based supporting ministry of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, was also the site of a 2004 evangelistic by Adventist pastors Neal C. Wilson, a former world president of the church, and Ted N. C. Wilson, a general vice president of the world church. The Wilsons trace their ancestry to Northern Ireland—the elder Wilson’s grandparents sailed from Derry to the United States—and the outreach effort was personally meaningful for the family.

It was after the Wilsons’ visit that the Derry church began a youth program to help troubled teens in the area; however, that program had to be suspended due to vandalism, Kapusi said.

“It is sad when vandalism continues,” Kapusi told Adventist News Network. “Even though our lives are not in danger, the members and our children are little bit frightened [about] what the future holds.”

Local officials are standing with the Adventists to help. Derry mayor Lynn Fleming told the Derry Journal  that “any place of worship, regardless of denomination, is a place of sanctity, and what has happened must be an awful experience for the church to face.”

A city councilmember from the Waterside district called the attack “a disgrace,” according to the newspaper: “I am horrified that any place of worship could be attacked in this way,” said Councilor Gerard Diver.

Support has also come from world church leadership: “We knew that some of the local fellows used to ‘camp out’ and drink in the upper entry before the iron fencing was put in,” Pastor Ted Wilson wrote in an e-mail to Kapusi. “I’m so sorry it developed into this type of problem.”

While Kapusi is unsure of where the money will come from for repairs to the church building and signage, he says that the incident has brought a lot of public support to the congregation, as well as opportunities to explain Adventism via the media. The church will go ahead with plans for an evangelistic outreach on May 19.