A billboard along U.S. 24 near Old Colorado City, which featured a message saying, “Thanks for life, Mom!” with a tagline, “Life begins at conception” and a photo of a smiling baby, recently was spraypainted with black lettering saying, “Trump is a pedophile war criminal!”

A temporary sign has been installed while a new billboard with the same message as the defaced image is being created, said Chad Roach, deacon at Reformation Church of Elizabeth, in Elbert County.

Thousands of dollars in donations from the church’s 250 members helped pay for the billboard, Roach said. ProLife Across America also is absorbing some of the costs.

“Whenever we see these come across, we see the destruction as the evil one striking back because moms were helped and got resources for life,” said Angela Johnson, president of ProLife Across America, a nonprofit that describes itself as non-political. “We’re not going to let this stop us.”

It’s the church’s first foray into billboard advertising, Roach said. But no one was shocked about the vandalization, which happened just a few weeks after it went up.

“As we come into Mother’s Day, we want to remind the mothers of Colorado we’re thankful for moms,” he said. “There’s no question there is a battle of ideas going on in our culture, and it was not a surprise to us that people may disagree with the message that we believe every life is deeply precious, and life is to be loved, cherished and valued because it is a gift of God.”

Graffitiing billboards is not common in Colorado Springs, according to a sales associate who works for Lamar Advertising, which owns the billboard and about 300 others around town.

“It’s unusual and rare,” she said, asking not to be named as she said she is not an official spokesperson for the business. “Through the last five years, we’ve had a handful vandalized.”

The recent incident is the only anti-abortion one to be defiled, so it doesn’t appear that they are targeted, she said. Another anti-abortion billboard by another sponsor also is in the area.

“There seem to be random vandals that do this. We’ve had a flooring store one vandalized, and that would be shocking if someone had a vendetta against them. We’ve also put the very same ads in the same locations and not had an issue again.”

The particular billboard that was hit is not as tall as others, making it more susceptible to vandalism, she said, but the spray painter still would have had to climb the structural access to reach the image.

There was no police report filed for the incident, said Sgt. Ronnie Taylor, community relations sergeant for the Colorado Springs Police Department.

Though there’s no suspect and no open case, anyone who saw or knows anything or has video evidence about the incident is asked to call police at 719-444-7000 to report information.

Depending the outcome of an investigation, a suspect could face charges of vandalism, trespassing and hate crime, according to Taylor.