"I know it's just a bus but for me, it was everything," she said.

The last two weeks have been a precarious mess of stress and fear for the East Coast traveller after thieves took a 10 minute 'joyride' in her Toyota Coaster mini bus from Raymond Terrace to Medowie on October 18.

Police found Ms Gallasch's home torched and left to sizzle on the side of Fairlands Road, leaving the 38 year-old with nothing.

"It's been like a delete on my whole life," she said.

Ms Gallasch, originally from Western Australia, had been living the 'van life' for six years prior to COVID, where she spent a stint in Tasmania with her parents and purchased her beloved motorhome.

"I turned my bus into a tiny home with my dad and my brother and my mum helping me. It was a lot of hard yakka, and then I packed it full of all the things I owned and came back to the mainland," she said.

For the past year-and-a-half she has been travelling and working around the East Coast of NSW but has spent the majority of her time with her church community in Raymond Terrace.

"I've been doing work with the Raymond Terrace Mission Church and helped revamp their op-shop and I was working on writing my first book which is now half-burnt," she said.

The church was providing laundry and kitchen facilities to Ms Gallasch and it was while she was using them that her bus was stolen.

"I think I was just gobsmacked that someone would have the audacity to steal a bus. I thought 'where do they think they're gonna hide that? It's huge'," she said.

"But I was also just panicking because it's my home and it's everything I have."

Ms Gallasch said it was "mind-boggling" but despite the thieves' cruel act, if they had asked her for a lift she would've offered.

"The stupid thing is if they had approached me in the car park and were like 'Hey, we need to get to Medowie' I would've literally given them a ride or I would have paid for them to get a taxi," she said.

"But you know, why would they torch it? Stealing is one thing and dumping it, but to set it on fire like this ... just so senseless."

After police had notified her of the outcome, she said the following days had been "some of the worst" of her life.

"I couldn't sleep and it all happened so quick, I woke up in the morning at a friend's and I went downstairs and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror," she said.

"I needed to brush my hair, but I don't have a hair brush. I need to clean my teeth, I don't have a toothbrush. I don't have toothpaste. I should have a shower, I don't have soap."

Along with her daily essentials, sentimental items from her travels were singed and a library of her favourite books.

"Every day something new will hit me that I didn't realise was in the bus," she said.

"I'm a creative person and had a lot of craft stuff and I've lost my camera equipment, my GoPro ... and it's the second time I've lost my library. The first time was to flooding and now... to a fire."

Ms Gallasch described herself as a "fearless, happy go lucky" kind of person, but said her recent trauma had shaken her faith in humanity.

"I've done a lot of high risk stuff like travelling by myself but this is the first thing that's really shaken me up. I suddenly was just really scared of the world around me, which is a new experience," she said.

Fortunately she has been receiving trauma counselling and her church community has helped her with crisis accommodation while she searches for a new home, car and job.

"Right now it's just a really crap time in my life but my church community is such a source of strength and support, I'm so appreciative of them," she said.

She said during one of her therapy sessions her counselor told her to focus on the words 'faith over fear' when she was feeling overwhelmed.

Later that same day, she was at the shopping centre around the corner from where she was staying and started feeling scared of going back to an empty house.

"I was procrastinating walking around and I was in Kmart in the beauty section and I just happened to find this handwritten note sitting on the shelf," she said.

The note read 'faith over fear' on one side and 'Run to God when all feels lost' on the other and had a Pinterest handle.

"I pretty much broke down I thought 'oh my goodness'," she said.

"I looked up the account and messaged the person who wrote the note and it turns out it's just a teenage kid who wants to leave little messages around to encourage people, and I'm like, you have no idea how much that touched my heart."

Ms Gallasch remains as positive as she can be while her world has been turned upside down and she hoped those who ruined her home would turn themselves in.

"I just want them to come clean and turn themselves in. I know that's such a small chance of happening but I'd love it if they did that."

But she also wants to know why someone would do this to someone.

"It's just not worth the impact it has on somebody else's life for you to do a 10 minute joyride. Like is it really worth that much to you to to ruin someone's life?," she said.

Ms Gallasch's family have started a GoFundMe fundraising page to help their daughter rebuild her life. There is a fundraising target goal of $50,000. At time of publishing on Tuesday, $25,461 has been raised. You can donate here.

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