I was surprised to stumble upon this church on my bicycle journey through the French Concession. The first thing I noticed about it was that it was illuminated as were the trees around it and it looked very beautiful. I parked my bike and thought I’d take a look inside – not having been inside a church for a while. Anyway Christmas is coming and that’s the time of year our thought turn towards who put the ‘Christ’ into ‘Christmas’.
I saw a group of people at the gate and as I got closer I could see a gang of beggars, old and on crutches praying on those who have come to pray. They are like bees around a honeypot hoping that those who have gathered to praise God would feel somehow obliged to throw something their way.
As I approached the gate they came for me, holding their begging bowls out with pitiful expressions on their faces pointing at their disfigurements in a vain attempts to prize money from me.
Maybe I am being hard-hearted but I think people should be able to go into the house of God without having to fight a crowd of beggars. They are taking advantage of the good-nature of those (mostly Africans) Christians who come to worship. Maybe this is not a Christian attitude to have but my tolerance of beggars is quite low.