Another Beggars Story

As we sat at breakfast this morning eating our eggs and bacon, another beggar came to us.  He had no hands, just stumps and it was confronting.  Extremely confronting.

What do you do?  You cannot look at him because you are sitting at a café, eating your meal, wearing your clean clothes, just slept in your hotel bed, and have next to you your new Jimmy Choo knock off handbag.  If you look at him you will see in his eyes the fact that he has nothing and you have so much.

Again the pull and dance inside you begins, you just want to be left alone to eat your breakfast but you know that the only way these people can survive is through begging.  As John said how could he work, he had no hands, it’s not like their government would have benefits like in Australia and he does what he can to get by.

Is it our problem, I guess that comes down to a question that must be answered only in your heart as a human.  On a global scale isn’t it everyone’s problem and everyone’s issue?  Or is it just something that you pretend doesn’t happen.

Today I was one of the pretenders, I pretended I didn’t see him, I pretended I couldn’t hear him and I wished he would go.  My husband today was the one who didn’t pretend.

He waited until he left our table without any money and sat back on the step he had come from and without bringing notice to it he went and gave the man probably one of the largest donations he would have seen for the day.  $50 RMB this is roughly $10 Australian.  When he came back I could see he was different I had not really noticed he had gone, I thought he had moved away from the table to have a smoke, but instead he did what the pretenders at the table didn’t.

The other couple we were with, when realising what he had done, went over and gave the man some more RMB and as he left he smiled at us.  The four western people sitting in the café, eating their food, in their clean clothes, having just slept in their beautiful hotel room and with their designer handbags.  He smiled, and it was honest and beautiful.

As usual I learnt from my amazing husband again today, we do not have a lot of money we are not rich as such, we are comfortable and we have enough to get us through this holiday, but as John said do we have enough to help out someone who needs it more than us?  Yes we do.