Hello fellow steemians. Hope we’re doing okay. So, it’s another week to be watchful of our environments, and I’m excited to take part in this week’s contest.

I want to thank @xkool24 for this contest, once again. A lot has been going on here, but I’d like to share this particular story with you. Can I?

_{My friend and I after our first lecture}

Just yesterday, I had the opportunity to see how people are, even in one of the most revere places in the world—the church. Just last week, one of my friends in school, had told me how she’d lost her money, N2,000, to a stranger. From the way she narrated the story to me, I didn’t take it seriously until yesterday.

She told me how she’d met a guy who was asthmatic in church, grasping for breathe, and asked her to help her with some money to get a new inhaler, since he was running out of breathe. My friend went on to tell me how the poor guy brought out his old inhaler to show it to her that he had it, but it was finished.

Out of sympathy for the guy, my friend gave her the only money she had. The funny part of this is that she didn’t have the money with her. She had to go withdraw the money from a nearby POS stand to give to the guy. This, she did out of love for humanity.

When she asked him how she was going to get her money back, the guy immediately gave her his phone number, and asked my friend to call him so he’d do the transfer. He also told my friend he was also a student, but schooled a bit far from our own campus.

The next day in school when my friend saw me, she told me how she’s been trying the guy’s number, but it wouldn’t go through. I was surprised someone could do that, and we let it slide.

As at yesterday, I and my friend went to the same church again to stay after our first lecture. After some minutes, my friend stepped out for a bit. I was the only one in the church now, and there was a guy that was sleeping on the first seat in the church.

After a while, he got up and asked what was the time. I told him, and continued with what I was doing. Then, he began to tell me of how he was in need of dire help. He tole me his sister was on her way, but he might not be able to wait for her to get there before getting a new inhaler.

To add to that, he showed me some medications he took to sustain him while he waited for his sister.
I was feeling his pains, then I asked how much he’d cost to get a new inhaler, he said N3,200.

At that point, I remembered what my friend had told me last week. So, I quickly told him I had no cash on me. He suggested I could do a transfer, which I declined.

_{In church}

Immediately my friend got back, I narrated the whole thing to her, and it turned out it was the same guy who had extorted some money from her in that church in the name of being asthmatic.

My friend began to ask her why he was going about doing that, but his attitude shocked me the most when he remained calm and kept telling my friend that he lost his phone and would refund her money.

We went immediately to the security post to lay a complain. We were shocked to know the people there knew he was mentally ill, but would still permit that kind of person to go into the church and deceive people with that kind of a lie. Now, the place isn’t safe for neither my friend or I to visit because people are so dangerous.

This is to tell us to be alert. People are going round with al manner of fraudulent activities to get money. And now, I don’t know if my friend would ever find it easy to help someone again. I was shocked because that guy neither respected God nor man to do that even in the Church.

We need to be helpful to people, but we must be watchful of how we render it, so we don’t fall victims of any circumstance.

Would like to invite @hudamalik20, @mariagood, and @sur-riti to participate in this contest.

Thanks for reading through.