Unwelcoming

It snowed overnight.  It's not snowing right now: in fact it's rather a nice day.  There's breaks in the clouds and rather a nice sunrise in the offing.

As I was walking up to get coffee, I passed the church that I intended to check out today.  Someone was going in, so I asked if they had a shovel, and offered to clear off the snow.  So, for about an hour, I shoveled their steps, and sidewalk, and the entrance to their driveway.  Then one of the congregants showed up to help out with the parking lot.  He did some of that, and then came over and noted that I had pretty much finished the shoveling.  I suggested that there was still the sidewalk to do.  (I know that I'm the only non-jogging, non-dog-walking pedestrian in Port Alberni, but what about the joggers and the dog walkers?  I've noticed that a lot of the churches don't clear their sidewalks or the sidewalks in front of their churches.)  Anyway, he admitted that it was a good idea, and I started off in one direction, hearing him shoveling behind me.  When I needed to take a break, and turned around, I found that while I had been shoveling the sidewalk, he had been shoveling just the entrance to the driveway.  Just for their congregants, just for those driving to their church intentionally.

It's official.  Port Alberni churches are the least welcoming in the entire world.  (With the possible exception of the Russian Orthodox church.)