HOUSTON – During normal hours of operation, the Texas Guandi Temple is open to everyone who wants to come and pray especially around this time as they celebrate the Chinese New Year, but when four unknown males came in Wednesday afternoon, one of the volunteers immediately sensed something was wrong, and he was right.
“I saw four guys walking…they walk around so I say something wrong,” said the volunteer who asked not to be identified out of fear of retaliation.
He says he felt compelled to tell his story and show the world images of the four men desecrating the holy temple.
After breaking into every storage, office, and utility room surrounding the temple, he says they tried their luck inside the holy space.
“They did the damage, they broke all the wood in here,” the volunteer said.
But what he says thieves didn’t know, is that money isn’t generally kept in the temple which mostly is operated and maintained by donations.
“They tried to open something right here, but they have no money,” he said.
During the alleged burglary, the volunteer had gone to a nearby property to call 911 and even though he says police responded within a matter of about 10 minutes, by the time authorities arrived, the thieves were gone.
The good news is the volunteer says no one was hurt and the thieves only got away with a small amount of donation money. However, he estimates it will cost a few thousand dollars to repair all the damaged property. He hopes the people seen in the video are caught so this doesn’t happen to anyone else.