(Clearwisdom.net) West of Lanzhou City in northwest China, the mountains are high and the valleys are deep. Communication and transportation are difficult. On windy days, sand and dirt fill the air. On rainy days, the roads are slippery and muddy. When the rain is heavy, flooding and mountain landslides sometimes occur.
Two elderly female practitioners live there, both are in their 60s. Since August 2004, they have walked around the mountain villages every week to deliver truth clarification materials in order to save people. Neither holidays nor bad weather prevent them from doing this. If they miss a week, they deliver the materials to the villages twice the next week.
It is said that "It is easier to climb up a mountain than go down the mountain." I asked them, "Aren't you ever afraid? What if you fell down the mountain? What if dogs chased and bit you, what if you got lost or someone reported you to the police?" They laughed and said, "With Teacher's protection and instruction from the Fa, we are afraid of nothing; saving people is urgent!" They also told me some moving stories that I recorded and would like to share with fellow practitioners.
The villages in northwest China are scattered; each village is quite distant from the next. It is difficult to walk on the narrow dirt roads in the mountains, and it is a very challenging mission for the two elderly practitioners to walk to the villages every week, and for such a long time. Sometimes their legs and feet become sore, painful, and swollen from walking in these conditions. They would say to themselves, "Legs and feet, please help me to do my best. We are saving the people, the most sacred thing." After that, their legs and feet stopped hurting.
Sometimes they encountered people who attacked and cursed them. They would say to Teacher in their hearts, "These people are cursing at us and giving us their 'virtue,' but we don't want their 'virtue,' we want them to understand the truth and be saved. This is our sincere hope." After these thoughts, the environment surrounding them changed, and the people stopped cursing them. When the practitioners gave them informational materials and clarified the truth to them, they were very receptive.
Once on a rainy day after they had finished distributing the materials, the road became flooded. They could not cross and were soaking wet, hungry, and cold. It was getting dark. Just then, a farm tractor came by. The tractor driver shouted to them, "Don't move. I will come over to give you a ride." They felt grateful and knew that Teacher was helping them.
On another occasion, they brought along one of their grandsons to help distribute materials. On the way back, they got lost and went the wrong direction. While they were feeling confused and did not know which way to go, a little boy appeared from nowhere. The boy said, "Grannies, follow me." It was Teacher's protection that led them out of this difficulty. Due to this incident, they found a new place to distribute materials.
I made a suggestion to the two practitioners, "You are both elderly. Next time, let our younger practitioners distribute materials in those villages." They said, "We cannot do that. Our lives are given by Dafa. Validating the Fa is our mission and responsibility. Those villagers and farmers are very poor, and their living conditions are very difficult. The rural areas need large quantities of truth clarification materials. When an elderly shepherd took our material, he sat down immediately on the ground to read it. He was so focused that he even forgot to take care of his sheep. On another occasion, a man carrying vegetables took our materials that were posted on a tree. He hung his vegetables on the tree, then stood there reading it. Last week after we finished distributing materials in a village and were about to leave, a farm tractor was driving very fast from behind to catch up with us. The dirt on the road was stirred up, and we could not clearly see who the person was, and thought that it might be an official from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). We immediately stood beside the road to send forth righteous thoughts. When the tractor stopped by us, we found out that he was a farmer. He looked at us and said, 'Please give me more of your good things.' We were not sure of his intentions, so we asked him what 'the good thing' was. The farmer said, 'I read the materials you distributed. It is very good, but I only have a few.' Hearing this, we gave him more of the other materials. One of us clarified the truth to him, while the other sent forth righteous thoughts. Soon after, the farmer did the 'three withdrawals' to withdraw from the CCP and it's affiliated organizations." The elderly practitioners added, "Usually, our materials are all picked up by people every week. The CCP cadres of the villages are usually corrupt and crude. Those farmers live in a very difficult situation. They are eager to learn the truth."
The two elderly practitioners do not have much education and may not be good at expressing themselves, yet they do their best to distribute materials to save people. I hope that more young practitioners take the responsibility to spread the truth to those remote areas, helping more people to learn the truth and be saved.
After hearing the elderly practitioners' deeds, I can see my shortcomings on the cultivation path. They may not have magnificent accomplishments or have brave words, yet what they have been humbly doing as practitioners for all these years is great enough to earn our respect.