(Minghui.org) My wife and I started practicing Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, in 1996. We established a Fa study and exercise site at our home that has been running for over 20 years, thanks to Master's protection.
There were over 100 Falun Gong practitioners in our village before the persecution started on July 20, 1999. Our home was one of five Fa-study sites that had been established. Every day, over 50 practitioners arrived at 3:30 a.m. to practice the exercises. We studied the Fa together during the day and in the evening. Our home was always full, and every practitioner cultivated diligently.
Despite the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) severe persecution, practitioners continued studying the Fa and doing the exercises together. We clarified the facts to people and did what Dafa practitioners are required to do.
Someone reported us to the police one day when nearly forty practitioners were holding an experience-sharing meeting in my home. Everyone at the meeting was fined, detained, and sent to a brainwashing center. Our homes were ransacked.
Some practitioners became afraid and didn't dare attend the group Fa study after that. However, others kept coming and continue to come to this day. We cultivate diligently and believe in Master and the Fa.
Our village was rebuilt in 2014, and we lost contact with many practitioners as they moved away. For the past four years, we have been looking for them one by one, and we take Master's new articles and Dafa materials to them when we find them. Some of them have continued doing the three things pretty well.
There is a practitioner that I've known since childhood. He was a practice site coordinator, and practitioners liked to discuss and share experiences with him. Several years ago, however, he moved to another city for work, and I lost track of him.
I finally found him two years ago, but when I saw him he was weak, underweight, and walked with a limp. He said that he had high blood pressure, cataracts, and leg pain. He had been in a motorcycle accident several days prior and had bruises all over his body.
I felt sorry for him. He gave up cultivation for the opportunity to make more money, but it ruined his health. I urged him to start practicing again because only Dafa and Master could help him recover. He had a lot of fear, and his family was against him practicing.
He wouldn't meet with me to talk and exchange Dafa materials, so I asked other practitioners to visit him and give him Master's new articles and Dafa materials, which he accepted when they met.
When my wife and I visited him again, he no longer hid from us. We studied Master's new articles together and shared our cultivation experiences.
Master said:
“What history has bestowed upon Dafa disciples are all the most magnificent things. At present, all that you are doing is the most sacred, all that you are doing is for sentient beings, and all that you are doing is creating the future.” (Congratulatory Statement to the New York Fa Conference, The Essentials of Diligent Progress Vol. III)
My wife said to him, “You led other practitioners in clarifying the truth and saving sentient beings when you followed Falun Dafa's principles. Practitioners liked to share with you. You helped them a lot. They respected you very much.”
“We grew up together,” I continued, “We descended to the earth to help Master rectify the Fa. We must follow Master and return to our original homes together.”
He seemed to accept what we were saying. I installed a satellite dish for him so he could watch NTDTV, despite objections from his son-in-law.
With Master's care, he decided to take up the practice again. We went to his home to study the Fa and do the exercises with him and several other practitioners.
In the beginning, he was unable to see the words in the Dafa books clearly, and he read the Fa in broken sentences. Practitioners patiently encouraged him and helped him. Gradually, his reading improved.
He studied the Fa and practiced the exercises every day, and his xinxing improved a lot. Soon, his health recovered. Now he clarifies the facts to acquaintances and helps them quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations.
Some practitioners returned to our village after the rebuilding was complete. My wife and I visited them and restored our Fa-study group. Master gave us this form of group Fa study, and we must carry it out well.
My next-door neighbor, also a practitioner, was very happy to see us again and said that we could study the Fa and do the exercises together. She hadn't read any Dafa books in several years but had been reading Minghui Weekly and occasionally helped distribute Dafa materials. She hadn't read Master's recent articles, so she wasn't clear about how the Fa-rectification was progressing.
“I became slack without a cultivation environment,” she said, “Now I have somewhere to go since you hold group practice in your home. Master has arranged for you to help me.”
She studied the Fa seriously every day and came to understand the Fa more and more. She came to know that she needed to study the Fa well before she could do the three things well and that she was not a Dafa practitioner if she didn't study the Fa. She now does the three things and distributes Dafa materials to her friends and relatives.
Helping former practitioners return to Dafa is also a process of improving our own xinxing. Some practitioners stay at home and are afraid to study the Fa with the group, even though they had agreed to join in – others find excuses and refuse our invitation. Some won't even open their door when we go to see them, while the families of others prevent them from seeing us. It isn't easy to form a Fa-study group amid the ongoing persecution.
One day, we saw a former practitioner talking with two other ladies, so my wife and I joined them. I told them about Falun Dafa and the women agreed to quit the Young Pioneers, one of the CCP's youth organizations. They thanked me wholeheartedly.
When my wife offered Dafa materials to the practitioner, she was terrified and wouldn't accept them, saying, “My children are all against me practicing Falun Dafa. I dare not practice. I have to go.”
Seeing her hurry off, my wife cried, because that woman had cultivated diligently before the persecution. The CCP's lies and threats cause many practitioners to lose the precious opportunity of cultivating in Dafa. We feel truly sorry for their situations.
My wife and I understand that the practitioners who don't join group study are afraid, but we also believe that they will eventually have the strength to return.
We appreciate Master's vast compassion and that he does not want to leave any practitioner behind. Master arranged for us to run into several practitioners we hadn't seen for many years. Soon, other practitioners who hadn't yet stepped out also met with us. More than a dozen practitioners stepped forward and formed a Fa-study group.
We are so happy to reunite with these practitioners and are very thankful to Master for his arrangements and compassion. We have been studying the Fa with this group for two months now and feel that we have improved a lot. We form one body and cooperate well in doing Dafa work and clarifying the facts.
We are each determined to catch up with the Fa-rectification process and make up for lost time. We feel that we have found our original selves again and cultivate as diligently as when we first started. We cherish the opportunity and treasure having the time to save more sentient beings.
There are former practitioners that still haven't returned to Dafa. We will continue to look for them. Master has provided the time and opportunity for us to find them. Let's cultivate diligently and follow Master to our original homes.