(Minghui.org) I began practicing Falun Dafa prior to the persecution in 1999. Because I was so young, I had little contact with other practitioners and no one else in my family practiced.
Shortly after the persecution began, my parents and I left China. I knew Falun Dafa was good, but because of the fear and pressure from the persecution inside China and my parent’s opposition, I only read Zhuan Falun (the main book of Dafa's teachings) occasionally and sometimes meditated in the evening. I did not know about Master’s other lectures or anything about Fa-rectification or the requirement for Dafa disciples to clarify the truth.
After I graduated from high school, I was admitted to a university. One day while I was browsing the Internet, I found the Minghui website. This was the first time I read Master’s new lectures. I understood that as a Dafa disciple, it was my responsibility to clarify the facts and save sentient beings. I was in deep regret for wasting so many years because of my ignorance.
With the mentality of doubting the truth about Falun Dafa and the persecution, I even doubted whether Minghui was a legitimate website. But after reading several articles on Minghui, I knew that everything I read was real. I couldn’t continue to ignore or deny the truth. This was a huge shock but I had to face reality.
I spent the next six months reading all of Master’s lectures. Afterwards, I began to participate in various truth clarification projects. I also joined the Minghui translation team. Because I was in college and my language skills were good, it was relatively easy for me to do translation. Many team members were happy that I joined them.
To catch up with all the losses I caused during the years I did not do anything, I set a requirement for myself. No matter how long the article was, even if it was a Fa Conference article, I translated one article each day. At that time, the coordinators assigned us articles. I was frequently assigned long articles and the work load was relatively heavy. I remember that one day I started to translate a Fa Conference article around noon. It felt like I would never reach the end. I didn’t think about it, instead I just focused on translating non-stop. By the time I finished it was mid-night. The process of translation is not exciting. However, if we can set a goal for ourselves, such as improving our translation speed or quality, we are motivated to do better, and we will feel delighted after reaching our goal.
Stepping Up and Coordinating
At one point the previous coordinator could not continue for various reasons. The overall coordinator contacted me, and I became the coordinator of this Minghui team. When I began to coordinate, I realized it was not easy. We have to keep a low profile and we can’t talk about our project like other media members do. I have to keep doing my everyday job and still diligently work on Minghui. It’s easy to become lax. I experienced it myself. We can’t see how many people we’ve saved through this website, we can’t see the changes in people after they read our articles, and we can’t see the results of the things we do. If we don’t have an environment to help each other, over time fewer and fewer people will participate.
To improve this situation, I adopted a one-on-one channel for communication with team members. This can help us to get to know each other better, and how much time and effort team members can contribute to the project. Constant communication can also enhance our understanding of the importance of the website. It also gave me a better idea of the overall picture of every team member.
Next, I set up a work schedule for the translation team. For example, we need to update the articles every day. Because most of the translators are busy during the week, they usually work on this project on weekends. Every weekend we had many articles to update, but little was done on weekdays, which made our article pipeline very unstable.
After I learned everyone’s schedule, I adjusted the workload and made it more reasonable for polishers and translators. I also set the goal of publishing 10 articles each day. If something was not very urgent we could wait a few days to publish it. In this way we were able to stabilize our daily publishing schedule.
I also started an online session for translators. I would go over an article translated by that translator and point out where he did well or where he needed to improve. I shared what I knew about grammar, spelling and some of the translation skills I’d learned. I hoped by sharing my experience our translation quality could improve.
Although this required a lot of my time, I felt that most team members were happy about the meetings. On one hand, it helped translators know that they are valued team members; on the other hand, I could answer some of their questions about the translation work. It also created better team morale and encouraged more active participation.
Through the translation schedule and learning meetings, we could usually guarantee ten new articles each day. It’s not a lot compared to the English Minghui website, but we decided that we wouldn’t update the website if we didn’t have ten new papers.
Then the Shen Yun Office found me and asked me to coordinate the performances in the country I live in. From then on, Shen Yun became my top priority. I also thought about whether I should find a replacement for the Minghui work, but I decided to stay on. I could no longer hold one-on-one meetings with translators. I continued to attend their weekly sharing, hoping they could still remain diligent. After a while, I realized that this wouldn’t work. Gradually, the whole team became lax.
A few years ago, we resumed our previous translation schedule, but this time it was not as strict. We also formed a few teams. Each team has a team lead, and each one is responsible for a few team members. This approach makes it easier to coordinate and communicate with each other.
Through my experience in Minghui all these years, I feel that most of the practitioners who work on this project don’t have strong attachments to themselves. They usually just do everything they’re asked to do. As a coordinator, I really want to thank everyone for their hard work and cooperation. On the other hand, I also feel that most practitioners who work for Minghui don’t have a strong sense of responsibility for the project. If we’re slow in translation, no one steps up to take more work or suggests how can we improve. It felt like they were just following a routine. This problem has existed for a few years, but I still haven’t figured out how to solve it.
Because of my job and my involvement in Shen Yun, it’s hard for me to spend as much time and effort as I did before on Minghui. I wonder whether this is the best solution for this Minghui team. As a coordinator who can’t fully commit to it, I wonder whether I’m qualified to be the ideal coordinator--especially given the current lax status of practitioners involved, with no strong motivation to move things forward. Without a strong leader who can push everyone forward, will it affect how quickly we improve together as a team?
I’d like to take this opportunity to share my thoughts with all practitioners involved in Minghui. Since we chose to work on Minghui it means we are using this project as a platform to fulfill our vows and the contract we signed with Master. How well we do this project, and whether we can reach our goal to truly save people -- I think this is a question everyone who signed the contract with Master needs to think about.
If we look at it this way, then the coordinator merely plays the role of arranging things. The success of the project itself depends on each team member’s contribution and the reason why each of us joined this project. I really hope every team member can pay attention to this issue. I don’t want any one of us to have regrets in the future for not having fulfilled our responsibilities.
(Presented at the Minghui’s 20th Anniversary Fa Conference-selected and edited)