Recently I received a very touching note from a relative in the mail. She had read a "Guest Essay" that a practitioner from her area had gotten published in her local paper. (It was posted on Clearwisdom: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/2/28/32693.html)

My relative had already learned about Dafa and the persecution through a request my husband and I made to guests attending our wedding--that instead of giving us gifts, they write letters to officials expressing their concern about the persecution of Dafa practitioners.

Her compassion came out, though, when she saw the practitioner's article in the newspaper, which was about Charles Li and his fiancée. She cut the article out of the newspaper and sent it to me, saying "Thought you would like to have this article that was in the local paper...This horror story is still happening." Clearly she was very sad to read about the persecution of Dafa practitioners, and her heart was moved. After reading that article she apparently really wanted to help, so she included a small check in the letter and asked that I fill in the blank name space so that the money could be used to help restore the human rights of people who practice Falun Gong. I think she knows that practitioners and Falun Gong itself don't accept donations, but at the same time she felt that this was a way for her to make a difference. For a lot of people, after all, especially kindhearted Americans, this is a very common way to help causes. So I decided to make the check out to Friends of Falun Gong USA, as I know that they are an organization of non-practitioners that accepts donations. I wrote my relative a thank-you note back and told her that her money had gone to Friends of Falun Gong USA and gave her their web address. I also clarified to her that Friends of Falun Gong USA is an organization of wonderful supporters like herself, not practitioners; this way she would be reminded that Falun Gong itself doesn't accept donations, but at the same time I wouldn't be blocking her from doing a great thing.

This was all so touching to me, as initially when we asked her to write a letter for our wedding she was reticent to do so because she didn't have more background on this issue. Yet through that fellow practitioner's article, through practitioners' combined efforts, and because people generally feel comfortable with what's published in newspapers, of her own accord she stepped forward to help in the way that she knows how. And I am happy to know that she has done something that will help save even more lives. In a sense, her act is the act of an everyday person telling others not to persecute Dafa that Master talks about in the North America Tour and in the 2001 Florida Lecture, because her money will go towards truth-clarification efforts for sure, and maybe someone will be saved by it. She will probably have a wonderful future because of that act.

I was touched, too, by the power of Dafa practitioners working together and by the efforts my fellow practitioner put forth to get that article published. I have heard that the Op/Ed section is the most-read section of the whole newspaper. So my fellow practitioner's article probably reached tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of precious sentient beings! What I saw was only one of the results of her truth-clarification efforts, but surely there were many many more.