(Minghui.org) After being paralyzed for seven years, I was able to stand again in 1996, after I started practicing Falun Dafa. The amazing experience of regaining my health convinced me that Falun Dafa indeed teaches the principles of the universe. I wanted to tell every person in this world, so that they could all benefit from these teachings.
During the past 20 years, I’ve helped more than 6,000 people start practicing, and protected more than 5,000 copies of Zhuan Falun soon after the persecution started.
My family was in dire financial straits in 1996, to the point that we could barely make ends meet, but I was determined to help more people learn Falun Dafa. I sold all the used items in our house for 72 yuan. With this 72 yuan (about $12), I bought six copies of Zhuan Falun.
I started my first job as a substitute teacher in a local elementary school. For years my colleagues had heard that I was paralyzed. After I told them about my wondrous experience with Falun Dafa, everyone wanted to try it. I lent them copies of Zhuan Falun and told them that they could buy the book for the original price. Within a week, all six copies of Zhuan Falun were purchased by those who had decided to start practicing. That gave me 72 yuan in cash to buy six more books.
With help from other practitioners in our area, we held workshops in practitioners' homes by showing videos of Master's nine-day lecture series. At each workshop, there were always dozens of people wanting to join the practice. I did not have any extra money, so I always bought six copies of Zhuan Falun at a time, sold them to six new practitioners at the same price, then went back to the bookstore for another six copies, until everyone that wanted one had a copy.
We held more than 90 workshops between October 1996 and July 1999. Starting with 72 yuan, I bought copies of Zhuan Falun for more than 6,000 new practitioners.
I was very worried about the books I had bought for the new practitioners after the Communist Party started persecuting Falun Dafa in 1999. What would happen if they decided to give up the practice? I borrowed 72,000 yuan from my relatives so that I could buy the books back if their owners no longer wanted them.
I visited the new practitioners and asked if they were planning to continue the practice, given the persecution. More than a thousand told me that they would keep the book and continue practicing, so I spent only around 60,000 yuan to buy back the remaining 5,000 books.
To protect these books from being destroyed by the authorities, I hid the books in a cellar. It was not a very respectful way to store these precious books, but I did not have a better option at the time.
Another practitioner soon made the courageous decision to store the books in his home. I packaged them into more than 100 boxes, then made many trips on my bicycle to take them to the practitioner's home. They occupied an entire room for quite a few years.
I was later arrested and detained several times. In the detention center, forced labor camp, and jail, those books were always on my mind, and I hoped that those who had given up the practice would one day return.
After I was released in 2005, I started the long journey to help those former practitioners return. I visited every corner of our county during the next ten years, and helped several thousand people start cultivating again, returning their copies of Zhuan Falun that I had previously bought back.
It has not been easy. In the first village I visited, practitioners' family members were so polluted by the Communist Party's propaganda that they did not even let me stay.
I did not give up. For many years, I visited that village whenever I was in the area. In 2013, a young man from the village recognized me. He was only 6 years old when I introduced Falun Dafa to the villagers, but he had not given up the practice. He connected me with fellow practitioners in that area.
These are just a few of the amazing experiences I have had as a Falun Dafa practitioner over the past 20 years. I am deeply grateful to Master and wanted to share these great experiences with the world.