Starting Practice Sites in Tijuana, Mexico

(Minghui.org) Starting last year, Spanish-speaking practitioners from San Diego worked with practitioners in Tijuana to go there to promote Shen Yun performances held in San Diego and were warmly received.

Through our interactions with the practitioners from Tijuana, we discovered there were very few practitioners and only one practice site in this city of 1.3 million people.

Inspired by the positive response to Shen Yun, we realized that this was a good opportunity to share the practice of Falun Dafa with the people of Mexico.

Shortly thereafter, thanks to a practitioner’s friend, we were able to find a suitable park in a nice neighborhood. For the first several weeks, the only people in attendance were the few of us who led the practice and the nearby residents who noticed us while walking their dogs.

Over time, word of the practice site spread on social media, and in the past few weeks at least seven people have come to learn.

Doing the exercises in Parque de la Spiritualidad.

As our practice site grew, some of the newer practitioners from Tijuana, a brother and sister, were able to start their own site in the Playas region of the city along the beach and they have had good results as well. A local news station even expressed interest in doing a segment about their practice site.

A little girl and her father learn the exercises at the Playas practice site.

Waiting in Line at the Border Provides Opportunities

While it is easy for US citizens to cross into Mexico, the process of returning to the United States is more involved. As a result, there is usually a one-to-two-hour line at the border. This has been an opportunity for us to chat with other people in line and talk about how we’re introducing Falun Dafa in Tijuana, what the persecution is, etc.

San Diego is a major tourist destination. When many Chinese tourists visit the area, they like to make a brief stop in Tijuana. They have to wait in the line next to us to cross back into the United States.

Although we can’t speak adequate Chinese to them, one of us always wears a yellow Falun Dafa shirt so when we’re waiting in the border line, the Chinese tourists get a chance to realize that Westerners also practice Falun Dafa, and this is also clarifying the truth.

One time as we were getting dropped off at the border, a group of 40 or so Chinese tourists was heading toward the line. We made our way past them, so they could see the back of my shirt, which said “Falun Dafa Is Good!” in Chinese characters. As we passed each pair we could hear, “Falun Dafa Hao! Falun Dafa Hao! Falun Dafa Hao!” Some of them even called out to us as we walked by.

Other cities in Mexico have had great success promoting the practice, such as Puebla, which has 20 practice sites. We hope that we, too, are able to share this great Fa with even more of the people in Tijuana.