(Minghui.org) When I was 19, my mother came home in a hurry with a small cardboard box and said to me, “I did something, and I don’t know if I did right.”
I watched curiously as she opened the box – a sterilized cloth was inside it. She unwrapped the cloth and I saw a wrinkly newborn baby who was only a few hours old. My mom said the baby was born at 29 weeks and abandoned by her mother. I said, “It’s always right to save a life.”
My mom smiled. She fed the baby a few mouthfuls of water, handed the baby to me, and rushed back to work.
At 19, I was still a big kid and had never seen a newborn before, not to mention a premature baby. I was a little scared. Despite the fear, I watched the baby for more than an hour until my mom returned home from work.
She told me more about the baby, whom she later named Jing Lian (meaning “pure lotus flower” in Chinese). Earlier that day, Jing Lian’s biological mother came to the private clinic where my mother worked as a nurse and used an induction drug called “Rivanol” to try to abort her.
Jing Lian kicked her little legs a few times, but didn’t cry out when she was born. Everyone thought she died as expected so they stuffed her little body into a black medical garbage bag with the placenta, blood and gauze. The garbage bag was left on the cold concrete floor of the operating room when everyone took their lunch break.
More than three hours later, the sound of crying came from the garbage bag. The doctor in charge of the delivery came over to check on the situation. My mother happened to be the nurse on duty. When she saw the poor abandoned baby, she felt compassion for it. As a Falun Dafa practitioner, she also remembered what Master had said:
“It is a xinxing issue if you do not help stop a murder or arson when you see it. How will you otherwise demonstrate that you are a good person?” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun)
My mother thought, “I cannot see the tragedy of killing. I have to save her.” With the consent of the clinic director, my mom found a sterilized cloth (which she has kept to this day), and wrapped it around the baby. She put the baby in a cardboard box and took half an hour off work to bring the baby home.
From that day on, my mother became Jing Lian’s foster grandmother and I her foster mother. Life wasn’t easy for my mother and me, who were both persecuted for upholding our faith in Falun Dafa. My mother had been detained at least seven times in the past and my father divorced her out of fear of being implicated. I excelled academically and dreamed of going to a prestigious college, but my college dream was shattered because of the constant harassment for my faith.
When we decided to foster Jing Lian, my mother and I were both doing odd jobs in a southern city, away from our home in order to avoid being arrested again for our faith. We had just settled down and were still struggling to make ends meet. But as Falun Dafa disciples who cherish the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, we still decided to foster Jing Lian for as long as we could until we met someone whom we could trust to adopt her.
Jing Lian was not put in an incubator since we didn’t have the financial means to do so. Apart from a tetanus shot, she wasn’t given any medication either. But miraculously, she survived!
Before we knew it, she was one month old and weighed exactly two kilograms. My mother took the baby to her clinic and bought fruits for a little celebration with her colleagues. In the blink of an eye, Jing Lian had grown into a pretty, three-month-old adorable baby with big eyes and a bright complexion.
The first person who wanted to adopt Jing Lian was a relative of a Falun Dafa practitioner, a businesswoman who had two sons and wanted a girl. She liked Jing Lian very much and promised to give my mother tens of thousands of yuan for her hard work. The second person who wanted Jing Lian was the head of the clinic’s outpatient department. In short, there were more than ten people who wanted to adopt Jing Lian. But in the end, my mother and I both did not want to give the baby away. We couldn’t bear to let her go.
Mom and I worked different shifts in order to take care of Jing Lian. Most of the people didn’t support us raising her, saying how much it would cost us and how hard it would be. There were also people who gossiped about the baby without knowing the story behind our having her. But no matter how much pressure we shouldered and hardship we faced, my mom and I endured it all and decided to adopt Jing Lian.
When Jing Lian was one year old, I got married and went to live in another city with my husband. My mother and Jing Lian still lived together. When Jing Lian was two years old, I was about to have a baby, so my mom quit her job to take care of us.
At that time, my husband was imprisoned by the Chinese Communist Party in a re-education labor camp for practicing Dafa. I had a C-section, so my mother had to take care of Jing Lian, me, and my newborn baby. Those were the hardest days for our family in every way.
Over the past few years, my family has been running around for household registration (“hukou”) for Jing Lian. We have been to every government office we could find, but the matter has not been resolved without our having a proper birth certificate for her.
In China, it is difficult to get around without a hukou; one can’t even take a train, not to mention attending school. Because Jing Lian had no hukou, she couldn’t go to school.
But Dafa gave her wisdom. When she was one year old, she had started to watch and listen to Dafa-related videos and audios at home. After she turned three, my mother began to teach her to read Zhuan Falun, the main text of Falun Dafa, and soon she was able to recognize words. She could also read and recite Master’s poem collection Hong Yin in traditional Chinese. She also read many of Master’s teachings from all over the world, although she could not fully understand the meaning yet. She read at least half a lecture of Zhuan Falun every day. At one time, she studied five lectures of Zhuan Falun in two days.
At four, she was able to read Zhuan Falun in traditional Chinese. In fact, from the first day my mother brought her home, she had begun to listen to Master’s recorded lectures and Dafa music, as well as me and my mother reading the Dafa books.
When reading Dafa books, she always sat in full lotus position, holding the book in her hands like a little adult. The elder practitioners praised Jing Lian for her correct pronunciation and tone.
Jing Lian sits in full lotus position and generally meditates for an hour. She can enter tranquility for a short while. When she joins the group reading, she basically sits in full lotus position. She even sits like this when reading her leisure books for up to three hours, as she had long broken through the leg-pain test.
My husband was depressed for a while after he was released from the labor camp, and did not want to do the Falun Dafa exercises. Once he saw Jing Lian meditating, he also quietly sat down in full lotus position and meditated.
When my biological daughter was six, she also broke through the full lotus sitting barrier. Sometimes, she can meditate for an hour. When she noticed Jing Lian not behaving according to Dafa teachings, she pointed it out. Both little disciples help each other to improve their character according to the Fa.
While sending righteous thoughts one day, Jing Lian said she saw a demon with a lion head and wearing a suit. She held her hands in the lotus position. A sword flew out from her palm and the demon was immediately reduced to water.
Jing Lian also knows how to look inward. She said that she did not do the five sets of exercises every day in one go and she will work harder from this point on. She also said she has the attachment of fear after distributing Falun Dafa materials with us, and she would like to get rid of that attachment. When she suffered sickness symptoms, she was able to think positively. The whole family loves her very much.
At the age of eight, Jing Lian has no problem handling third grade literacy. Now, she reads Dafa books and does Dafa exercises in the morning and does academic studies in the afternoon. Of course, children can be naughty at times. The reason she is doing so well is that my mother is strict in educating her. She is less exposed to the deviant culture in society; she stays away from everyday TV programs, electronic games and cell phones. In the teaching and energy field of Falun Dafa, she is less contaminated.
Jing Lian has watched and listened to many videos, e-books, and pamphlets on the Minghui website. She loves to read books, especially historical stories. She has read most of the historical stories mentioned in Master’s teachings, as well as the Four Great Chinese Literature Classics except Dream of Red Mansions. She completed Water Margin in five days, and The Three Kingdoms in seven days (note: not the original version, but an abbreviated version).
After hearing Jing Lian’s story, a fellow practitioner came to visit us and invited our family to dinner. After seeing the recipes Jing Lian copied, she praised her for her good handwriting. Jing Lian can write traditional Chinese characters since she reads many books in traditional text. Once, a high schooler didn’t believe that Jing Lian knew more traditional characters than he did, so he initiated a competition with Jing Lian, and was finally convinced by the results.
If it were not for Dafa, Jing Lian wouldn’t have been here, let alone be so capable. My mother said, “Little Jing Lian is not only our child, but also Master’s little disciple, and she survived for the sake of practicing Dafa.”
Jing Lian once said, “I have two families: one small family and one big. My small family consists of five people: my grandmother, my father, my mother, my sister, and me; the bigger family is made up of Dafa disciples from all over the world, and they are all my relatives.”
When she was eight, Jing Lian said she always dreamed of learning English and reading the English version of Dafa books. She also dreamed of going to Minghui School and Fei Tian College, as she has long legs and the potential to become a dancer. She was especially envious of Shen Yun performers. She always looks forward to watching Shen Yun every New Year’s Eve!
As a poor abandoned baby, Jing Lian not only miraculously survived, but also has a home and a loving family. Our home was so small and simple that she had to share a bunk bed with her sister. We were struggling to make ends meet, so she and her sister often wore hand-me-down clothes brought by fellow practitioners.
Nonetheless, both children are healthy, happy, and fulfilled in their hearts. Although Jing Lian couldn’t attend school, she was able to develop her wisdom and intelligence through Falun Dafa. She owes everything to Falun Dafa, and her experience testifies to the miraculous power of Falun Dafa!
I’d like to talk about my own story as well. My family all practiced Falun Dafa. My mother began practicing Falun Dafa in 1998. After the Chinese Communist Party began to persecute Dafa in July 1999, she never wavered in her belief in Master and Dafa, and traveled to Beijing twice to appeal. Our home was raided three times, and she was unlawfully incarcerated on seven occasions ranging from a few days up to almost a year. As my father was a soldier, he divorced my mother in order to not be implicated.
Before I practiced Dafa, I was known far and wide as a child prodigy. I started elementary school when I was five and a half years old and a year later, I skipped to the third grade. At eight and a half, I was accepted into junior high school and my teachers and classmates all loved me. At the time, my mother’s goal was to enroll me into the Junior College of Science and Technology.
Two months after I started junior high school, I began practicing Falun Dafa. When I read the book Teachings at Conferences in the United States, Master’s picture was smiling at me; then I turned to the next page of the Falun Emblem and saw the four Taiji symbols spinning. After reading so many books, I had never seen anything so incredible, so I finished the only few Dafa books we had in one go. I experienced firsthand the supernormal abilities mentioned in the book Zhuan Falun, such as the celestial eye, the power of precognition and retro-cognition, etc.
With the onset of the persecution, I also went to Beijing to appeal with my mother. Despite my young age, I was taken into a brainwashing center with my mother and forced to attend brainwash sessions. When my father went to the brainwashing center to pick me up, they ordered me to write a guarantee statement saying that I would not practice Dafa. But I refused to comply.
Furious, the guards at the brainwashing center ended up throwing me out. No matter how difficult it was, I faced the situation with strength and optimism, and the police officers at the local police station admired my courage as a young girl.
My husband started practicing Falun Dafa when he was in junior high school. He was a left-behind child (those who are left behind in their hometowns or boarding schools while one or both parents become migrant workers in big cities). Dafa was the pillar that supported him and made him wise and enlightened. He passed the college entrance examination with high scores and got into a major university. While in college, he persisted in doing the Falun Dafa exercises and reading Dafa books too.
Over the past few years, our family has been helped by many selfless fellow practitioners when we moved from the south to the north, and then from the north to the south again. I would like to thank all the Dafa disciples who have given us a helping hand!