Being encouraged by the Nordic Fa-conference in Gothenburg, we felt strongly inspired to do more Hongfa in our country. When we got the plan from Swedish practitioners about their Hongfa trip to Czech, Slovakia and Hungary, we were very happy and started to prepare with some practical things, designing and printing flyers, renting apartments and so on.
In the early morning of June 27th, a minibus with 6 practitioners (5 from Sweden and one from NY) arrived in Prague. Soon after their arriving, they started their Hongfa in the biggest park.
Informing the people in Prague about Dafa
The next day, we divided into two groups: one informed the people about Dafa in the public places (all with police permission) and one informed the media and parliament about Dafa.
Very much different from the summer in Scandinavia, the summer days were quite hot in the Czech Republic. Although the weather was hot, practitioners were very calm and harmonious, showing the exercises continuously with Dafa music. The passers-by couldn't help but stop and watch. They took flyers and read attentively. They even came closer to us to read or look at the information board and the pictures about Falun Gong. A few thousand flyers were delivered so quickly that we had to copy more after two days Hongfa.
A man got off a bus and came over to us. He took the flyer from a practitioner and told her he needed to come closer to our practice site. When he took two more steps towards us, he said, "Now I fell harmonious." He listened very attentively to the practitioner's introduction of Falun Dafa.
Many people had heard about the persecution. They were eager to find out what Falun Gong was. Wherever we went, we delivered the flyers to whoever we met.
Working with media and the parliament
One practitioner from Czech and two from Sweden formed one media/parliament team. They started to make phone calls immediately to the parliament, Amnesty, Czech's national TV, Radio and main newspapers. We soon got an appointment with the main newspaper, Dnes. The journalist who met us knew very little about Falun Gong. He listened to us carefully and took our media package with pleasure.
With the help of a city map, we drove to different addresses to leave the media packages. None of us were very familiar with the city. Even the practitioners from Czech were from other towns. We found Amnesty International in Prague and visited them. The representative talked with us for more than 30 minutes. Hearing what Falun Dafa was and the evil persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, she was very sad and showed her sympathy for these persecuted practitioners.
Late in the afternoon, we got an invitation from the Czech TV for an interview in a10 minute program about the 80-year anniversary of the XX party in China and the human rights situation in China. It was broadcast live at 23.30 pm. Practitioners were there on time and could hear the introductions. Because of their ignorance about Falun Gong, they described it incorrectly. We pointed out gently and firmly that the words came from the propaganda by the Chinese government and they shouldn't be used for Falun Gong, They apologized and changed them immediately. The staff was very understanding and the interview went very well except for one small mistake, which the reporter himself corrected immediately when the TV program was shown again at 7.15 am the next morning. People could recognize us in the park. One man came to the practitioner who was on TV and asked "Weren't you on TV yesterday and this morning?" Before he left, he wished us good luck.
On the third day, one practitioner from Czech and one from Austria came to join the media team. We visited the Czech Parliament and talked with the MP who worked with human rights issue. She showed great concern for the human rights situation of the Falun Gong practitioners in China. The meeting went very well. Practitioners had prepared a government package and left it with her before they left the parliament.
Tribulations
Due to the communication problem caused by the different languages and the different understanding of Fa, we have also got some good cultivation opportunities, as usual, for our Xinxing tests. We were all practitioners and we corrected ourselves with righteous thoughts according to the Fa. We worked better and better as a team.
On July 30th, when we were about to leave Prague, we found that the minibus we rented from Sweden had been broken into and the radio and CD player were stolen. One of the windows was smashed. Because of this incident, we had to stay one more day in Prague to fix the car. We took the time to study Fa, exchange our understandings about Fa and discover our attachments, then used the rest of the day to do Hongfa. That day many people, including Chinese tourists, got our information. Late in the afternoon, an owner of one Chinese restaurant passed by and asked a lot of questions. He took a few copies of information in Chinese to share with his friends. Once, a Chinese woman with a western husband did not take all the material we offered them, but five minutes later she returned and asked for more information.
When we did Hongfa in Brno, one practitioner lost her passport together with her handbag. In Slovakia, another practitioner lost his driver's licence and money together with his wallet. Both of them were quite calm and took the loss very well. Of course, we need to check ourselves when these things happen.
Finding more practitioners in Czech
The most surprising thing was that we got in contact with a Chinese practitioner in Prague, while we were wishing we could find some practitioners there.
He read Minghui very often and felt a bit uneasy compared with practitioners in the world. He didn't know what to do except to tell his friends Falun Dafa was good and to tell them he had been a Dafa practitioner for nearly 3 years. He had no idea if there were any Dafa practitioners in Czech. He practiced and studied Fa alone. The next day after the TV show, he came to the park looking for us. As soon as he arrived, he took the flyers and worked a few hours with us.
After observing and talking with him, we all felt he was a practitioner. Although he was quite calm and didn't show too much excitement about getting to know us, we could feel he was very happy to meet us. Later on, he joined us with Hongfa in Brno.
There were about 5 practicing in Brno. However, most of them didn't know and had never met practitioners in other cities. Of course, we were all very happy to meet each other. All of a sudden, we felt we were many and had a good foundation to establish Falun Dafa in the Czech Republic.
Sending forth righteous Falun Gong thoughts in Prague together with practitioners all over the world
On the evening of 29th July, we joined the global practitioners to send fourth righteous thoughts together at 23.00, 24.00 and 01.00. After we finished, it started pouring rain. A lot thunder and lightning followed, as if the sky was going to tear apart.
The next day we went to one of the practitioner's hometown and did the exercises on the main square, including sending forth righteous thoughts. Just when we were ready to continue our journey, the rain started pouring down again. We experienced this almost every time we did sending forth righteous thoughts in Czech.
An unforgettable workshop in Brno
Brno is the second largest city in Czech. We found the people here were very open and kind-hearted, although the western influence was very obvious. As soon as we arrived, we began to hand over the information package to all the local TV, radio and newspapers.
A local radio station came and interviewed one local practitioner the next day. Some newspapers showed also their interest in reporting about Falun Gong. Almost all the people passing by took our flyers and some stood a long time and watched us doing the exercises.
The last day in Brno, we had a workshop in a restaurant. It was a very good experience for all the participants. We started to introduce ourselves, and then gave a short introduction about Falun Dafa. Practitioners answered questions about the cultivation system and the persecution of Falun Gong in China. During the discussion, one lady said she saw the compassionate energy field around us while we practiced and delivered the flyers in a park in the center of the city, and she said Falun Dafa "is the greatest pearl of all the pearls" in life. When talking about Zhen Shan Ren and other religions, one Muslim man said he was looking for someone who could really offer salvation to mankind. He was so happy to meet us that he thanked each one of us twice with his strong hands before he left the workshop. The other participants named the time when Jesus was persecuted in history. During the whole workshop, the atmosphere was so compassionate and understanding that it bought tears to our eyes.
Hongfa in Bratislava
As soon as we arrived Bratislava, we visited some media. They were all very much interested in the information package we gave them.
When we visited the biggest news agency in Slovakia, we found out there had been an article two days earlier about 15 woman practitioners' death in China. They were wrongly reported as suicides. After an hour's meeting, they found out more truth about Falun Gong and the persecution in China. We got a lot of help from them about how to contact the journalists from the main newspapers.
The people there were quite open; some people came near and talked to us. The last day in Slovakia, we had no more flyers to deliver. Some of us demonstrated the exercises, while some of us shared our understanding about cultivation in Fa-ratification.
When we said good-bye to each other before the Hongfa team left for Hungary, we felt the time had been too short.
Within these 8 days in Czech and Slovakia, we delivered about 20,000 flyers. We felt we were much stronger now with respect to contacting the media, the parliament, or doing Hongfa in these two countries.
It took a long time for us to say good-bye. This Hongfa team continued their Hongfa trip to Hungary.
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