My husband, who regularly organizes Dafa booths at local street fairs to clarify the truth, began practicing before me. Like some others, I too wondered if these seemingly small efforts were the best use of time. Having come to new understandings, though, and having participated in the street fairs, I now feel differently.
While each street fair is unique, there are a number of common responses people seem to have at each one to our Falun Dafa booth.
"How can I learn Falun Dafa? How can I start to practice?"
More and more people at each fair see the booth, see practitioners demonstrating the exercises, and are immediately interested in learning all that they can about Falun Dafa and how to begin practicing. They want to know about the closest practice site, what web sites they can go to, and ask, "Is it really free?" They are very enthusiastic. These people are amazing to me because they just "stumbled upon" this booth and in a matter of minutes (or seconds) recognized Falun Dafa as something very good and special. At the last street fair, one woman encouraged her grandson to learn the exercises and said, "I feel so honored that I have come across you all here today." She was on the verge of tears.
"This is so beautiful," or "This looks so peaceful."
While this may seem kind of obvious, this image is an important one, I think. There are always a portion of people who pass by without accepting materials or talking to practitioners at the booth. But at least they read the words "Falun Dafa" and are given a nice and true picture of what it is and that it is something accepted and good in their community. Perhaps the next time they see or hear the words "Falun Dafa" they'll remember and have a positive starting point in their hearts.
"What is Falun Dafa?" or "I have never heard of this before."
It is my understanding that this is reason enough, alone, to do these street fairs. In my experience, at least, this seems to be the response of the vast majority of people at the fairs. Even in communities where one would think that everyone, by now, knows of Falun Dafa and the persecution, this is the response of 80-90% of the people coming by. It is always striking to me how little people know about Falun Dafa. A lot of people even ask, "Why isn't this all over the media?" "Why don't we hear about this in the news?"
Through these street fairs, we are able to add Falun Dafa to people's vocabulary, give them materials about the practice and the persecution, and send them off with the truth. Many people say that they are going to check the web sites and tell their friends. One man I remember came to the booth just as the fair was ending and said, "I have a Chinese friend who may be interested in reading about this. May I have some newsletters?" Who knows how many people those who see our booth tell about it and how many people are truly impacted. What's more, this is a good lesson for us practitioners to keep in mind, in that there is much more work to be done. This underlines, I think, the importance of all of the other, large-scale projects. There are many people who still don't know the truth.
So, I think these street fairs are like many things that seem small as we do them and we may question their importance, but in fact, they aren't small and are also a part of the work we should be doing in clarifying the truth. This is just my understanding that I wanted to share with you. Please let me know if you find anything inappropriate in my sharing.
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Category: Journeys of Cultivation
