(Minghui.org)
A two-kilometer country road was the only road connecting our village to the outside world. People used this road to reach their farms and orchards.
The road was not maintained, so there were different sized potholes everywhere. Cars and trucks could not drive this road, and after a heavy rain, it was completely impassible.
This created a headache for all the villagers, and it hurt our economy. Our peaches and grapes could not be shipped on time, so they often had to be sold at a huge discount. Bachelors had a hard time finding wives because of the negative publicity. People from different areas always asked if the road was fixed and called our village “Lone Island Village.”
More than a dozen Falun Gong practitioners from our village—from teenagers to seniors in their 70s—decided to fix the road in 2005. They filled all the potholes with broken bricks, gravel, and dirt in 2 days, just before the farmers market. The villagers were very excited and happy to witness the kind deed. “These are truly good people,” some said. “The party calls them an ‘evil cult’, but that is ridiculous. We should learn from them.”
Many villagers changed their negative view of Falun Gong after the incident. One party member in his 70s, who refused to quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the past, asked practitioners to help him quit after the road was repaired.
A woman asked a practitioner to help her quit the Young Pioneers, an affiliate of the CCP. She said that Falun Gong is great and told practitioners that her mother was a practitioner.
Practitioners hired four dump trucks in 2006 to fix all streets in the village as well as a road to the school. They paid for all the labor and materials. When villagers learned about this, they were touched by how remarkable the practitioners were.
People openly talked to practitioners, listened to the facts about Falun Gong, and many quit the CCP and its affiliates.
However, the road became worn again after many years of use without maintenance. So practitioners decided to fix the road in 2013. They also decided to widen it to allow for two-way traffic.
They hired 10 dump trucks and a steamroller to complete the job. People were very impressed. “Our society would be much better if everyone behaved like Falun Gong,” some remarked. “We should elect a practitioner as our village head next time.”
After news of the practitioners' good deed spread to other villages, many other people also reversed their negative view of Falun Gong.
A wealthy man from a neighboring village, who was deceived by the party’s lies, always refused to accept a Falun Gong calendar from a practitioner in the past. After hearing about the road repair, he asked a practitioner to give him Falun Gong materials. He told others that practitioners have done a fantastic job.
Our villagers do no accept badmouthing of practitioners. They defend Falun Gong and tell those people who have been poisoned by the Party's slander that whatever they say is not true and that the practitioners in their village are model citizens.
Once, a practitioner tried to hand out Shen Yun DVDs in the market of a neighboring village and no one dared to take one. Then a man from our village appeared, asked for a DVD, and said that a good friend of his is a practitioner. He then encouraged others to accept the DVDs.
Several officials from the city came to examine the “Falun Gong situation” in our village during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. But the village CCP Secretary’s wife openly challenged them. “What’s wrong with Falun Gong?” she demanded. “The practitioners have done a great job taking care of our community. So, what are you trying to do anyway?”