(Clearwisdom.net)
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| Parade setting off | Float of Falun Gong practitioners |
On September 2, 2002, Falun Gong practitioners from the Chicago area attended the grand Labor Day Parade in the City of Naperville, a neighboring city of Chicago. Naperville has a population of 130,000. The Chinese population here is the densest in the vicinity and the evil's interference is also most severe here. Practitioners from Naperville made great efforts together, broke through the evil's interference and obtained the approval to distribute Dafa truth-clarifying materials.
Early in the morning, practitioners from the Chicago area all came to the starting point of the parade. Some practitioners stayed up throughout the night to decorate the float. Some practitioners immediately drove here to join the parade after some other activities without taking a rest over night. Attendees lined up waiting for the start of the procession. It was cloudy and shortly after, it started raining. Right away, practitioners sent forth righteous thoughts. The rain stopped. At about 10:30, our procession set off. There was another blast of rain. Practitioners quietly sent forth righteous thoughts. Although they did not have any rain gear and they were soaked through, practitioners still quietly sent forth righteous thoughts, and so did the teenage practitioners. Their powerful righteous thoughts dissipated the dark clouds. Finally, the sun shone again after rain when the parade began.
The float and procession slowly moved forward. Two practitioners holding a huge banner reading, "Falun Dafa" in both Chinese and English led our procession. "Seven flying heavenly girls" in court dresses followed them. The banners on both sides of the float that read, "The World Needs Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance" were extremely eye-catching. One after another, spectators waved to practitioners. Some even imitated practitioners' exercise movements. Some came into the procession to shake hands with practitioners.
Although it rained heavily before the parade, nearly 10,000 spectators came to watch the parade. The peaceful and serene procession of Dafa practitioners brought the blessings of Dafa to the local people. Over 5,000 Dafa truth-clarifying flyers were handed to those fortunate beings who are living in this special period of time.
