Making Calendars to Awaken People

(Minghui.org) Falun Dafa practitioners make exquisite desk calendars that people adore. Minghui.org publishes the new New Year calendar in mid-autumn. Those of us who make the calendars become very busy all the way until the year’s end. We purchase supplies, print, bind, and distribute the calendars to thousands of homes.

Taking Steps to Ensure Safety

An integral part of making calendars are concerns over safety. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has persecuted Falun Dafa practitioners for over 23 years. The authorities are continually going out to arrest practitioners, so we need to be extremely careful with our movements.

I began to make calendars in 2017 after a site that made calendars was broken into and a few practitioners were arrested. The police seized a lot of supplies, but practitioners managed to save two thousand sets of newly bought baseboards and notified us through intermediaries.

I had transportation that was suitable for moving the boards. So I moved them out of one building and into another, loaded them into the elevator, then moved them to a room on a higher floor, all by myself. Knowing that one of my hands is disabled, we were surprised at how I did it.

We shipped the calendars to other places after we made them. The building security guard became suspicious seeing us constantly moving so much stuff in and out of the building. He saw me in the elevator when I had four bags of calendars. “What are they?” he asked.

I said, “Advertisement material.” He then asked, “Which floor do you live on?” I didn’t want to tell him, but I couldn’t lie either since I cultivate Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. So I told him the truth. By this time we arrived at the garage, and I quickly took the materials to my car.

After some discussion, we decided to relocate our materials site to another location. A practitioner rented a unit in a high-rise building 20 km away. There was no garage there, so we had to park in a neighboring garage. Everyone helped unload the materials and carry them up to the room. We then took the calendars back down to the car when they were made.

Fa study is a prerequisite for practitioners to do anything well. We often reminded one another about this point. When we needed to unify our thoughts, we discussed the issue first, then made decisions. Despite the ups and downs this year, we made close to 10,000 calendars. Master Li (Dafa’s founder) looked after us the whole time.

Overcoming Obstacles as One Body

The site coordinator was arrested just as we were preparing to produce calendars in 2018. The calendars needed to be made, so I thought I might as well take charge since I was responsible for the shipping the prior year and had a good grasp of the overall situation.

It requires a certain environment and conditions to make the calendars. I lived in an old residential area, where the sound insulation was poor, and people could easily see everything when they came to visit, so it was not suitable to make the calendars there.

Another practitioner, Jia (alias), offered to help. She had a materials production site at home and wanted to learn to make calendars, so she invited us to make calendars at her place. I found Yi, who knew how to make calendars and fix printers to help her.

Unfortunately, a practitioner named Bing (alias) was unhappy because she had also been looking for a place to make calendars. But we didn’t tell her about the arrangement to make them at Jia’s place. She said to me, “Why did you keep this a secret? I've found a place. The calendars can’t be made at Jia’s home.”

It did not look like we could pacify Bing easily, so I told Jia that if Bing insists, we should help make the calendars at her place. So Jia agreed.

I told Bing about our decision when she came to my house. She was silent for a while, then asked, “What do you think we should do?”

“From what I can see, it would be better if we made the calendars at Jia’s place.” Bing expressed her opinion but then decided to give up the idea of making calendars.

When the calendars were made, practitioners helped distributed them all over. Some practitioners lived close by, while some were from different counties. The farthest was a practitioner from the countryside 100 km away. Going there would take a five-hour round trip. We often delivered calendars there under starry skies.

Jia, Yi (alias), and I worked together to make calendars in 2019. The elevator to Jia’s apartment was broken when everything was ready. She lived on the fourth floor, and there were five flights of stairs to climb from the garage.

We couldn’t find others to help due to security concerns. Jia was elderly, and Yi was small and not suited to do hard labor. So I ended up doing all the moving. I put the materials in large sacks, then moved them up and down the stairs one sack at a time. I did this for a few months.

One practitioner to whom we delivered the calendars lives on the 13^th floor. She often said that I was so strong when I took calendars to her. I looked at my thin arms. It was hard to believe that someone would say I was strong. But I did carry bags of 200 calendars each up to the 13^th floor. Of course, Master was supporting me.

Making Quality Calendars

It takes a lot of money to make these calendars. The materials must be of good quality, and the printers need to be replaced every year. To prevent the color from fading, we began to use expensive Canon ink in 2020. The money was donated by practitioners. I would stop accepting money when we had enough and cherished every yuan donated. A few practitioners also offered to pay for my heating bill, but I declined. When they insisted, I used the money they gave to buy materials. We all did our best for saving people.

To purchase materials, I walked almost everywhere to save money. I even found a paper company to cut A0-sized paper into A4 to save money.

The coordinating practitioner always said that I worked hard. Actually, as a practitioner, I was just assimilating myself to the characteristics of Dafa. I felt my life was very fulfilling!

Master has supported me all these years so I could continue with this valuable project. I truly wish all people will appreciate the calendars that we make. If one person gives them to 10 people and those people give them to 100 more, we can save a lot of time.