Chinese and Western Falun Gong practitioners participated in the "Winton
Outback Festival" in central Queensland on the 17-18 September 2005. Winton
is situated 1433 km NW of Brisbane and has long been the centre of a vast cattle
and sheep grazing area, and has a proud association with Australia’s national
song, Waltzing Matilda, having been sung in public for the first time in Winton.
The "Winton Outback Festival" is held every second year in September,
where unique outback events have captured the attention of both national and international
tourists.
Ten practitioners headed off to Winton on the two-day drive to bring
Falun Dafa to the Australian Outback.
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Under
the hot sun, practitioners set up two stalls in the grassed medium strip of the
main street. We demonstrated the exercises, handed out information and spoke to
many people in depth about Falun Dafa and the benefits one can obtain by its practice.
Our "Petals of Peace" table, folding paper Lotus flowers, was very popular
with the children and many went away proudly with their accomplishments after
having had the opportunity to share and discuss with them the principles of Truthfulness,
Compassion and Tolerance and how one can bring these qualities into their daily
lives.
Although the Winton crowd seemed reserved in coming forward, we
could always sense their inquisitiveness. It was very precious to see a man in
his 50s spontaneously join a group of five women who were being shown the exercises.
The children were very much drawn to the energy of our stall, and towards the
end a small group of 10-12 year old boys sat down with us and waited for us to
finish Sending Forth Righteous Thoughts before bringing up lots of questions.
The little 5-7 year olds were so pure and open and eagerly asked to be shown the
exercises as the parents watched interestingly from a distance. We had many people
come by who were visitors to Winton and who had seen or heard of Falun Dafa before,
so we were able to reinforce and deepen what they already knew.
Falun Dafa
books and the video of the exercises were gratefully accepted by the Librarian
at the Winton Library and will provide the people of Winton a further opportunity
to know Falun Dafa. Similarly, a set of books and exercise video were left along
the way at Longreach Library.
It was a wonderful experience to have had
this opportunity to show the people of the Australian Outback the beauty of Falun
Dafa and share about the truth of the persecution in China.
Posting date:
4/Oct/2005
Original article date: 3/Oct/2005
Category: Event
