(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings, Master! Greetings, Dafa disciples!

I am a Dafa disciple in Ukraine. I would like to share my experience. I hope that it will help to inspire other practitioners.

The doors of truth clarification are opening wider and wider. We now have such an excellent instrument as The Epoch Times.

A year and a half ago Ukrainian practitioners decided to construct The Epoch Times website in Ukraine. At that time practically none of us had any special knowledge or skills. Having understood the importance of this step for our country, I decided that I would spare no effort in helping with this project. At that time no one knew how to write articles correctly and we did not have specialized education for that. I thought that having staff reporters was a foundation for media development and if we did not have special reporters, how could we be considered a media outlet? So I firmly decided that I should start working in that direction.

Looking back, I think it’s unbelievable that I got involved in journalism. From childhood I had never liked to read books, nor had I ever watched the news or read newspapers. Later I entered a technical university and got a degree in biotechnology. That is to say, I had no experience with the work of a journalist. However, to complete a task for the development of The Epoch Times was more important than bowing to all the limitations in my life. I knew that for a disciple of Dafa nothing is impossible, and if we have a firm understanding of the importance of this, Teacher will surely help us and give us everything that is necessary.

I always understood that working as a journalist would be a unique opportunity to meet a lot of influential people in society face to face. Politicians and other public figures need journalists, because the media create the VIP’s image in society. That is why those people are willing to get in touch with journalists. We all know the importance of truth-clarification to the officials, because those are lives that came from very high levels to play their roles in society at this time. If this authoritative and respected person publicly criticizes the unlawful persecution in China, then that will play a big positive role. These people represent different layers of society, and include politicians, pop-stars, painters, etc. Their constituents listen to their opinions.

Having realized all this, I decided to take action. First of all, it was necessary to acquire basic article writing skills. Because I had no opportunity to study journalism in a university, especially because that would take up a lot of my time and money, I decided to first of all sign up for a free journalism class at the Central Art Club for Youth in Kiev. Even though most of the students are schoolchildren, the instructor accepted me with pleasure. Our Teacher helped me a lot. I was in the right place. In minimal time, over a few months, the instructor taught me the basics of writing articles. He explained the genres of articles, the rules for those genres, what I needed to know to prepare good quality material, etc. I understood that the knowledge was given not to me alone, but to us, practitioners at large, that have taken on the task of creating a mass media tool. I tried to always share this information with other reporters of The Epoch Times. Very soon we began to write our own articles, which turned out to be more popular than the ones we copied from other websites. While attending the classes, I tried to use every opportunity to clarify the truth to people around me. During the course I wrote a couple of articles, revealing the crimes of the CCP against Falun Dafa, and thus my instructor and classmates learned the truth about the persecution. Later one of my classmates started writing articles for The Epoch Times.

After I gained the necessary skills, I realized that to create a high-quality newspaper we needed to learn from professionals, so I started looking for a job in journalism. I was invited to work for a newspaper owned by a Ukrainian political party. I did not think highly of that party, but still decided to work there for a little while. The editor of the newspaper is also the leader of that political party. He usually reads the material before it is published and decides whether it is worth publishing in the newspaper. He was later elected Mayor of Kiev. I thought that was a great opportunity to clarify the truth to the Mayor. I could write an article about organ harvesting from living prisoners in China. At least he would read it. I also realized how critical it was for that article to appear in the newspaper. That Mayor owns two newspapers. The second one is distributed among lawyers, judges, and elected parliament members. I shared the idea of writing that article with the editor of the other newspaper as well. Later the Mayor read the article, approved it, and it was published in both newspapers. Maybe because I was not confident and firm about the positive results, almost all Falun Dafa content was taken out of the article. Nevertheless, the article revealed well the crimes of the CCP.

Now, working at the newspaper, I have to write articles on different topics. I interview interesting people and also prepare articles on social matters. Whoever I meet in the process, I always try to tell them about the unlawful persecution in China. I also have a great opportunity to work with professionals and slowly learn from them.

I also saw that when a journalist says something, people listen to him to a considerable extent. This does not mean that a journalist should say, "Hey! I practice Falun Dafa. It is good, and the persecution by the CCP is horrible." In my understanding, we should explain that Falun Dafa is good and the CCP is bad without necessarily saying openly that one is a practitioner. Maybe from a journalist, a person who did not listen to practitioners would be able to accept the truth. In an interview you can ask a question, or simply tell them what you know. This way you can also achieve the same effect of clarifying the truth and saving those people.

My experience is only one of many of us who started working for The Epoch Times. Other practitioners have also started quickly accumulating the knowledge necessary to create media. So people who had never worked with a website have become its editors, and those that had never done translations started translating. Some people took up photography.

With my experience sharing I wanted to tell practitioners that there is nothing impossible for us. The question is only whether we believe in ourselves and believe in Master and Dafa.

As far as the topic of clarifying the truth to government officials is concerned, I would like to share with you a dream I had a few years ago. At that time our group of practitioners in Ukraine was mostly comprised of young people, who were doing most of the truth-clarification work. I had a thought then that our youthful looks would keep high-level officials from taking us seriously. I had a dream that we were sitting in a room together with Teacher, and He was our age, about 23 years old. We were talking and I asked Him the question that bothered me, "Master, how should we clarify the truth to government officials?" Then Master made a gesture of an opening flower and said, "When you clarify the truth to him, you open him up like a flower." Teacher’s words inspired me very much to do what I should do, without following human notions.

In the course of truth clarification work I came to understand how important it was not only for me to take part in many truth clarification projects, but also to help others step forward. In my understanding, we are not isolated, but one body clarifying the truth together. It is important for every particle to fulfill its historical role, which is the only way that can assure that we achieve the maximum result.

I am deeply indebted to Teacher’s mercy for giving me the opportunity to write about my experience at this historical moment.

Thank you all!