The Statue of Liberty

Today when I was showing a friend around New York City, I recalled something that happened to me in the last month.
There were three young female Falun Gong practitioners, two from other states in the U.S. and one from Taiwan. Since July 20, 1999, they had come to New York many times, participated in large parades, involved themselves in anti-torture exhibits, written articles to promote the Divine Performing Arts shows, and participated in other activities and projects to validate Dafa. One day, as we drove to Manhattan, they pointed out the windows and said, "This building is City Hall, where we came once before, during a parade. This is Wall Street and I know it since we clarified the truth here," and so on. This caught my attention and so I used my limited tourist's knowledge to briefly introduce New York to them. When I mentioned the Statue of Liberty, the three of them all responded simultaneously: "Is the Statue of Liberty nearby? We have never gotten a chance to see it !"
I was really surprised hearing that. They told me that they had taken time off or used their vacation time to come to New York many times to do truth clarification work. They told people about the persecution and the beauty of Falun Dafa on Wall Street; they also distributed flyers for many days in Battery Park, which is very close to the Statue of Liberty. They walked along the streets of Manhattan so many times, yet they were not aware that the Hudson River was just a few feet away from them, and the Statue of Liberty was right behind them.
Perhaps many overseas Falun Gong practitioners have had similar experiences and it might be a common situation. Since the persecution of Falun Gong in China began in 1999, in order to support Falun Gong practitioners in China, expose the evil nature of the persecution and let people have the chance to know the truth and benefit from Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, the focus of practitioners' lives changed greatly. Travelling for fun during holidays became history for us. Some people from China asked, "If there is money to be made and a reputation to enjoy, why don't you go for that? Instead you endure so many hardships all day like this, and for what, after all?" Though overseas practitioners live in a free world, we have the same Teacher, Dafa and historic mission as Falun Gong practitioners in China. Then what we are doing this for? The answer is to cultivate to become selfless, altruistic and righteous enlightened beings as Teacher requested. In other words, we do things not for ourselves but for others; we do things not for the surface meaning of life but for the true life. Living in a world of declining morality, we are determined and persistent in what we are doing, and are unmoved by anything happening in the world. As the lyrics in a song from the 2007 Divine Performing Arts show said, "All time is just for this time." Since all of time is just for this time, how can we not pay attention and give it all we have.