Today I’d like you to tell you the remarkable story of two men: Jia Haixia and Jia Wenqi. They live in a small village in rural China and have been friends since they were boys. Haixia was blind in one eye at birth from a cataract. Then he lost his sight in the other eye in a factory accident. When his friend Wenqi was only three, he lost both arms when he touched a downed power line. When Haixia became blind, he became severely depressed. Wenqi knew he had to find something for the two of them to do that would give his friend (and himself) a sense of purpose in life. That’s when they decided to plant trees together in their village greatly polluted by industrial emissions from the local quarry.

These two videos tell their amazing story. I recommend the first one, because you hear their story from the men themselves. I hope you can afford the time to watch this inspiring 11 minute video. But if you’re cramped for time, then you can watch the second video which is less than 5 minutes. As usual, I will offer a music video at the end for our prayer.



Video #1: “A Blind Man and His Armless Friend Plant a Forest in China” (10 min. and 58 sec.)

Video #2: “Armless man and blind friend plant over 10,000 trees” (4 min. 22 sec.)

Our music video today is one of my favorites. It’s the song “Stand By Me” sung by people all over the world. It is produced by “Playing for Change.” You might enjoy looking up some of their other songs.

I welcome your comments about anything in today’s blog that touched you or caught your attention.