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This is just a cute picture of one of my favorite kids there getting hugged by one of her friends. This was taken during the first weekend before we really got to know everybody. Her Chinese name is Shi Lijuan. We gave her the English name, Lilly. You'll probably see her in a lot of the later photos, hanging around and always getting involved and always smiling. I made her cry on our last day there, less than an hour before we left. I still feel bad about that, especially when I look at her smiling face here. She and Wu Fanfan would go jogging with me. At the time it was frustrating because they were always stopping to pick flowers to give to me, so it was hard for me to break a good sweat. But I told myself that I'd soon forget that I didn't get a good run in that day and would long remember them stopping to pick flowers for me and occasionally flopping on the ground playing at being exhausted and refusing to move. I'm going to get their shoe size and send them some running shoes. They were running on rutted rocky roads in plastic sandals with torn straps. Lilly started limping but refused to admit that she was hurt as she kept shoving flowers in my hands. I want to give her the shoes because she could use them but also because it breaks my heart every time I see her smiling open face here and how much it changed after I made her cry.

The reason she cried on that last day was because I took a book out of her hands that she suddenly decided that she wanted but which I was going to give to someone else more able to read it. This was during some last minute gift giving. I did then give Lilly a notebook with a picture on the first page that I drew of the two of us running with Wu Fanfan. She wouldn't stop crying though. She really seemed betrayed. I think I finally made her feel better. At least she started smiling though her eyes were still swollen from crying.