Ronald Sakolsky is interviewed by Xinhua at his home in Plum, a suburb east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the United States, on June 16, 2026. (Xinhua/Li Rui)

　　PLUM, United States, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- Ronald Sakolsky was already waiting on the front lawn as the car rounded the last bend, more than 20 minutes ahead of schedule.

　　"I knew you would come early and sit here until four o"clock and then knock on my door," Sakolsky told Xinhua reporters with a grin. "That"s why I was outside." It was, he said, just the way he remembered Chinese people doing things.

　　His waiting outside was a small gesture of thoughtfulness, one that hinted at a friendship forged nearly three decades earlier between a veteran middle school world history teacher from Plum, a leafy suburb east of Pittsburgh, and a rural Chinese woman who devoted decades to holding back the shifting sands of the Mu Us Desert.

　　In 1999, while working as an English teacher in China, Sakolsky was moved to tears by a TV report about Yin Yuzhen, a rural Chinese woman who was trying to hold back the shifting sands of the Mu Us Desert in northern China by planting trees. He spent two months raising 5,000 U.S. dollars to help Yin, then a stranger.

　　Now 69, Sakolsky will return to China this month for his third visit, traveling from Beijing to Luoyang and finally to the Mu Us Desert. He looks forward to reuniting with Yin, giving her a big hug and planting another tree beside her, where shifting sands have given way to a forest roughly 50,000 trees strong.

　　"It"s a miracle," he told Xinhua recently. "There"s no other word than it"s a miracle."

　　A JOURNEY HE NEVER PLANNED