The next morning, before an audience of about 500 people, Sakolsky was asked to give an impromptu speech. He remembers little of the 20-minute address except its core message: Americans and Chinese "must focus on our similarities and not on our differences," and can work together to plant a forest in the desert.

　　Afterward, they drove for four hours. "No roads, no timber, no houses," he recalled. "We were just driving over sand dunes in the desert."

　　When the vehicle finally stopped, there was nothing but sand stretching to the horizon. Then Yin emerged from a hollow in the dunes, where she had been digging for water to irrigate her young trees.

　　Yin showed him how to plant the trees, which he thought would grow only about knee-high to hold back the sand. "I never thought that it was going to be a 50,000-tree forest," he said. "Back then, I said this was impossible (turning this desert into a forest), but she did it, she and her helpers."

　　That night, Yin and her husband welcomed him into their home. Nearly three decades later, he still remembers the homemade noodles Yin cooked for him. "Delicious," he recalled softly.

　　Earlier this year, Yin launched an online search for the American teacher who had helped her plant the first trees. The story eventually reached Sakolsky, who was stunned to learn that the forest had grown to roughly 50,000 trees.

　　"Fifty thousand trees!" he exclaimed. "I cannot believe it."

　　Then came photos showing a building and a road where there had been nothing but sand in 1999. "When I go back, I will be amazed," he said. "It"s a miracle. There"s no other word for it."

　　Sakolsky insisted that Yin was the real hero. "I"m not the hero of this story," he said. "Ms. Yin is the hero. I just helped."

　　"Since she was a child, she always wanted to beautify China. It was a lifetime dream of hers, and she has accomplished her dream," he said.