Last day of the month. I’m listening to “And Now my Lifesong Sings” at the moment. It moves me in a way it has not before. I have next to me a new printout of all the kids’ pictures and their names.

This is a feeling that is hard to describe because it is multifaceted, a collection of threads intertwining as I just sit back and think, instead of just talking, translating, and working all the time.

There are different dimensions to knowing a person. Someone can be a complete stranger to you. Someone can just be an acquaintance and leave a first impression that is just one color in the spectrum that makes up that person. Someone can serve as an emotional outlet, a scapegoat, a conversation partner, and many other things. Beyond a friendship based on function and utility is purely enjoyable friendship, where people just like spending time with each other and have established some kind of mutual chemistry. Beyond that, I’m not sure what to call it. Inexplicable friendship?

When I first visited Bethel’s website, I saw just one color of who the children were. Blind orphans—they must need pity and love. Then when I came here, they became students to me, and I also observed their individual qualities. Loud, cheerful, bursting with energy, manipulative, bratty, shy. I knew Yuan Yuan as shy, Li Ying as hyperactive, Li Qin as extremely intelligent, Chun Bin as very cute.

It seems they are becoming more to me than just little kids and teenagers, students, and blind orphans. Tonight I felt I was crossing the line to inexplicability.

When I first came at the beginning of July, I was excited just to be here. Last week I suddenly was annoyed and tired. With God’s grace I am no longer that way. Tonight I realized I want to know the children not as students or orphans, but as people. I want to be friends. I want to know who they are inside.

When I went to the PCE club in June to give a talk themed on personal identity, I talked about who I am—Asian-American, Christian, daughter, sister, friend, student, etc. But I said that beneath all that, I am just a human being. The Bethel children are orphans, but before that they are human beings. I don’t know why some were born blind or with mental disabilities, why Chun Yu was born with cortical vision impairment or why Xiao Guang was abused and neglected for over 13 years of his life, but I know they were created to love and be loved. Why do they have to suffer with sadness over having no parents, experience pain from eye diseases, and (for many) live their whole lives without being able to support themselves?

I have thought about how I would answer if any of the kids asked, “Why am I this way?” I would tell them I don’t know, but what I do know is that without you, I would not be who I am now. Do you know what kind of difference you have made and are making in my life? I am grateful to know you and be your friend. You are a great blessing to me and many other people. I love you.

At church the other day, we sang Amazing Grace in several different languages—Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Russian, French, etc. Still, Chinese was the most moving, and this is how it goes:

奇异恩典，何等甘甜，

我罪全得赦免；

前我失丧，今已归家，

瞎眼今得看见。

It made me look at the last verse in a new way. “Was blind, but now I see.” I thought of the times I have heard Li Qin or the other students sing this song. I wonder what kind of meaning this line has for them. Do they think, I am blind, but still I see?

Casting Crowns’ “And Now My Lifesong Sings” adds more to that song.

I once was blind, but now I see

I don’t know how, but when He touched me,

I once was blind, but now I see.

That, then, adds more to my answer to the question, “Why am I this way?”

I don’t know, but He has touched me through you. I am blind in different ways than you, but through Him we can both see. I love you because He first loved us.