Miss Mitra didn't want to be a Sunday school teacher any longer. The students there were all rude and never listened to her. "I give up." She shouted at the students. "Cool." Rick said. He was the most impolite kid in this school. Two months later, Miss Betty Ray came to the school. She looked young. The students thought that she wouldn't stay very long.

    "Have any of you ever been out of state?" She asked in a friendly tone. A few hands went up.

    "Anyone has traveled to California?" One hand went up as the disrespectful(无礼的) laugh reduced.

    "Anyone visited outside the country?" No hands went up now. The silent kids were puzzled.

    Betty took a map of the world from her bag.

    "What else do you have there? Lunch?" Someone cracked.

    Betty smiled lightly and answered, "Cookies for later." "Cool," Rick quipped(困惑的).

    Then she pointed at a place on the map, "I was born here, and I lived here until I was about your age."

    "Is that Texas?" Someone asked.

    "No. Quite a long way from here. It is Mumbai in India."

    Betty fumbled again in her bag, this time pulling out some old wrinkled pictures along with a box of chocolate chip cookies. They passed the pictures around, viewing each with great interest.

    The kids studied them as they bit into the sweets.

    The hour quickly slid by as she told them her stories about faraway places and what the people were like there and how they lived.

    "Wow, this is as exciting as TV!" One young girl told her.

    Sunday after Sunday, Betty came to class, tying her lessons to their everyday lives. She told the kids how they could make a difference right now. The students grew to love her.

    Betty taught that Sunday school class for thirty years. At last, her hair grew into a natural gray.

    Every now and then, she received a letter from a former student. There was a doctor, a research scientist, a homemaker, a businessman, and many teachers among them. One day she pulled out a blue envelope from her mailbox. And there was a photo in it. Squinting her eyes, she smiled at the man in the photo, still seeing the boy in him. Standing in the rubble(瓦砾), in the city of Delhi, India, he came to help the homeless people in the earthquake. Some words were written in the upper part of the photo, "Because of you, I am here now."