Since 1997, the Financial Assistance to Rural Student (FARS) program of ESS has helped a total of 14,938 elementary, junior high, senior high school and college students in the impoverished rural communities of China. Under the assistance of their sponsors and the diligent schooling of their teachers, they strived to achieve and completed their education. They are grateful that they are given the life changing opportunity to be educated and avoid the fate of a school dropout only because they cannot afford the tuition and fees.

Li Su-Xian of Jin Tai county, Gansu province is a regular girl from a farming family. Under the sponsorship of the FARS program for nine years, she has successfully completed junior high school and vocational school majoring in Health Care. Currently, she is serving as an excellent medical staff specializing in delivering babies. Every day she works in the hospital happily and busily welcoming new lives to the world.

In a letter to her sponsors Tang Chong Shi and Yang Wen Jing, she wrote passionately:

"While the loving care of parents is indispensable to the growth of a child, the development of my life would not have happened without your caring support. My transformation from an ignorant girl to a useful medical staff, a process both long yet short at the same time, has been nourished with your support, encouragement, and caring. In my mind, you are my parents overseas! Your kindness has also inspired me to make it my lifelong commitment to help others. Because you have given me the best kind of wealth, this is the only way that I can repay you."

"Nine years ago, you sent me to school, a very common girl whose only outstanding attribute was having endured more hardship than her peers. Since that moment, my study, and development in life have been constantly on your mind. Compared to my peers, I am more fortunate because of your loving care. You have given me so much for so long without even having met me. Deep in my heart, you are my parents. I have inherited your spirit of giving, and will extend the loving care to others, to repay Pa Pa Tang and Ma Ma Yang."

The FARS students all feel that they are the fortunate ones. They learn that there is love in the world and they would like to pass on the loving care to others, to make the world better and filled with love. A 12th grade student Yang Yan of the First High School of En Shi city, Hubei province wrote: "Several years ago, I was a girl with an inferiority complex. I felt that there was no love and no warmth in the world because we were stricken with poverty. Today, I am an optimistic and outspoken girl who has grown up. The personality change took place gradually under your support. I have developed confidence and courage and no longer feel being inferior to the others after I learned that there is love in the world. The support you extended to me is not only material but also spiritual."

"Your support has since helped me during my junior high school and high school years, the important stages of my education. In a few months, I will be graduating from high school. I will live my life well, regardless of which route I am going to take and will not let you down. Though we are separated by the Pacific Ocean, we live under the same blue sky. I hope my gratitude and best wishes will turn into soft winds. When you feel the soft winds on your face, please think of them as the myriad thanks sent to you by me."