Mark Harris, like his father Edward Daniel Harris, served as a missionary in New Zealand-from 1954 to 1956. Mark considers it his good fortune to have lived in some of the same areas of New Zealand as did his father some thirty-five years earlier. Transcribing and editing his father's four missionary journals was a growing experience for him. As he studied his father's travels as revealed in his daily journal entries, Mark gained a new appreciation for his father: for his sacrifice, integrity, honesty, common sense, fairness and good works and above all, for setting an example of behavior and character worthy of emulation.

For thirty years, Mark taught biology and photography in high school in California. Since his retirement in 1995, he and his wife Luree have taught English in China for two years and also served a short-term church mission to Serbia teaching English and computer skills. For the last five years their home has been in Cameron Park, California near Sacramento. Mark and Luree have five children, fourteen grandchildren and one great grandchild. Mark has published one other book, "A Distant Place," a compilation of Chinese student essays. Both he and Luree plan on publishing books on their experiences in China.