Am testing with Textpattern 4.9.0-dev (fafab03ecb966e0277ccc7affff5b096) and the current (4c03614) version of com_connect.
On the public front-end I see the gTxt strings and in the database, I see the owner set to com_connect but an empty event column. If I manually set that to public the correct language strings show on the front end.