American Man Walks Down The Aisle With Filipina Woman After Sending Her A Gift More Than A Decade Earlier

Relationships can strike when we are least expecting it. We don’t always get to pick who we love, but the ones who are the luckiest are those whose love is reciprocated and who have a good model for being a caring and committed spouse. The typical story consists of a meet-cute; a setting in which a pair meets and instantly realizes that they have met their soulmate.

Some people, such as high school sweethearts, are fortunate enough to meet their “one” early on. Others find their mate in college, while others meet their love as adults in a bar, cafe, bookshop, or even at their place of employment.

Another sort of meet-cute has emerged in this century: social networking. Hundreds of millions of people have unintentionally met someone who seemed intriguing enough to know, leading to an entirely unexpected romance. This was the case for one multinational couple, but their journey began long before social media was invented.

Tyrel Wolfe, a young Idaho man, gave a shoebox to a little girl in the Philippines as part of a charity effort in 2000. The incident occurred during his boyhood, and he did not recall it until years later, when he received a friend request from a woman he did not know. However, as soon as he discovered the young lady’s identity, the stage was set for the start of a famous love tale. To learn more about Tyrel and Joana Marchan, continue reading.

Tyrel could never have dreamed that as a seven-year-old, he would meet his wife 14 years later after assisting his local church in sending a shoebox full of goods! Joana Marchan of the Philippines, according to Fox 9, opened a shoebox in 2000. It was given from Idaho by a little boy as a gift to less fortunate children in the Philippines. These shoeboxes were put together for children as part of a charity program called Operation Christmas Child, which is run by Samaritan’s Purse.

Each shoebox packer was required to include a photograph of themselves with their gift as part of the project. Tyrel slid a snapshot of himself in cowboy outfit against a rustic mountain backdrop into his shoebox. He gave the shoebox to his aunt, who dropped it off at church once he finished packing it. Tyrel didn’t think about his conduct for almost a decade after sending it.

Tyrel’s Facebook account received a request from Marchan in 2009, according to PEOPLE, but Tyrel ignored it because she was an unknown person. In 2011, an inquisitive Tyrel wrote her a message wondering who she was when she sent another request. Tyrel and Marchan became close friends after learning that Marchan was the young girl who had received his shoebox back in 2000, thanks to their mutual love of Christian music and religious devotion.

Marchan told PEOPLE, “I was interested as to what he was like now.” “Was he going to the same college as me?” Their friendship blossomed for over a year before they met in person.

Tyrel was able to collect enough money after graduating from high school in 2013 by working for his father as a trail-and-bridge builder for state parks, and he purchased a plane ticket to Quezon City, a suburb of Manila in the Philippines, to visit Marchan for ten days.

Wolfe told PEOPLE, “I knew I was taking a tremendous risk.” “I had never gone alone before, let alone to a foreign nation, and I was meeting people I had never met before or even knew existed.” Their first encounter ignited sparks, and Marchan felt the same way about Tyrel.

“I had to punch myself a couple of times when I eventually got there and met her because I believed it was a dream.” Tyrel remarked, “I was immediately attracted to her.” They were eager to get married straight immediately. Marchan’s family, on the other hand, thought they were too young to make such a significant decision. Furthermore, because the Phillippines’ society is more collectivist, Tyrel needed Marchan’s family’s approval to proceed.

Thankfully, after meeting Tyrel’s father Ivan in 2014, the Marchan family gave their permission to the pair, and they married in the United States, where they still live. In 2017, the couple welcomed their first child, a son called Harlann Jun Wolfe, according to Cosmopolitan!

The pair continues to donate shoeboxes to others, thankful that their love story began with a Samaritan’s purse. Every box contains a piece of their love story.

Tyrel told PEOPLE, “We don’t want to offer them some fantasy, but we do want to demonstrate that we care and want to express our love.” “Operation Christmas Child brought us together, and we both feel incredibly lucky and grateful.”