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

Jan 24, 2022 by apost team

Relationships can happen when we least expect them to. We don't always choose who we fall in love with, but the luckiest people are those whose love is not unrequited, and who have a healthy template for being a supportive and loyal partner. The usual stories are composed of a meet-cute; a setting that brings together a couple who quickly realize that they have met their soulmate.

Some people are lucky enough to find the "one" early on, such as high-school sweethearts. Others find that college is the right place for them to find their partner, while another set of people end up meeting their love as adults at a bar, cafe, bookshop or even their workplace. 

This century has given rise to yet another type of meet-cute: social media. Hundreds of thousands of people have accidentally come across someone who seems interesting enough to know, which leads to a romance that is wholly unexpected. This was the case for one international couple, but their story began before the advent of social media. 

Back in 2000, a young Tyrel Wolfe from Idaho sent a shoebox to a little girl in the Philippines as part of a drive for a charity. The event was a small one from his childhood and he did not remember it years down the line, when he received a friend request from a woman he did not know. However, as soon as he came to know the identity of the young lady, the stage was set for the beginning of an iconic love story. Read on to know more about Tyrel and Joana Marchan. 

Tyrel could not have imagined that helping his local church to send a shoebox full of goodies as a seven-year-old would lead him to meet his wife 14 years down the line! As Fox 9 reported, Joana Marchan from the Philippines opened a shoebox in 2000. It was sent from a little boy in Idaho as a present to less fortunate kids in the Philippines. A charity program called Operation Christmas Child through Samaritan’s Purse put these shoeboxes together to send to kids.

The project required that each shoebox-packer include a photograph of themselves with their gift. With his shoebox, Tyrel slipped in a photo of himself in cowboy gear against a rustic mountain background. After he had finished packing it, he gave the shoebox to his aunt, who dropped it off at church. Once he had sent it, Tyrel didn't think about his actions until almost a decade later. 

According to PEOPLE, in 2009, Tyrel's Facebook account got a request from Marchan, but Tyrel did not give it a second thought because she was an unknown person. However, when she sent another request in 2011, a curious Tyrel sent her a message asking who she was. When he came to know that Marchan was the young girl who had received his shoebox back in 2000, both Tyrel and Marchan began a fast friendship thanks to their shared love of Christian music and religious faith. 

"I was curious as to what he was like now," Marchan told PEOPLE. "Was he going to college like me?" Their friendship grew for well over a year before the two of them officially met. 

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After graduating from high school in 2013, Tyrel was able to save up enough money by working for his father as a trail-and-bridge builder for state parks, and he bought himself a ticket to Quezon City, a suburb of Manila in the Philippines, to visit Marchan for 10 days,

"I knew I was taking a big risk," Wolfe told PEOPLE. "I had never traveled alone, let alone to a foreign country before and I was meeting people I didn t know or even knew really existed." Their first meeting sent sparks immediately, and Marchan felt the same way for Tyrel. 

"When I finally got there and saw her, I had to punch myself a couple times because I thought it was a dream. "I was immediately attracted to her," Tyrel explained. The two wanted to marry right away. However, Marchan's family believed them to be too young to take such an important step. Moreover, the culture in Phillippines is more collectivist, which meant that Tyrel needed to get Marchan's family's permission to go ahead. 

Thankfully, in 2014, after meeting Tyrel's father Ivan, the Marchan family gave the couple their blessing, and the couple got married in the United States, where they continue to live. Cosmopolitan reported that the couple welcomed their first baby, a son who they named Harlann Jun Wolfe, in 2017! 

The couple continues to be grateful that their love story began with Samaritan's purse, and continue to send shoeboxes to others. They include their love story in every box. 

"We don't want to give them some fantasy, but we do want to show that we care and want to share our love," Tyrel told PEOPLE. "We both feel so blessed and grateful that Operation Christmas Child brought us together." 

If you need a dose of love and happiness today, be sure to pass this on to your friends. It's a love story that is true. Do you have any extraordinary love stories? Tell us about them!