7-year-old boy donated a 'shoebox gift' to a stranger overseas in 2000 — 14 years later, she slid into his DMs
For Tyrel Wolfe and Joana Marchan, what started as an act of charity turned into a love story that spanned years and continents.
Back in 2000, seven-year-old Tyrel Wolfe from Midville, Idaho, helped his parents pack a Christmas shoebox for Operation Christmas Child, a project by Samaritan’s Purse, where families sent boxes with toys, school supplies, and toiletries for children overseas, along with a photo of themselves. Wolfe slipped in a picture of himself in cowboy gear and handed it to his aunt to drop off at church. For nearly a decade, he never thought about it again, until 2009, when he received a Facebook friend request from someone named Joana Marchan, as per PEOPLE.
He ignored it, unsure of who she was, but two years later, another request appeared, and this time he asked her how she knew him. Marchan explained that she had received his shoebox gift years ago in the Philippines and had never forgotten it. She even sent a thank-you note, but it never reached him. "I was curious as to what he was like now. Was he going to college like me?" she said. The two began talking on Facebook and soon discovered a shared love for Christian music and faith. After a year of messaging, Wolfe saved money from working with his father and flew to Manila in 2013. "I knew I was taking a big risk. I was meeting people I didn’t know or even knew really existed," he told PEOPLE.
But the nerves disappeared the moment he saw Marchan. "I had to punch myself a couple of times because I thought it was a dream. I was immediately attracted to her," Wolfe recalled. Marchan felt the same, and her family welcomed him into their modest home. When his 10-day visit ended, he recalled, "It was one of the hardest goodbyes I’ve ever had to say because we didn’t know the next time we’d see each other. I told her I’m going to do whatever it takes to come back to her."
They kept in touch through Skype and Facebook until he returned that November for a month-long stay. During that visit, he asked Marchan's father for her hand in marriage. Her father said yes, though her mother worried they were too young at just 20 years of age. Wolfe, however, didn’t give up, and in May 2014, he returned with his father to meet Marchan's family again, which changed everything.
Joana’s mother told him, "You are a sign from God that we are allowing Wolfe and Marchan to marry. If you had not come, we wouldn’t have let the relationship continue." A 2011 grounded-theory study found that meaningful chance encounters like this often unfold in four stages: a prepared mind, the act of noticing, the unexpected encounter itself, and finally the fortuitous outcome. Wolfe’s forgotten gift, Marchan’s curiosity, and their decision to reconnect years later mirrored each of those steps, turning a random shoebox into the beginning of their future together.
The couple was married on October 5, 2014, at his parents’ ranch, with Marchan's parents watching via Skype after being denied visas. Later, they held a second ceremony in the Philippines so her parents could attend in person. Since their marriage, Marchan shifted to Midville and traveled with Wolfe across eight US states as he worked. To honor how their story began, the couple now packs a shoebox every holiday season, this time with a note telling their own story. When they visited Samaritan’s Purse headquarters in North Carolina, staff members called it "like a needle in a haystack" that Marchan received Wolfe's gift all those years ago.
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