When Joana, a girl from the Philippines, received a shoebox filled of gifts back in year 2000 she never imagined that the she would marry the boy who packed her Christmas gift.
Joana was attending a vacation Bible School in Quezon City, suburb of Manila, when she received the gift-filled shoebox from a 7-year-old boy named Tyrel Wolfe from Idaho. It was part of their graduation ceremony. The box encloses more than collection of cute and fun gifts, it also included a picture of Tyrel together with his name and address and a recorded presentation of a Gospel which eventually convince Joana to accept Jesus Christ as her Savior. In the long run, her father also received Christ in his life and become a pastor.
Joana sent Tyrel a letter explaining the impact of his gift to her and her family. Unfortunately, Tyrel never received it.
Eleven years later, on the month of November, Joana tried to track Tyrel through Facebook. They easily connected and never stopped exchanging Facebook messages after that. Finally, with the blessings of their family, Tyrel and Joana tied the knot on October 5, 2014.
Since the newly wed was brought together by an Operation Christmas Child they encouraged their guests to “Pack a Shoebox”.
“My mom is the one who originally came up with the suggestion,” Tyrel said. “Operation Christmas Child is what brought Joana and me together, so we wanted to somehow make the project a part of our celebration.”
The newly wed drop the shoeboxes at Samaritan’s Purse headquarters in North Carolina during the first day of National Collection week.
No comments:
Post a Comment