Ally Cole (left) and Ruby Wierzbicki both had the same photo from the Jinan orphanage.
An unassuming bus ride across Liberty University’s campus last semester became a perfect example of how God can miraculously connect people across continents and make the world seem small.
On April 14, then-sophomore Ally Cole and freshman Ruby Wierzbicki boarded a bus as strangers but soon uncovered a shared past that goes back to an orphanage in China 15 years ago. Cole was headed to class in Marie F. Green Hall and struck up some small talk with Wierzbicki. She learned Wierzbicki was from New Jersey but was adopted from China. Cole told her she was also adopted from China and grew up in Maryland. They didn’t marvel at their stories at first — many children are adopted from China. But when they learned they came from the same city — Jinan — and then showed each other photos from their orphanage, the similarities
were undeniable.
“We held the photos side by side on our phones and we realized that everything matched, and we knew that it had to be the same place,” Wierzbicki said.
Cole (left) and Wierzbicki at the orphanage in Jinan.
Their bus dropped them off and they stepped off to the side to continue sharing photos and uncover just how much their paths had crossed as young children. As it turns out, they were adopted one week apart (Cole was 6 and Wierzbicki was 4) and could even identify themselves standing beside each other in the photos.
“I hadn’t known who the girl next to me was, but now I know,” Cole laughed.
They both took a similar path in choosing to attend Liberty. Both said it wasn’t their first choice, but after they visited during a College for a Weekend (CFAW), they knew Liberty was the place for them.
“I came to CFAW, and I just fell in love with the school and the community here,” Wierzbicki said. “It was definitely different than any of the other schools I looked into, and now we’ve realized these little details that God has orchestrated in all of this. God really does have our lives according to His plan and in His control.”
As they each retraced their journeys from China to the U.S. and then to a campus swarming with more than 15,000 students, Wierzbicki, an exercise science student, and Cole, who is studying graphic design, acknowledged that their meeting was no accident.
“There are people I’ve talked to about this who said, ‘What a coincidence.’ But we think that this is 100% God,” Wierzbicki said. “There’s no way that two people who were in the same orphanage in a different country can somehow end up at the same school at the same time and have it not be God.”
The two were excited to share their encounter and posted it on their personal social media accounts for their friends and family to see. But when Liberty’s Office of Communications and Public Engagement published it on the university’s website and social media channels, news of their miraculous reunion was retold by numerous local and national media outlets, including CNN, NPR, and The Federalist.
