Heavy/Getty Dave and Jenny Marrs
Popular singer JJ Heller, whose inspirational songs and videos have racked up over 54 million views on YouTube and are streamed 15 million times a month, knew her latest single — “Love It Here” — needed a special family to help illustrate its message about the beauty of adoption. So Heller turned to HGTV‘s Dave and Jenny Marrs, who were already huge fans, to ask if they’d provide their personal videos for the project.
“I absolutely said ‘yes,'” Marrs wrote via Instagram on January 5, 2024 — the day the music video was officially released. “This video is a treasure for our family and I will forever cherish it. I also pray that it is an encouragement for every momma longing and praying desperate, pleading prayers for their own miracle story.”
Heller’s new music video chronicles the couple’s harrowing and heartwarming adoption journey with their daughter Sylvie, who finally arrived from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2013 after three years of red tape, according to People.
Here’s what you need to know:
Jenny Marrs Says Their Family Will Always Cherish New JJ Heller Music Video
When Jenny first heard “Love It Here,” she wrote on Instagram, she was in the middle of filming scenes for “Fixer to Fabulous” and received the song via text. During a break, “surrounded by crew and subcontractors,” her eyes filled with tears as soon as she hit the “play” button, Jenny recalled.
“Every sound on that job site faded away as JJ’s melodic voice filled the air,” she wrote. “Tears pooled in my eyes as I listened. Her words captured the heartbreak, the sorrow, the hope and the sheer joy of our years-long journey to adopt our daughter.”
When Dave and Jenny were struggling to start a family, they decided to adopt. But when they unexpectedly got pregnant with twin sons Nathan and Ben, who are now 12, they put those plans on hold, they told People. When the boys were 18 months old, they re-started the adoption process and fell in love with Sylvie, who was living in an orphanage.
“Her adoption had been finalized. She had her U.S. passport. And then the country shut down adopted kids leaving, so she couldn’t get her exit permit,” Jenny said. “We were contacting anyone we thought could help us. We had people writing letters. We met with every one of our congressmen and senators.”
After 602 days of waiting, and five trips made by Dave to the Congo, Sylvie was finally delivered to them by plane — and cameras followed the Marrs and their friends and family to the airport to capture the emotional moment. When Heller asked if she could use that footage and other home videos to illustrate her song. With Sylvie now 11 and an irreplaceable member of their family, the Marrs were happy to do so.
“As I watch this video today,” Jenny wrote on Instagram, “I remember, years ago, as I would lie beside her at bedtime, rubbing her back and reassuring her that I was here and she is safe, she would whisper the same words night after night: “God carried me home, momma.”
Thanking the Marrs for letting Sylvie’s story be the focus of the video, Heller wrote on her own Instagram post, “I know every adoption journey is different and nuanced and inherently comes with heartbreak. And even though this is not my story, I hope this song gives words to the sacred act of welcoming a child home.”
Dave & Jenny Marrs Call Sylvie’s Adoption a ‘Miracle’ Because of How It Unfolded
Because the Republic of Congo had stopped allowing children to be adopted outside of the country, Jenny reached a point when she thought they may never get to be with Sylvie, she told People.
When she got pregnant again with their daughter Charlotte, who’s now 8, Jenny said the surprise was bittersweet.
“I wasn’t able to really rejoice in the amazing news because we were so overwhelmed with sorrow that we couldn’t get our daughter home,” she said.
But eight weeks after Charlotte’s birth, an exception was made by authorities because Sylvie had a breathing irregularity that caused her to be labeled as “medically fragile.” The condition, which she’s since recovered from, meant authorities released her to be cared for in the U.S.
“It was a lot of emotion, because we honestly didn’t think that she would ever come home,” Dave recalled. “It is 100% a miracle.”
Jenny and Dave, whose youngest son Luke, 3, made them a family of seven, still keep in touch with the woman who cared for Sylvie in her first two years of life.
“I was just texting yesterday with Sylvie’s foster mom, Laure, in Congo, who cared for Sylvie for two years,” Jenny told Better Homes & Gardens. “We still have that community there that’s tied to our family in a way that’s really important. Laure and I are, when you break it down, the same. We both loved that little girl.”