Abandoned Orphan Who Kept Smiling.
GORANI: Every so often, we bring you the story of a person who's touched the life of one of our correspondents, whose positive impact on the world has left a lasting mark. This week, Will Ripley tells us about his hero.</s>WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I've interviewed a lot of people, but nobody has ever inspired like Jia Jia, the Chinese orphan that I mean while on assignment in Beijing. I was doing a story about Chinese abandoned children and I met Jia Jia at this orphanage. He's nine years old. He'd been waiting for a family to adopt him. He watched all his friends go to homes and nobody came for him. What really touched me about him was that he was a big brother to the other kids. He would take care of them, even though he needed to be taken care of as well. And his dream was to have a family. When we met him, we found out that there was a family in the United States that wanted to adopt him, but they didn't have the money. We did a story about Jia Jia and eight hours later, the family had raised enough money from our viewers to adopt him. I knew that Jia Jia was my hero because he has endured things that I can never imagine, most people can never imagine. His birth parents abandoned him. He had a botched spina bifida surgery, has no use for his lower legs, but he doesn't let the disability slow him down. He doesn't let his circumstances keep him down. He kept smiling. He stayed optimistic. And now, he has a family in the United States. And he's inspiring all of them too. So to see somebody with that much strength, at such a young age, it's one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. And recently, I was able to visit him in his new home in Kansas City, Missouri. To see him in his classroom learning English, out on the playground during recess --</s>JIA JIA, CHINESE ORPHAN: How can he do that?</s>RIPLEY: -- with his family, with his friends, smiling and laughing, and to see where he came from, was one of the most powerful moments of my life.</s>GORANI: Great story there. This has been THE WORLD RIGHT NOW. I'm Hala Gorani. I'll see you same time but not same place tomorrow. We'll be at Westminster. Meantime, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is next.