Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski / Best-selling author Mitch Albom (right) is led to the stage of Penn State Altoona's Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts by Associate Director of Student Affairs Dani Fry and Senior Director Sean Kelly for his part of the Penn State Altoona Distinguished Speaker Series on Tuesday evening.

A Haitian orphan — who became his daughter during a search for a cure for her brain tumor — inspired a noted author’s latest book.

Bestselling author and hall of fame sportswriter Mitch Albom told an audience at Penn State Altoona on Tuesday evening about his “unlikely family” as he discussed his newest book, “Finding Chika: A little girl, an earthquake, and the making of a family.”

“Finding Chika” is the true story of a young Haitian orphan named Chika Jeune, who was brought to the Have Faith Haiti Mission & Orphanage, run by Albom and his wife, Janine, when Chika was 3 years old.

Albom described her as “delightful” to those attending the Penn State Altoona’s Distinguished Speaker Series.

When Chika was five, she developed a brain tumor. The doctors told Albom there was no hope for her in Haiti, so he and his wife brought her to the United States.

“We brought her to America thinking we’d get her fixed up and bring her back in a couple of months,” he said. “She ended up never going home.”

Albom said Chika became their daughter over the next two years as they traveled around the world searching for a cure. He called them an “unlikely family” — a couple in their late 50s who were suddenly parents to a 5-year-old from a different country with a terminal condition. Yet, to Albom, they were still family.

“She taught us how to be a family and she taught me there is no ‘one way’ to make a family,” he said.

Chika passed away in 2017.

Albom started his career as a sports journalist. He has written a syndicated column for the Detroit Free Press since 1985 and co-wrote the autobiography of Bo Schembechler — his first New York Times best seller. He was a regular on the now-defunct ESPN show Sports Reporters, which he has continued as a biweekly podcast.

The publication of “Tuesdays with Morrie” in 1997 and its subsequent international acclaim established Albom as a preeminent writer of inspirational stories.

The book has sold more than 14 million copies – one of the highest selling memoirs of all time.

Since the early 2000s, he has produced eight fiction and nonfiction books that primarily explore themes of life, death, faith, family and friendship. Five of those books have debuted at No.1 on The New York Times Best Sellers list.

Albom explained symmetry in his experiences with Morrie Schwartz and Chika Jeune. He said the 78-year-old Schwartz opened his eyes to things in life he didn’t realize. Twenty years later, he was experiencing it again with a young Haitian orphan.

“You can be taught by anybody – the old and the young can illuminate life for you,” he said. “Both in their dying taught me about living.”

Tammy Miller of State College waited in the foyer for the theater doors to open Tuesday for Albom’s talk.

“I think he’s an incredible author,” she said, recommending Albom’s book “The Five People You Meet in Heaven.”

Albom took over direction of the orphanage in Haiti in 2010 following the earthquake that killed more than 300,000 people in that country. He said the “resiliency” and “amazing attitudes” of the orphans he met inspired him to invest in the orphanage and bring people from the Detroit area to help rebuild it.

Now, a decade later, Albom says each child has a college scholarship waiting for them.

“We raise them, educate them, take care of them, nurture them, protect them and get them to college,” he said.

Along with the orphanage, Albom has founded nine charities in the Detroit area, including S.A.Y. Detroit, which operates a family health clinic; A Time to Help, a volunteer organization; and A Hole in the Roof Foundation, which repairs faith-based homeless shelters.