It's not every day that Laurie Buurma gets to see a child meet his new family, but that's exactly what happened when the Napan recently volunteered at an orphanage in Cap-Haitien, Haiti for two weeks.

Buurma was at Children of the Promise orphanage in November when a Minnesota couple came for their new son -- a 3-year-old Haitian boy named Reubens. "He started calling them Momma and Poppa right away," said Buurma.

Roger Visker, pastor of Valley Community Church, was also there for the special event. "(Reubens) was so excited. He had a big grin on his face and he knew they were his parents," he said, adding that the boy came to the orphanage after the deaths of his natural parents.

Along with locals Carlee Frailey, Marte Muelrath, Nancy Brown and Robert Brown -- also members of Napa's Valley Community Church -- Visker and Buurma spent Oct. 29 to Nov. 10 volunteering at the Haiti orphanage.

Visker said he recruited church members for the trip after his friends, Bud and Jan Bonnema of Minnesota, founded the orphanage more than five years ago. After the Bonnemas took their family to Haiti to expose them to other cultures, he said, they encountered crushing poverty. "Three different families approached them and asked them to take their babies back to the states so they would have a chance to live. It just really broke their hearts and it was a sense of calling that was just too powerful for them to let go."

Nearly 8.5 million people live in Haiti, a country where close to three-quarters of the population live in extreme poverty. "The poverty there was pretty shocking," said Buurma. "There were no paved roads, huge garbage piles on the street, but people were clean and dressed nicely. ... The people had a lot of pride," said Buurma.

Buurma said many of the children who arrive at the orphanage -- run entirely on volunteer help and funds -- are malnourished and very thin. Most are adopted out to families in the United States and Canada, she said, while others eventually go back to their homes to fathers whose wives have passed away.

Buurma -- a Napa Realtor and mother of two adopted daughters and two biological sons -- said children come to the six-acre orphanage for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, she said, parents simply cannot afford to feed and care for them. Buurma added that some of the children's mothers die during childbirth; others die of AIDS.

Visker said some of the 70 children who live at the orphanage are HIV-positive and receive treatment on the orphanage grounds, where an intensive care unit is being built.

The efforts of Buurma and the other parishioners of Valley Community Church did not start with their arrival in Haiti. The group shipped 30 boxes of diapers, baby formula, first aid supplies and more before they left, in addition to a new front loading washing machine. Napa doctors, the church congregation, and Buurma's clients donated most of the items, Buurma said.

While the group volunteered at Children of the Promise, the men spent time repairing the building while the women cared for the children, she said. A typical day at the orphanage for Buurma included feeding infants and toddlers, reading books to them, teaching them English and playing with them. The oldest children at the orphanage were 3 or 4 years old, she added.

"They loved the attention and the affection," she said.

Buurma said she hopes to return to Children of the Promise orphanage next year. "I kind of feel like it's just the beginning. The kids are drawing us back. We just miss them."

To learn more about Children of the Promise, visit www.childrenofthepromise.org.