(Johnny Mark Paz)
Weighing only 2.5 pounds, Johnny was found in the trash by garbage men on the streets of Quito (the capital of Ecuador, South America). Wrapped in a filthy rag, he was taken to the president's wife, who was overseeing the orphanages of the nation at that time. Henry Davis (the orphanage founder) came to visit her around the same time, and she asked if he would take this abandoned little baby to the Happiness Orphanage. He took the baby home to Dorothy, still wrapped in the dirty rags and told her he had a surprise for her. As he began to set the baby down on their kitchen counter top, Dorothy turned around and said, "Don't set those dirty rags on my counter, Henry!" Before she could get upset, he told her to open the rags and see what was inside. As she opened the rags, she was startled to find a baby. The baby was unnamed, so they began calling him John Mark Peace ("Juan Marco Paz" in Spanish). Johnny was so small and malnourished that they thought he was a newborn. After a visit to the doctor, they discovered he was one month old. He was so small that he slept in a shoe box. Dorothy cared for him until he was four months old and in good health, and then he went to the orphanage to live. He grew up at the orphanage, having no other family. Johnny is now married and has a family of his own. The Lord has blessed him with a charming smile and a natural musical talent.
Along with his three older sisters, Mintor was brought to the orphanage by relatives after the children had been physically and emotionally abused by their father. When Mintor was only two years old, his father sold one of his eyes for $3,000. Today Mintor has a glass eye and it's hardly noticeable. He is now on staff as a permanent employee, and is the right-hand-man for our Director, Miguel Moreira. He is very dependable, can do most anything and is happy working for the Lord.
Rafico Yamuca (1972)
(no picture available)
Rafico was a 9-year-old Otavala Indian boy from the town of Otavala, Ecuador, South America. One night, his parents, in a drunken stupor, tied him to the railroad tracks muttering that they had eight other children and didn't need so many. Rafico managed to wiggle free from the ropes except for one leg, which he lost above the knee. Some neighbors saved his life. The wife of Ecuador's President, Corina de Velasco Ibarra, became aware of his case and then contacted Henry Davis, founder of the Houses of Happiness, about seeing if it would be possible to take Rafico to the US for treatment. Arrangements were made, and God led them to a wonderful doctor who performed several successful surgeries. Eventually, the wonderful day came for Rafico to be fitted for his artificial leg. Somehow, no one is really quite sure how, the Associated Press picked up on these events, and his story was on the front page of many US newspapers, in cities such as New York, Chicago, Dallas Miami, and Los Angeles.
The Miami Herald, which is widely read in South America, is one of the newspapers that placed the article on its front page. The paper made its way into the hands of a 65-year-old man from Oklahoma who worked for Texaco and was building an oil pipeline through the Brazilian Amazon jungle. The Lord touched his heart so much as he read the story about Rafico, that he wrote home to his wife and told her about it.
Six months later, Texaco transferred this man over to Ecuador (as they had discovered oil there), with the task of building a pipeline up over the Andes Mountains and out to the Ecuadorian coast for exportation. That pipeline "just happened" to cross the Houses of Happiness upper property line. They asked if they could use the Houses of Happiness access road to get up to the top of the property to work on the pipeline. Day after day, the trucks and equipment passed by. One day, the man from Oklahoma asked Henry if this was an orphanage. When Henry answered "Yes," the man began telling Henry about an article he read in the Miami Herald about a boy named Rafico. Henry just smiled and asked, "Would you like to meet that boy?" The man couldn't believe it, and began weeping as he met Rafico.
This man was so blessed that he and his crew used their large earth moving equipment to transform the steep slope and ravines of the campus by grading a soccer field (World Championship size), a 50,000-gallon water reservoir, a site for a church, and a basketball court…all at no charge.
Rafico is now a grown man and an optometrist, in Quito, Ecuador. He translates for groups of doctors and optometrists as they donate their time providing medical attention to remote villages.