The Settle family adopted Angeline, 7, from Haiti. From left, Ethan, 10; Alecia Settle, Angeline and Bret Settle. Suzanne Rehak photoAlecia Settle couldn’t leave without doing something. Seeing the orphaned children hungry for food and especially love changed her.

"We were on the ground about an hour at an orphanage and God softened our hearts," said Settle, 40, who lives in Seven Meadows. "I thought there is no way I can see this and not do something about it."

The stay-at-home mom to Ethan, now 10, was on a mission trip in Haiti about five years ago with her husband, Bret, and only expected to minister to the needs of children in the impoverished country.

Her plans never included adoption but she said God changed her mind by showing her children suffering from illness and malnourishment.

"You see it on TV and you say, ‘That’s sad,’ but when you’re there and they’re looking at you with big brown eyes and big stomachs, I don’t know how anyone can walk away," Alecia said. "You think you’re going to save the children but in the end they’re the ones that save you."

At the time, Alecia and her family were living in Boulder, Colo., and asked Chances for Children, the Haitian orphanage where they had served on their mission trip, to select a child for them to adopt.

Angeline is the young Haitian girl that exchanged a destiny as an orphan for a life with the Settles four years ago.

"We adopted her when she was 3," Settle said about Angeline, who is now almost 7 years old and attends Griffin Elementary School. "She’s been a blessing."

While the children in Haiti live with very little, Bret said they are content and joyful. Angeline is no exception, he said.

"Anybody that has been to Haiti has been enamored with the kids there — they’re happy with anything," said Bret, 39, who works in the information technology field. "Angeline is the most well-adjusted member of our family. It’s been more of a blessing for us than for her."

Kathi Juntenen, president of Chances for Children, said all of the 110 children at the orphanage are matched with adoptive families but the process is tedious and takes two years before children are with their new families.

"Children who live in institutional care do not get to enjoy the love and nurturing that children in families experience," Juntenen said. "No children should have to live without the love, care and emotional support that only a family can provide."

When the earthquake hit Haiti last month, Alecia said she was concerned about how to share the news with Angeline, who is very interested in her home country.

"I told my son and daughter, and the first thing she asked about was all the children in the orphanages. And then she sobbed," said Alecia, who attends Cinco Ranch Church of Christ with her family. "But we heard that all the children from her orphanage were safe."

Alecia recently returned from Haiti where she delivered 7,200 pounds of food and supplies for earthquake relief efforts to Angeline’s orphanage. While the country has been devastated, Settle said she knows good will come from the tragedy.

"It’s hard that everything I’ve dreamed of, having people know where Haiti is and how poor it is, is happening this way," she said. "But the people of Haiti are resourceful and they will rebuild."

With a love for Haitians and their country, Settle has chronicled her mission work in a photographic book called Visualize Haiti.

Through her publishing company, Visualize Publishing, almost 1,000 books have been sold. Settle has donated all of the proceeds, which so far totals $14,000, to charities and orphanages in Haiti. The book also helped one woman decide she would adopt a Haitian child, Settle said.

"All I ever wanted was to help somebody see what I witnessed there and what I experienced there," she said.

For information, visit http://www.visualizepublishing.com/.