It seems like surely there were angels involved in his life from the day he was born 16 years ago. I'm saying that - that's not how he tells the story. But they appear later, so why not then?

Just a few months old, he had been abandoned, left on the streets of Haiti. He was taken to - not even an orphanage - but the hospice of Mother Teresa's sisters in Port au Prince. Children went there to die, of tuberculosis or AIDS or malaria, but surely to die.

Sister Virginia, a nun from Haiti, was visiting friends in Idaho those 16 years ago and, by chance, met Betsy Luce of Boise. They talked about the sister's work with Father Rick Frechette in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. That was in August.

Then the baby boy didn't die.

In December, Betsy and her husband, Rob, got a phone call from Haiti, from Sister Virginia: "Father Rick found this baby. He's in the hospice, but he's not dying. You don't have kids; you need him. Come now. Get him quickly."

The little boy became Parker Luce.

But that's just the beginning of the story.

When Betsy and Rob went to Haiti to retrieve their first son (they brought home their second son, Patrick, some years later), they met Father Rick and visited his orphanage and what passed for his hospital.

Betsy says: "He had just done a tracheotomy without anesthesia on a baby by flashlight. He was distraught. There was no traditional tracheotomy tube to be had, so they used a blown-out ballpoint pen. "

When the Luces returned home as a family, they approached Saint Alphonsus Foundation. One thing led to another, and since 1995, 17 mission teams and literally tons of supplies have gone from Saint Alphonsus to Father Rick's orphanage and hospital in Haiti.

Because of the little boy who wouldn't die.

Parker says: "Half of me wants to live in U.S., the other half of me feels like I don't deserve it - I should be with my fellow Haitians suffering, too. I don't know why. I'm really lucky that I'm here."

When he was 7, Parker spoke before 300 people at Father Rick's now-annual visit to Boise. He just read a prayer, but it started a tradition. He started writing his own prayers.

In third grade, Parker painted a picture of a blue angel and a white angel - him and his best friend. It was printed as a school Christmas card and was among a host of angel paintings that followed.

"I like angels. Angels are among us; I feel angels are in everything. They're kind of secretly there but we don't notice them."

He doesn't delve into the symbolism of his angels. The ideas come to him, and he paints them.

"I'm drawing what's in my head. Some pictures I paint, I don't know what it is."

Angels in the sky, dog angels crying. Angels guarding crops, guarding homes, at home in heaven praying. Parker's sensitivity to other people and other cultures has developed his sense of both the goodness and the harshness of the world, because he paints a lot of pictures of angels fighting.

"While we're fighting on the ground, there's (an angel) war going on above or below us or maybe in between.

"My belief is it could take us years, there could be deaths, plagues, people will die - but in the end, I still believe good wins. Bad people were good before they were bad. Eventually good will win."

In Haiti, it will be a long haul. Recent news stories tell of people so hungry they're eating mud. Humanitarian aid sits in the port undistributed. "It's hopeless looking," says Betsy. "We all answer for it. It's something that could be solved. We have an obligation to try."

But angels aren't going to do the work, Parker makes clear. That's up to us. For his part, he knows his path is to help people.

"I will finish high school, maybe take a year off and do Peace Corps or something like that. Work with people in other countries; I like that improve other people's lives - make world better place.

"I like helping people. I can see some lives are just shattered. It would be fun to be a person to hug them, say it's going to be OK, the world isn't that bad."

Father Rick has been a role model for becoming a doctor, but it takes too long and there's way too much math involved, Parker says.

"I want to be a psychologist so I can talk to people, diagnose mental problems help them deal with day-to-day life."

Parker's parents have promised him a trip to his homeland, but it's too dangerous right now.

"When it's safe, I would like to go back there. I want to see where I was born, the orphanage I came from, the new hospital they built I want to see what it's like for little kids, what it would have been like growing up, going to school.

"I would really like the U.S. to step in help them. I wish the president would use our country's money more for humanitarian stuff rather than spending it on the war."

Until then, Parker is active in the Humanitarian Club at school; he listens to Father Rick's stories - and he paints. Because of his connection to an anguished Haiti, his mother thinks the angels represent his hope for the world.

He says: "They watch over people. They comfort the sick and dying; they comfort the unhappy and depressed.

"But it's us who can change the world. Angels can help us. In end, it's our free will to decide to change, to turn the world around and go in a good direction."