Smile Stories: Before and After Smiles...

Operation Smile's volunteer medical professionals travel around the world to treat children suffering from facial deformities. Their efforts mean new smiles for thousands of children, including these former patients:

Ngan

Min Zhu

Brigid

Guillermo

Arnoldo

Thanh

Nicaragua - Guillermo

One day when my mom was pregnant with me, she looked up into the darkening sky and realized there was a solar eclipse. Later, when I was born with a cleft lip and cleft palate, she and my dad said it was because of that eclipse. Luckily, they heard about an Operation Smile mission coming to Managua, near where we live. They saved and saved, mom working as a seamstress and dad as a construction worker, and were able to put enough money aside to pay for our transportation. Now, five months after I was born, my lip has been repaired.

My family says I smile a lot more now. I still have to have another surgery for the roof of my mouth, but I'm halfway there. My parents told the nice medical volunteers: "We are very thankful because these medical missions help poor people. The people here could not afford these surgeries, with how hard life is in Nicaragua. We cannot repay these people for what they did for our child and all the other children."

See photos of Roma Downey’s inspirational journey to Vietnam with an Operation Smile volunteer medical team.

Watch the video of Roma Downey's journey to Vietnam with Operation Smile.

See updated photos of children from the 2003 Vietnam medical mission.