Moldovans may be the world's unhappiest people.

Of thousands of people surveyed in more than 60 countries, the World Values Survey shows Moldovans are the most morose. Only 44 percent of people in Moldova reported being happy, the lowest percentage of all countries surveyed.

Photo by Scott Thorne (ENLARGE)

A boy sits on the steps outside Straseni orphanage, a state-run facility in Moldova. It is estimated that there are 12,000 orphans in the country.   MISSION TO MOLDOVA Audio: Youngsters at the summer camp sing "Rise and Shine" Video: At camp in Moldova Slideshow: Flip through photos taken by local members of the mission team MORE STORIES A young woman's account of a changed life Relief groups work to help orphans, combat trafficking in the Eastern European nation Column: Tiny child makes it all worthwhile Diary:Blessings abound as mission team reaches out to children in Eastern Europe Relief agency's origins told

Steve Davis has seen the misery. The cruel conditions are what brought him almost a decade ago to this country plagued with poverty and corruption.

"It's the poorest of the former Soviet Union countries," said Davis, the former associate director of Children's Emergency Relief International. "It's the leading country for (human) trafficking in all of Eastern Europe.

"(They) have a saying in Romania," Davis said. "When you think you've got it bad, thank God you weren't born in Moldova."

Moldova, a country about the size of the state of Maryland, is sandwiched between Romania and the Ukraine. The republic is home to about 4 million people. An estimated 12,000 of them are orphans.

CERI, a division of San Antonio, Texas-based Baptist Child & Family Services, began working with Moldovan orphans in 1999. The organization sponsors humanitarian aid distributions and orphan care programs in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, as well as Moldova.

"We got started in Moldova actually by way of Russia," Davis said in an interview last month in Chisinau, Moldova, where he had joined volunteers from Pitt County who were working at a camp for orphans.

CERI, then operating under the name Baptist Child & Family Services, began leading summer camps in 1996 in Moscow with the organization Children's Hope Chest. When Kingwood, Texas, businessman David Knight read about the group's efforts in The Baptist Standard, a Texas Baptist news journal, he asked Davis to consider extending the mission to Moldova.

Knight had gone with his church on a medical mission to Moldova and had been so moved by the conditions he saw that he adopted two orphan girls.

"I'd never even heard of it (Moldova)," Davis said, "didn't know where it was."

Since declaring its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Moldova has, in many ways, failed to make a name for itself economically or politically. It does, however, have the unfortunate distinction of leading Eastern Europe in human trafficking.

"The British Helsinki Human Rights Group did a study in 2000, and they said 60 percent of the girls that are being trafficked out of all of Eastern Europe are coming out of Moldova," Davis said. "That would include countries much, much larger than Moldova. Russia, Ukraine, Romania, countries that are considered to have really bad trafficking problems, and here's little Moldova ... and more girls are coming out of here than anywhere."

CERI's first efforts in the country were not directed to the trafficking issue. It started on a smaller scale — just sharing lunch.

After meeting with a school principal who said many of his students could not afford a nutritious lunch, CERI began funding a school nutrition program for some of the poorest students.

"(We) came back in a year just to check on how the program was going," Davis recalled. "The principal said the kids have changed because several of the kids who were receiving the meal felt like some of their friends were worse off than them, and they gave them their place. ... That really stuck in my mind about how selfless the kids were.

"They're so eager to accept you and be loved and love you," Davis said of Moldovan children. "If you're here for 15 minutes with a child and they're not holding your hand, it's unusual."

CERI extended its reach to children in Moldova's orphanages and state-run boarding schools, providing shoes, clothing and summer camp programs, as well as working to pair the children with sponsors to encourage them and help them financially.

CERI is working to expand its efforts to teens who have aged out of the orphan care system. In Moldova, students are typically released from orphanages about age 16. With few resources available to help them stand on their own, it is estimated as many as 70 percent of the girls will become prostitutes or be forcibly sold into sex slavery. An estimated 70 percent of the boys released from orphan care as teens will resort to a life of crime.

Davis, who will begin work next month as missions pastor at Rolling Hills Community Church south of Nashville, Tenn., has plans to open transitional houses for girls being released from Moldova's orphan care system. The ministry, which he hopes to call Justice and Mercy International, will focus on teaching the young women life skills and providing job training that will keep them from becoming victims of human trafficking.

Davis, 53, sees the new ministry as a chance for him to take a stand for human rights.

"I grew up in the era where the blacks were earning their civil rights, and even though I grew up during that time, I didn't really participate," he said. "I decided at some point in my life that if there was another cause that came along that was anything like that, that involved a person's freedom, a person's dignity being taken away, that I wouldn't turn my back on it. So when I heard about Moldova and the sexual slavery of so many girls, I decided that was going to be my cause."

Though his church also has missions in South Africa and Ecuador, Davis expects Moldova will continue to be the country that fills his passport.

"I guess there are problems all over the world," he said. "My hunch is that we as Americans feel like the problems are so big (we think) 'What can we do? Where do we start?' I think it's important to just decide that if you're capable of taking care of one other human being in the world that that's probably an obligation of ours.

"We're not going to make a difference in all of Moldova," he said. "(But) if you save one person, you save the world."

Kim Grizzard can be contacted at 329-9578 or kgrizzard@coxnc.com.

CERI has sponsorship programs in Moldova to benefit orphans, children living in foster care and young adults who are beginning to live independently. Sponsorship fees range from $35-$135 per month and include translated correspondence between the sponsor and child. For more information, visit www.cerikids.org or call 1-877-897-2374.