It wasn’t the typical way most teenagers spend a “Sweet 16."

But it was a birthday that Abby Petersen and her mother, Sherri Iszler, of Ashley, will hold in their hearts forever.

The birthday serenades were not sung by Abby’s classmates at Ashley Public School, but by Haitian children in orphanages.

The mother/daughter duo was part of a 13-person group that spent one week earlier this month volunteering for the Healing Haiti Christian Mission.