Just in case you didn't know the facts...like me

Serving Time for Serving Others


In the last 18 days, the impression given by news reports out of Haiti , has turned a group of well-intentioned Baptists into the villains of an elaborate plot to kidnap Haitian children for money. This couldn't be more wrong. As more facts surface about the incident, it is becoming clear that this team of missionaries wasn't operating outside the law at all. Instead, this group was the victim of a local government in complete and utter shambles. Thanks to our friends at the Liberty Institute, which is representing one of the men on the trip, the team did apply to take the children to the Dominican Republic and even passed through the appropriate checkpoints.

Unfortunately for the missionaries, their paperwork was never processed-mainly because the government was operating in a state of total disarray. When they finally did get to the border, officials told them they needed more documentation, so the group made a trip back to Port-au-Prince to "sort things out." They were arrested on the spot, despite statements from the children's parents that they consented to the team's care. As of today, these 10 members of the Central Valley and East Side Baptist Churches will have been in jail for more than two and a half weeks-without a peep from the U.S. State Department. Just to be clear, these are some of the worst prisons in the entire hemisphere. In fact, U.S. officials have called the Haitian cells the "sewers of hell" with conditions so deplorable that they violate the country's human rights obligations. Making matters worse, two of the team's members are just teenagers who joined the mission because they felt compelled to help.

Although a local judge granted a release to eight of the missionaries this afternoon, one is in the hospital and the other is still waiting for help from the American government. The fallout from this misunderstanding has been devastating for the children of Haiti, many of whom are in critical medical condition. International pilots and missionary organizations have suspended their airlifts for fear that they too will be arrested for kidnapping. With only a few kids a day reaching the U.S. for care, hundreds of others are dying--all because this group was wrongly accused. You can help! Contact your congressmen and ask them to intervene with the State Department and Haitian government--not only for the remaining Christians but for the sake of every hurting child.

Courtsey of Family Research Council