Restless Wanderings

Is Evangelism A Motivation For Stealing Children?

Feb 01 2010

View CommentsReligion Central Valley Baptist Church, Central Valley Baptist Church Meridian Idaho, Child Trafficking, Christianity, Haiti

(nine of the ten arrested in Haiti for trying to take Haitian Children out of Haiti)

The Canadian News reports:

Ten U.S. Baptists arrested trying to take 33 children out of earthquake-shattered Haiti say they were just trying to do the right thing, applying Christian principles to save Haitian children.

Prime Minister Max Bellerive told The Associated Press Sunday he was outraged by the group’s “illegal trafficking of children” in a country long afflicted by the scourge and by foreign meddling.

But the hard reality on the ground in this desperately poor country – especially after the catastrophic Jan. 12 quake – is that some parents openly attest to their willingness to part with their children if it will mean a better life.

It was a sentiment expressed by all but one of some 20 Haitian parents interviewed at a tent camp Sunday that teemed with children whose toys were hewn from garbage.

“Some parents I know have already given their children to foreigners,” said Adonis Helman, 44. “I’ve been thinking how I will choose which one I may give – probably my youngest.”

Haiti’s overwhelmed government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the quake amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to being seized and sold.

Without proper documents and concerted efforts to track down their parents, they could be forever separated from family members able and willing to care for them. Bellerive’s personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child.

The orphanage where the children were later taken said at least some of the kids have living parents, who were apparently told that the children were going on an extended holiday from the post-quake misery.

According to the Canadian News the Church’s mission statement said:

The church group planned to spend only hours in the devastated capital, quickly identifying children without immediate families and busing them to a rented hotel in the Dominican Republic without bothering to get permission from the Haitian government.

The Church in question is Central Valley Baptist Church of Meridian, ID. (a Southern Baptist Church)

How has the Church responded to this matter?

…”In this chaos the government is in right now, we were just trying to do the right thing,” the group’s spokeswoman, Laura Silsby, told the AP at Haiti’s judicial police headquarters, where she and others were taken after their arrest Friday night trying to cross the border into the Dominican Republic in bus.

Silsby admitted she had not obtained the proper Haitian documents for the children, whose names were written on pink tape on their shirts…

…In Idaho, the Rev. Clint Henry denied that his Central Valley Baptist Church had anything to do with child trafficking and said he didn’t believe such reports.

He urged his tearful congregation to pray to God to “help them as they seek to resist the accusations of Satan and the lies that he would want them to believe and the fears that he would want to plant into their heart.”…

…Henry, the senior pastor, said the 500-member church wanted to help “because we believe that Christ has asked us to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the whole world, and that includes children.”…

ABC reports:

When asked about the charges against them, several in the group simply responded to ABC News, “Philippians 1.” The Bible’s first chapter of Philippians chronicles the apostle Paul’s time in prison for preaching the gospel.

Some Haitians resent the meddling of American Christians:

As the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is in a difficult spot – it needs aid, but deeply resents foreign meddling. Many have mixed feelings toward Christian groups that funnel hundreds of millions into missions in Haiti.

“There are many who come here with religious ideas that belong more in the time of the inquisition,” said Max Beauvoir, head of Haiti’s Voodoo Priest’s Association, which represents thousands of priests and priestesses. “These types of people believe they need to save our souls and our bodies from ourselves. We need compassion, not proselytizing now, and we need aid – not just aid going to people of the Christian faith.”

This issue is not complex.

I don’t think for a moment this Christian group had any intent to traffic in Haitian children.

Stupid? Yes.

Ignorant? Yes.

Arrogant? Yes, and here lies the bigger problem. The Church group believes their Bible, their beliefs, their God trumps Haitian law. Because they believe they have a mandate to evangelize the world, and that includes children, they are justified in disobeying Haitian law. They are ABOVE the law. (this same approach is used to justify murdering abortion doctors)

They believe this is all a satanic plot against them. The devil had nothing to do with this. They are in jail today because of their own stupid, ignorant, arrogance and they have no one to blame but themselves.

Paul suffered for the gospel’s sake. He was jailed for the gospel’s sake.

The Idaho ten are jailed today for that which is of their own making.

Is Evangelism A Motivation for Stealing Children? Update

Feb 04 2010

View CommentsReligion Central Valley Baptist Church, Central Valley Baptist Church Meridian Idaho, Haiti, Laura Silsby

CNN reports:

The Dominican consul general Wednesday rejected the claim from an American church leader that she thought her paperwork was in order when she attempted to take 33 Haitian children out of the country, saying he had told her it was not.

“I warned her, I said as soon as you get there without the proper documents, you are going to get into trouble, because they are going to accuse you, because you have the intent to pass the border without the proper papers and they are going to accuse you with kids trafficking,” Carlos Castillo said he told the group’s leader, Laura Silsby, during a meeting Friday.

Four hours later, Silsby and nine other Americans were turned back from the border. They were arrested and taken to a jail in Port-au-Prince.

“This woman knew what she was trying to do was not legal,” Castillo said.

A CNN reporter attempted to get reaction to Castillo’s comment from the jailed Americans, but they would not discuss the matter, responding to questions by singing “Amazing Grace” and praying.

Told earlier that many of the children had living parents, Silsby said, “I did not know that.”

She added, “In our hearts, our intention was to help children that had been orphaned or abandoned by their parents.”

But the interpreters the group had used said the conversations between Silsby and the parents in the Haitian town of Calebasse made clear to them that Silsby must have been aware of the children’s status.

SOS Children’s Villages, an Austrian charity, said that it has determined that at least two-thirds of the children are not orphans.

Authorities on Wednesday questioned a Haitian police officer who works at the Dominican Embassy about whether he provided illegal paperwork to Silsby and the other Americans to facilitate their efforts as alleged by interpreters who had translated for the Americans…

It seems that the Church group knew what they were doing was illegal.

The group leader is using the “in our hearts” defense to defend their taking children that were not orphans. (as if taking children that WERE orphans was OK)

This defense is often used by religious people to justify most anything. “In my heart” I believe I did the right thing. (right thing being anything and everything from adultery to murder to child  stealing.)

Supposedly Americans believe in the rule of law. Even the Christian religion teaches that civil law is to be obeyed. (Romans 13)

While I am not ready to call the Church group traffickers in children I do hope they will drop the phony “we are like the Apostle Paul, in jail for the sake of the gospel, defense.” It is time they own up to their error, confess it, and ask for leniency from the Haitian government.

Is Evangelism A Motivation For Stealing Children? Update 2

Feb 20 2010

View CommentsReligion Central Valley Baptist Church, Central Valley Baptist Church Meridian Idaho, Child Trafficking, Haiti, Laura Silsby

From the Idaho Statesman

Grand ambitions: Laura Silsby has tackled life with faith in God and herself

From the Guardian

Haiti Earthquake: In God’s Name

From the New York Times

Trafficking Charges for Adviser to Jailed Americans in Haiti

A first person account from Anne-christine d’Adesky a US based journalist:

As some of you know, I met the Laura Silsby Baptist missionary group that was arrested for possible child trafficking when I was in Santo Domingo, on the eve of my (and their) entry in Haiti. We met by chance in a hotel there, the Hotel Lino on Sunday, January 24th. After introducing myself and my work monitoring the post-quake orphan crisis (on this blog), we later met and chatted for a half hour in their hotel room. They told me they were a relatively new group to the orphan scene, and were motivated by God to try to help Haitian children. They’d already had a plan to have an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, and with the quake, their plan went into fast-track.

They’d rented rooms in a large hotel, and had chartered a bus that could pick up 100 kids and hoped to bring at least that many – but hopefully more — maybe 200 — to a hotel in the Dominican Republic for temporary housing, while they finished building a permanent orphanage where the children would live. They had a ‘letter’ authorizing them to do this from some Dominican ‘minister.’

I wondered then: official or religious?

Either way, I knew that letter – from the Dominican side – wouldn’t be enough. These were Haitian children, and they required Haitian official permission, and paperwork that adheres to the protocol for transferring Undocumented Refugee Children across national borders. I told them that, but they were convinced they might overcome this ‘red tape’.

At the time, I thought they were trying to be legit, but were misguided – though my suspicions were raised. We discussed Haitian concerns about trafficking, which she knew all about. For my part, I was seeking more information about the needs of orphanages they might be working with, to see how to link medical and food aid to such groups. Silsby informed me that her group was going to find ‘native’ orphanages – or centers – that had ‘children others wouldn’t want to adopt.’ I thought she meant perhaps ’special needs’ children, but didn’t quite understand.

(Later, I learned that her group had targeted a community she had already visited in the past, and she had worked with a local pastor who asked parents to turn over their children for a ‘better life’ in the Dominican Republic.)

She repeatedly told me her group would not be putting the children up for adoption, which is why. she inferred, some Dominican had helped her with paperwork to transfer them ‘to safety.‘

She told me they were on a mission from God and if God wanted them to succeed, they would. She also told me they hoped to cross the border later that night, or the next day, or so on a Monday and be back in the DR the same evening….)

Hearing that, had an immediate ‘red flag’ moment, but also thought: ‘well, the situation has been in flux, maybe they’re not aware of the rules, even if they should be’… My gut told me they knew they weren’t doing it right, but they were driven by a religious missionary fervor and wouldn’t listen. They wanted the kids, and they clearly planned to act as quickly as possible.
(As I later told a number of media reporting on this story, I later informed the UN authorities and orphan advocates that I had told Silsby and two colleagues them that their plan as stated would likely be deemed illegal, possibly viewed as trafficking, and that they risked arrest and possible jail time in Haiti.

To do it right, they needed documents and they had to inform Haitian authorities and UN people at the Protection Cluster who were in charge, post-quake. I gave them this information and referred them to my blog, which had these contacts. Laura Silsby said she would look at the blog, and get that information, and we agreed to meet in the morning.

By morning, they were gone.

The next day, in Haiti myself, I discovered that their group had clearly disregarded the advice and protocol I’d offered, and instead, seemed to be racing to round up children as they’d planned. When I got to the capital, and started visiting orphanages, I met the director of His Home for Children in Haiti who said a bus had turned up at his orphanage (near Delmas 60) late the night before, unannounced, with a missionary group that asked him to turn over remaining children in his care. He declined, telling me ‘it smelled fishy.’

(Much later, post-arrest, a Christian school representative in Haiti confirmed that his school, which had taken in orphans, had been visited by Silsby’s group and asked for children, but been turned away. He emailed me to say Laura Silsby had branded their response as ‘heartless’ for refusing to hand over the children to her.)…..

As many know, and as I saw on the Internet, Silsby’s statements to me were false.

Her group is in fact affiliated with an international adoption outfit of the same name, New Life, and in her own Trip Plan, accessible on the Internet for all to read, her group clearly states a plan for future adoption of the children brought from Haiti to the Dominican Republic.

I’ve since dug around a bit on the Internet, like many journalists, and found that others in her religious community have been active in the Dominican Republic since 2006, it appears.

So it’s critical now to look more deeply at the activities and history of the Falls Church people, and not just her smaller group, I feel.

There are journalists from the UK and US who’ve been poking around in Idaho, but not turned up too much…..

As I told investigators, though the Silsby group’s lawyers claim that only she and her assistant were the ringleaders in this affair, I actually spoke to three people from their group, and it was clear from my conversation with them that their clearly-stated mission had been excitedly prepared. Silsby may have convinced members of her group they had authority to take children, but I definitely told at least two other members they were likely to be stopped. Moreover, when a policeman stops your bus with 40 children aboard, orders them to get off, then tells you you’re breaking the law, and you still continue to try to do it – again- then what part of the message are you not understanding?

I don’t presume to be other members of that group, but they cannot claim the type of total innocence as has been portrayed by their lawyer OR to the media. They clearly knew that others felt their actions were or might be wrong, even if she may have convinced them those other people were misinformed. So yes, they may have been duped – convinced by Silsby, and by the evocation to do God’s work and follow God’s law above man’s (or human’s) law.

But it’s important for people following this story to know that a group was involved, with open knowledge of their church/parishes in the US, and it was a planned trip, and it engaged Dominicans with prior ties in the Dominican Republic….

…As I have said to inquiring media colleagues and to Haiti-lovers, the greater story here is the ACTIONS taken by the Haitian and outside orphan advocates to prevent this from succeeding, and for insisting on the rule of law, even in this case of catastrophic instability post-quake. I’d love to see articles about that, and articles focusing on how to HELP, legally, and quickly, the tens of thousands for children who have been orphaned or displaced.

As I posted recently, to me the concept of provisional FOSTER placement, working with through the international Unaccompanied Refugee Minor program — NOT ADOPTION — offers a appropriate provisional LEGAL avenue to quickly helping Haitian children, especially those who are amputees and need ongoing medical care outside Haiti, to get to quick safety and care, while allowing Haiti and Haitian officials and orphan groups the time to reorganize and reintegrate these displaced or orphaned children. A mandatory two year period is already the norm required for international adoptions to look for possible living relatives or others that can take in children. Two years would give all parties time to organize this while keeping the urgent needs of children now foremost in mind.

Congratulations to Haiti – to Haitian advocates – for their vigilance, and their insistence on the rule of law. That protects everyone.

HT: Unreasonable Faith