Does it matter that their heart was in the right place? Can the legal system see it from that point of view? Bob Allen of The Associated Baptist Press insists they were only trying to help. The group of ten felt compelled by God for this mission trip. A mission team from two Southern Baptist churches in Idaho was arrested January 29th as they were attempting to bus 33 children across the border into the Dominican Republic.
There intention: to help children suffering from the aftermath of the January 12th earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince. News articles and news broadcasts verify this intent. These children were being taken to a temporary orphanage in the Dominican Republic. What the article fails to mention is the fact that the orphanage has not yet been built. Before leaving for Haiti, the team rented a 45 room hotel in Cab arête, a beach resort in the Dominican Republic, near the location of the planned orphanage. The article also fails to mention that twenty-one of these thirty three children had a least one living parent or close relative in the village from which the team took the children. Television interviews with parents indicated the group promised the children a better life, food, clothing, education, and a swimming pool. Quoting Shirley Thompson, mother and grandmother of two team members, “They had no intention, of course, of trafficking children or even making them available for adoption. They were there simply to rescue and care for them.” However, an itinerary of the mission trip posted on the Eastside Baptist Church website indicated the team was working with New Life Children’s Refuge, a non profit Christian ministry. The ministry’s stated purpose is to rescue and care for impoverished and abandoned orphans in Haiti and the Dominican Republic and to provide “opportunities for adoption into a loving Christian family.”
Out of the hundreds of true orphans in Haiti, why choose children with parents? Yes, they were impoverished, but not abandoned. How, as a Christian, or just as a decent human being, can you turn your back on these parents? Some of these children were as old as twelve. Are they expected to just forget their “impoverished” family in Haiti? This group has the financial means to help this village. Instead of taking their children, why, in God’s name, didn’t they help the entire village?
Update from CBCNEWS: “In interviews with The Associated Press, parents of many of the children acknowledged they handed them over out of desperation, unable to care for them after an earthquake devastated their village on Jan. 12.”
A note for the Politically Correct Agenda: Unfortunately for this group, there seems to be some confusion in the United States over the terminology, American Baptist. American Baptist Churches, USA would like everyone to know that these ten individuals are not members of their group. But, they are American and they are Baptists.
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