“The people of Haiti understand what these folks were trying to do—-steal babies. Whether it was to peddle their flesh or to bring to “the Lord” in Idaho these babies were stolen plain and simple and I am very glad that they are being charged and pursued.”–E.R. Brown, commenting on nytimes.com

Haitian officials on Thursday filed child abduction and criminal conspiracy charges against 10 Americans who tried to take 33 Haitian children out of the country last week. The Americans, most of them members of a Baptist congregation from Idaho, had not gotten the Haitian government’s consent to transport the children across the border into the Dominican Republic.
The group, led by Laura Silsby, a businesswoman and self-described missionary, claimed they were rescuing Haitian children left parentless after the Jan. 12 earthquake. The Americans, after being questioned, admitted they did not seek approval to remove the children from Haiti. Officials confirmed that several of the children have at least one living parent.
The Idaho Statesman reported that Silsby “had a history of failing to pay debts, failing to pay her employees and failing even to follow Idaho laws.” (That doesn’t sound much like Christian behavior to us.)
The Statesman went on to report: “Silsby has been the subject of eight civil lawsuits and 14 unpaid wage claims. The $358,000 Meridian house at which she founded her nonprofit New Life Children’s Refuge in November was foreclosed upon in December. A check of Silsby’s driving record revealed at least nine traffic citations since 1997, including four for failing to provide insurance or register annually.”
The mother of three, Silsby, 40, was CEO of an Internet business, personalshopper.com, and was named eWomenNetwork’s international businesswoman of the year in 2006.
Now, Silsby waits in a Haitian jail facing a potentially extended legal proceeding. If convicted, she faces three to nine years in prison.
Judging from comments posted on several Web sites we checked, Silsby and her group aren’t getting much sympathy for their rescue mission. And rightly so, we think. From the first reports, everything about the Baptists’ story seemed suspect to us. Claiming that they didn’t know they needed permission to remove the children was the first strike against them. They never said which orphanage in the Dominican Republic they were supposedly taking the children to yet they supposedly had gotten permission by the Dominican government.
And, now with revelations about Silsby’s personal troubles, her concern for Haitian children seems even less sincere and well-meaning. Child trafficking and not child rescue come to mind. Silsby and her group weren’t helping Haiti, they were helping themselves. And that’s not Christian charity by any means.

Public sentiment is not on her side if one scans the hundreds of comments posted on The New York Times. Here are a few:

“As an adoptive parent, these right wing evangelicals make me furious and disgusted. Now that the facts are coming out – thanks CNN – it’s quite obvious that the ringleader was only using a trip to Haiti to “rescue” children as a ploy to make money. As reported on CNN tonight, her home was foreclosed Dec. 24th, her business is in shambles, she has many lawsuits against her, and the “brochure” they were handing out in Haiti to desperate parents and caregivers is full of lies. She was only looking for a way to pay her bills via donations and to be seen as a compassionate Christian. Shame on her! I hope she rots in jail. These unscrupulous “christians” have now done irreperable damage to hundreds of thousands of parentless children around the world who wait for permanent families.”

“Somebody’s likely said it by now, but you gotta wonder how these same religious zealots and their crackpot defenders would have reacted if a few Haitians had taken a busload or two of New Orleans children to Haiti in the wake of Katrina.”

Tell us what you think of the Baptists’. Send your comments to: editor@sendhelp2haiti.com.