Last Thursday, as a result of actions taken by the State Department, numerous media outlets reported that the charges against the 9 American Baptist Missionaries arrested in Haiti for attempting to export at least two busloads of Haitian children for potential eventual adoptions had been dropped.

See, Charges dropped against Amarillo man and 8 others arrested in Haiti as but one of many examples.

(Laura Sislby, of course, remains in her jail cell in Haiti.)

The article makes mention of the State Department official who appears to have been part of the chain of events that led to this impression:

“We did get word from the chief of the western hemisphere affairs office at the Department of State, his name is Ted Coley, that the judge down there in Haiti informed the U.S. Embassy today that the charges against nine of the missionaries have been dropped, and no additional charges are expected to be filed against them,” said Bill Harris, senior counsel to Thornberry.

The article also lays out the remaining process on the Haitian end:

“All of the information on the investigation on her has been completed and submitted to the judge,” Harris said. “They (the State Department) said the judge ought to have a recommendation within seven days … it sounds like it’s been progressing.”

The prosecutor in Silsby’s case can recommend additional investigation, or come back with a finding of “guilty” or “not guilty.”

But it appears the American State Department got it wrong.

Despite the resulting statements from U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, U.S. Sen Jim Risch, attorney Caleb Stegall, Rev, Clint Henry, Drew Culberth, and others, Haiti’s  Attorney General Joseph Manes has since clarified, the charges still stand.

Drew Culberth actually sat down for a 14 minute long interview with KTKA on Friday. The video, available here Topeka missionary says closure will only come with final missionary’s release from Haiti goes into a fair amount of detail about how the aftermath of the arrests unfolded from Culberth’s point of view.

At the time of course, he was under the mistaken impression that the charges had been dropped, which was incorrect.

This piece from CNN (from today Sat.) makes it clear that the charges have not been dropped to date, and by Haitian law, cannot be until a the ruling is handed down  Haiti denies charges dropped against American missionaries:

Haiti’s top prosecutor on Friday denied reports that charges have been dropped against nine of the 10 American missionaries accused of kidnapping children after a devastating earthquake hit the nation in January.

Attorney General Joseph Manes was responding to news from the office of U.S. Sen Jim Risch, R-Idaho, whose staff on Thursday said the charges had been dropped against all but one of the Baptist missionaries. Group leader Laura Silsby remains in a Haitian jail. Risch spokesman Kyle Hines said the senator had been contacted by officials at the U.S. State Department, confirming that the kidnapping charges against the other nine were dropped.

However, Manes said that information was “absolutely incorrect.” He said that under Haitian law, all charges against the 10 Americans stand until the examining judge, Bernard Saint-Vil, renders his final decision on whether to proceed to trial.

Risch’s communications director, Brad Hoaglun, said: “We are standing by what we were orginally told by the State Department. We did, however, ask the State Department to reconfirm for us, and we are waiting that response.”

A senior State Department official told CNN Friday the charges were dropped, but deferred questions to Haiti’s government, saying “this was a Haitian decision.”

On Thursday, Saint-Vil could not be reached for comment and Manes declined to respond to CNN’s questions until he could do so in person on Friday.

and

The Rev. Clint Henry of the Central Valley Baptist Church said the missionaries were notified by a State Department e-mail that the charges were dropped and no other charges were pending.

Meanwhile, Manes said his office received the documents pertaining to Saint-Vil’s investigation and that his staff has five days to derive an opinion, which will remain confidential, on whether to move forward on a trial or dismiss the charges. At that point the case will be returned to the judge for a final decision.

In addition to the emails, there were also phone calls from the State Department to Idaho legislators and the missionaries themselves.

This entire affair has had numerous twists and turns, but this latest, apparently sparked by yet more ignorance of Haitian law this time on the level of the American State Department, is pretty darn remarkable.

Baby Jean or Baby Jenny’s journey makes for a kind of a real case study in just how much of the South Florida child care system has been outsourced to a variety of religious subcontractors, and how despite how these Haitian children have been assumed to be “orphans,” family reunions are sometimes possible, when attention and resources put behind efforts to reunite them.

That said, she is but one of many kids, “unaccompanied minors” who have traveled from Haiti.

Clearly these other kids, by and large glossed over in the media accounts, and unlikely to have such resources brought to bear on their cases may not be so fortunate.

So let’s look at her case. While all the focus has been on her journey and eventual reunification, very little attention has been given to the fact that from the moment she landed in the Florida system, she was being dual tracked, in other words, aim for a reunion if possible, but simultaneously she was tracked for adoption.

I first reported back on January 27th on the plight of the “unnamed Baby Girl” found in the rubble in Haiti, and taken by an ABC News journalist to a field hospital. Thereafter, she was taken out of the country on to the U.S. for the necessary medical care. See my post  Adopting kids out of Satan’s Haiti, the For His Glory kids & the slowing of child export flights.

She was described in this article at the time as:

…the first survivor of Haiti’s Jan. 12 earthquake to enter foster care in Florida. A Miami judge ordered the baby — who is being claimed by a family in Port-au-Prince — into the custody of state child welfare administrators.

As I emphasized this piece of the article at the time, Florida DCF:

…asked Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jeri Beth Cohen to place the infant under the state’s care while investigators try to determine whether she has family in Haiti.

Cohen asked the agency to look “diligently” for the girl’s family, while at the same time beginning efforts to place the girl up for adoption in Miami should no family be found.

“We want to help,” Cohen said in court. “We don’t want to further traumatize this family. We must make sure we work very diligently to find her family. That is very, very important.”

The baby girl, whose name remains unknown, is believed to be the first child brought from Haiti to enter foster care in Florida. Another child may have been sheltered by federal immigration workers last week, Colyer said.

I noted:

So in Miami at least, they’re dual tracking those kids coming in under medical necessity; search for family, BUT AT THE SAME TIME begin adoption proceedings.

Yet another tale of yet another kid not in any adoption mechanism pre-quake undergoing at least the preliminary steps towards an American adoption now that they’re on American soil.

The article continued:

While the infant was recovering at JMH last week, her identity a mystery, a man and woman who thought their baby daughter had died in the rubble got word that their child had been found and flown to Miami.

A journalist working for ABC News who was passing by the rescue took the baby to a field hospital in Port-au-Prince and later returned to the crumbled home to find the family.

There, a relative gave her contact information for Junior Alexis and Nadine Devilme, who believe the baby in Miami is their daughter Jenny. Alexis, 24, had searched for the baby for days after the quake, which knocked Devilme, 23, unconscious.

The couple moved to a camp in front of the Canapé Vert Hospital.

Last week, they told a Miami Herald reporter that they had no proof that the baby in Miami was theirs. But Alexis said he was prepared to take any test necessary to prove fatherhood.

The International Committee of the Red Cross was contacted by officials at the hospital as well as the journalists who brought the baby to the triage center in Haiti.

Workers with the organization in Haiti have been trying to get in touch with the couple, according to the Red Cross.

“Baby Jenny’s” case was spotlighted across multiple news channels. Here’s just one of many such typical pieces, Haitian Baby Isn’t Orphan, After All. Once again, we see all those assumptions about how these children somehow must be “orphans.”

She was dubbed “Haiti’s miracle baby” and used as an archetypal metaphor for Haiti’s children surviving in the rubble and remains. She has in effect, been turned into a poster child of sorts, despite the extraordinary circumstances surrounding her rescue, news crews seeking her parents out etc.

Florida’s Department of Children and Families placed her in fostercare with a lay guardian at His House in Miami Gardens, where she’s been for the past two months as both efforts to reunite her with her family and place her for adoption have continued as she underwent physical therapy. (We’ll get to “His House” down below.)

After weeks of news crews following each twist and turn in the “Baby Jenny” saga, last Tuesday news finally came of a DNA match between the child and her mother.

A match: DNA in Haiti leads to infant in Miami (see link for pictures of the girl’s parents.)

Junior Alexis and Nadine Devilme are still sleeping in a tent in Haiti’s crumbling capital, but on Tuesday, the couple’s lives improved dramatically:

An infant — known in Miami courthouse records as “Unnamed Baby Girl” — was identified by DNA as their missing daughter.

The infant, found by an ABC News crew under the rubble of the couple’s Port-au-Prince home shortly after the earthquake, was whisked to Jackson Memorial Hospital by a University of Miami medical crew, and is recovering from life-threatening injuries at a Miami Gardens shelter.

Though recent DNA tests confirm the infant’s identity, Devilme said Tuesday she still had not been given the news.

Devilme provided DNA samples to the International Committee of the Red Cross earlier this month, and the samples matched those of “Baby Jenny,” sources told The Miami Herald Tuesday. Alexis did not provide a sample.

Red Cross workers drove Devilme and Alexis to their offices for an important phone call Tuesday, Devilme said, adding that the call did not come.

Meanwhile, here in America,

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman, who has been overseeing Jenny’s odyssey in child welfare court, will be given the test results at a hearing at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Eunice Sigler, a spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade courts, wrote in a brief statement Tuesday afternoon.

Jenny was flown to Miami by doctors with Project Medishare, who began treating trauma patients in Haiti almost immediately after the magnitude 7.0 quake on Jan. 12.

Though Jenny has been under the supervision of the Florida Department of Children & Families for only two months, child welfare administrators and children’s advocates already see the girl as a relatively rare happy ending — both for Haiti and the state’s child welfare system.

At a hearing before Lederman last week, the infant’s court-appointed lay guardian and her attorney said she was recovering remarkably well, and meeting all the developmental milestones one would expect from a 4-month-old.

But this article also makes small mention of what is in fact the larger story here (emphasis added)

Olga Miltcheva, spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Port-au-Prince, said Tuesday that the agency is following 70 cases of unaccompanied children as a result of the earthquake. So far, they have assisted in four family reunions.

“We have a lot of children that were brought out of the country just after the earthquake,” Miltcheva said.

Despite the attention spent on this one case, there are in fact, a number of children who have been removed from Haiti.

Without the glare of the cameras, it remains to be seen whether these other kids cases will receive the attention, the DNA testing, and other such measures towards reunifications. Those who landed in Miami for example may be somewhere in the course of the dual tracked system, resulting in reunions for some, but potential eventual adoptions or foster care for others.

Miracle Baby’s Fate Decided Today

The results of a DNA test on the unidentified infant who became known as Baby Jean or Baby Jenny will determine whether she’ll return to the parents in Haiti who have claimed her.

A family court judge will make the announcement during a 9:30 a.m. hearing.

In this one high profile case though, DNA testing was done.

Baby Jean, at just two months old, was found buried under rubble, covered in dust and maggots and clinging to life a day after the Jan. 12 earthquake hit in Port-au-Prince. She taken in by UM doctors and flown to Miami, where she was quickly nursed to health by doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital and dubbed “Haiti’s Miracle Baby.”

Thought to be an orphan, Jean has remained in South Florida until parents Junior Alexis and Nadine Devilme came forward.

The DNA test confirmed Jean belonged to Alexis and Devilme, and now legal procedure is all that stands between them and their miracle baby.

Most of the attention, even in this case has been put on the ‘rescue’ aspects, ignoring the feelings of the parents, searching through the rubble for their child who had been taken out of the country:

Back when the story first broke, a lawyer involved in the case talked about the agony of a parents not knowing the fate of their child.

“I try and put myself in the position of a parent frantically trying to find their son or daughter only to find they have been taken to another country, Jesse Eaves said.

After Wednesday morning’s hearing, it was determined the child would be returned to her parents. See  Next for miracle Haiti baby: reunion with parents:

Junior Alexis and Nadine Devilme, a couple in Port-au-Prince who lost their infant daughter during the deadly Jan. 12 earthquake, were told Tuesday that the girl recovering in a Miami Gardens shelter is, indeed, their daughter. Devilme had provided a DNA sample that was tested against the DNA of “Baby Jenny.”

Florida utilizes a “Guardian-ad-litem” system of volunteers (”faith based” or otherwise) to aid in making decisions on behalf of dependent kids (often victims of abuse or neglect) allegedly based on notions of the child’s “best interests”:

Donald “DJ” Cannava, an attorney for the state Department of Children & Families, delivered the news in court Wednesday morning that many in both Haiti and South Florida had been anticipating: “I am happy to report that, within a 99.9 precent chance of certainty, Mrs. Devilme is the biological mother of the child.”

As Cannava spoke, Jenny’s court-appointed guardian-ad-litem, Gail Appelrouth, clapped her hands quietly. “Yay!” she said.

Baby Jenny has become a kind of touchstone for the hopes of Haitians, Haitian-Americans and well-wishers who see her journey as a blueprint for the embattled island nation.

It appears her parents will receive humanitarian parole status for the time being, in part so the girl can continue therapy relating to her long term recovery:

A spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said the agency could not comment on the couple’s status or travel to the United States because of privacy laws. But Cannava, as well as attorneys for both Jenny and her parents, told Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman Wednesday that federal immigration authorities had agreed to provide Alexis and Devilme humanitarian parole so they can reunite with their daughter while she continues to receive therapy in Miami.

“I’m happy that it’s finally known that it’s our baby, even though I have always known she was our baby,” Alexis said Wednesday in Port-au-Prince.

Not surprisingly, her mother has expressed her desire to remain in the States:

Devilme said she would like to stay in the United States with her baby.

“We lost everything,” she said. “Haiti is not safe for a baby. The doctors are dead, the teachers are dead and a lot of great people are dead.”

Sure enough, just as I’d suspected, the article confirms the role “His House” christian orphanage and academy has been playing in Baby Jean’s case:

Jenny — who was taken by an ABC News crew to a United Nations triage hospital shortly after workers freed her from the rubble of her parents’ home — is receiving occupational and physical therapy at His House children’s home while she recovers from her trauma, said the shelter’s lawyer, Liz Anon.

I’ve been working on a longer piece about His House in Maimi, but a number of the Haitian kids being brought into the south Florida system are being entrusted to it.  You can find a brief characterization of it here, in this important piece pertaining to how the history of Korean American adoptions holds important lessons pertaining to the current situation, Korea to Haiti: Lessons in Overseas Adoption Corruption:

Lessons from Korea further suggest that the best interests of the child need slower and thorough consideration rather than giving into the religious zeal of missionaries whose real purpose “is religious conversion. Some families have taken four or five children. Certainly, the literature of His House, a large Christian orphanage in Miami which is coordinating adoptions, says it aims to turn children into ‘Christ-like beings’ ”.

Returning to the Miami Herald piece:

“We want to make sure the baby’s best interests are protected, and the family is reunified as soon as possible,” said Markenzy Lapointe, a private attorney who is representing Jenny.

At the end of Wednesday’s hearing, the judge said the state will not need to oversee Jenny’s care after Alexis and Devilme arrive because “these parents are clearly good parents, which is not something you see here often” in Miami’s child welfare court.

Interestingly, the lawyers are talking about a return to Haiti even as her mother, Nadine speaks of her desire to stay in the States:

After the hearing, Lapointe told reporters that he and Bob Martinez, the attorney representing Devilme and Alexis, informed the parents in Port-au-Prince Tuesday of the DNA match. “Of course, they always knew that,” he said, “but they were absolutely ecstatic. They look forward to seeing their child.”

Eventually, the two lawyers said, both Jenny and her parents will return to Haiti. But first, Lapointe said, “I want to make sure she gets a full, clean bill of health.”

Even the University of Miami physician who made the decision to send Jean to the United States cannot frame her flight and medical care as anything other than a useful christian parable:

Dr. Arthur Fournier, a University of Miami physician who was working in a field hospital in Haiti when the critically injured baby was brought in for care and made the decision to fly her to Miami, said he was thrilled that she would be reunited with her parents.

“Easter is coming,” he said. “This is death and resurrection. This child was dead and she’s rising up again and her family’s rising up again.”

Today news came that the kids will be returned to their families. According to the release from SOS the verification process to ensure those claiming them are indeed family has been part of the reason the kids have no returned before now.

The children arrived on 30 January, when SOS Children’s Villages was assigned the task of taking care of them temporarily by the Haitian child welfare authority IBERS (The Institut du Bien Etre Sociale et De Recherches), following the arrest of a group of ten US nationals who had tried to take them out of the country under dubious circumstances and without proper documentation.

Following a lengthy process of family verification handled by IBERS, the children, aged four months to twelve years, can now return home.

“It has turned out that all of the 33 children have parents. SOS Children’s Villages is convinced that in most cases, the best place for a child to be cared for and protected is within the family. In any case, poverty and lacking resources must not be allowed to be the cause for separation. We are therefore very supportive of the decision of the Haitian authorities to reunite these children with their biological families,” says Celigny Darius, national director of SOS Children’s Villages in Haiti.

During their stay, all 33 children participated in the daily life of the SOS Children’s Village and have each been integrated into a household. Siblings and cousins lived under the same roof and all received medical care and professional help from psychologists and SOS social workers.

“I have made some good friends here and enjoyed playing football, but I miss my mother and now it will be nice to go home,” says 9-year old Michael.

The return of the kids is far from some ‘end’ to the story though, as the release points out, the climate of desperation that led to these kids being placed on the New Lifer’s bus is every bit as present today (if not more so) than it was back in January:

“This case has highlighted the risks of separation in emergency situations, when destitute families see no other way than to give up their children. Even before the earthquake many families in Haiti were at risk of being separated due to poverty. Unfortunately, as access to medical care, food, water, shelter, and other services continues to be more limited than before, the situation still puts children at risk. It is essential that relief efforts focus on preventing separation by ensuring that families have access to basic necessities,” Celigny Darius says.

The voices of the kids have been largely absent from the coverage though this piece, The child snatchers: Special report from Haiti on the U.S. missionaries accused of ’stealing orphans’ and why – most shockingly of all – their parents say they would give them away again in the (odious tabloid) Daily Mail UK does a better job of profiling the kids themselves than most.

For example, it makes the rare mention of the anger at least one of the boys has expressed towards his mother who “gave him away:”

One boy has told staff he will never go back to his mother because she gave him away. Another girl talks repeatedly about the bus journey, before bursting into tears. As for Benatide, a lot of the time she stays silent and deep in thought. Every day, she begs to make a call to her brother.

We have read very little about the families and parents other than portraits such as the below in this article, AP finds all Baptist group’s ‘orphans’ had parents:

One mother who gave up her four children, including a 3-month-old, is in a trancelike depression, occasionally erupting into fits of hysteria.

Her husband and other parents in Citron said they relinquished their children to the U.S. missionaries because they were promised safekeeping across the border in a newly established orphanage in the Dominican Republic.

Clearly part of the “pitch” the New Life team used to gain the kids was fear based, rooted in providing that mythical “better life” we so often hear about in adoptionland, after all, how can an apocalyptic landscape of rubble and promised “epidemics” compete with the New Lifer’s full colour brochures featuring a former hotel and its swimming pool?

Silsby had been working since last summer to create an orphanage. After the quake, she hastily organized a self-styled “rescue mission,” enlisting missionaries from Idaho, Texas and Kansas.

She was led to Citron by Pastor Jean Sainvil, an Atlanta, Georgia-based Haitian minister who recruited the 13 children in the slum. Sainvil had been a frequent visitor to the neighborhood of unpaved streets and simple cement homes even before more than half of the houses collapsed in the quake.

“The pastor said that with all the bodies decomposing in the rubble there were going to be epidemics, and the kids were going to get sick,” said Regilus Chesnel, a 39-year-old stone mason.

Chesnel’s wife, 33-year-old Bertho Magonie, said her husband persuaded her to give away their children — ages 12, 7, 3, and 1 — and a 10-year-old nephew living with them because their house had collapsed and the kids were sick.

“They were vomiting. They had fevers, diarrhea and headaches,” she said, leaning against the wall of the grimy two-room hovel the couple shares.

Later, after coming to the realization that they might never see their children again (and that the missionaries pitch was a patchwork of lies) one of the mothers was profiled thusly:

Under one of the blue tarps sheltering the Chesnels’ homeless neighbors, 27-year-old Maletid Desilien lay Saturday on a bed of two soiled rugs. Only her eyes peered out from under a bedsheet.

“She has been like that ever since someone told her she will never get the kids back,” said her husband, Dieulifanne Desilien, who works in a T-shirt factory.

That was eight days ago. Most of the time she lies catatonic, he said, warning a reporter not to go near because she periodically has fits.

“She would get up, take her clothes off and run around pulling her hair out,” Desilien, 40, said of his wife. “She would jump up from sleep and say, ‘Bring me my kids.’”

He said she only calms down and is able to sleep after speaking by phone with her children, who are at an orphanage in the capital run by the Austrian-based SOS Children’s Villages charity.

The day they arrived, orphanage officials said, the Desiliens’ 3-month-old daughter, Koestey, was so dehydrated she had to be hospitalized. The other children are ages 7, 6 and 4. Their father — but not their mother — has visited them.

Desilien said a police commander has assured him that he will get the children back. The Social Welfare ministry, however, has yet to decide whether some or all of the 33 children will be returned to their parents.

“My wife is sick so I have to find a way to get the children back,” Desilien said.

Fly Away Children, Broadcast: 09/15/2009

In Australia, due to the country’s history pertaining to adoption (which is well beyond the scope of this tiny post, but by way of one starting place, you can read about the Parliamentary Inquiry and Australia’s Origins work here,)  inter-country adoptions are run solely by the government instead by private agencies as they are here in the United States.

Yet clearly, that supposed ’safeguard’ built into the Australian system has failed to prevent precisely the sorts of child-trafficking so common to inter-country adoptions.

Instead of providing any form of a ’safeguard’, the ABC has obtained a document in which:

A parent of an adopted child implicates Australia’s representative in Ethiopia in the child trafficking racket.

Which is to say that rather than thwarting the system of bribes and lies, it appears Australia’s representative simply moved right into the vacuum or niche in the adoption ecosystem left when no private agencies are able to work there.

As a result of the broadcast, yet more families have come forward to share their stories, and so earlier this month, the ABC ran a follow up piece which I feel is in some ways stronger than the initial report:

Fly Away Home Broadcast: 03/02/2010

Both video segments are rooted in a consumer protection model focusing on the ‘wronged’ adopters, who are dismayed that the children they adopted were not as advertised. Though both segments also go well beyond such, by spending some time on both the Ethiopian mothers and the voices of some of the Ethiopian kids, and thus touching on the human/identity/heritage/cultural rights aspects of these abuses.

For example, viewers once again hear the all too familiar refrain of how the “adoptee” was told they would be going to the United States by way of an educational opportunity, that they could go home to see their families, etc.

Naturally, once they arrive here in the states, they find themselves in a completely different situation, that of now being expected to live up to the role of, as well as legally now the new child to the the family that purchased them, unable to return to their country of origin until after they reach the magic age of 18.

Both programes offer up the Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption as if it were some form of solution to adoption corruption when clearly, it is by its very nature, not.

The ABC has also done a number of pieces, such as this, “Adoption Special,”  Australians caught in Ethiopian adoption nightmare, added today.  Be certain to explore the sidebars and supporting documents, such as this letter from Against Child Trafficking (ACT) which was accompanied by ACT’s collected evidence.

This is all set against the backdrop of Australia’s Ethiopia adoption ban having just been lifted:

The Attorney-General’s Office said the program would resume on April 6, 2010.

To the ABC’s credit, they are doing a genuine service by raising the issues involved, providing a broader microphone and audience to voices almost never heard, and doing real educational work before the new adoptions start up again. This is a crucial period in which opposition must be heard.

The decision to reopen Ethiopian adoptions is not grounded in evidence of the situation improving, nor of the human rights situation actually changing, if anything, the gold rush mentality is on in Ethiopia, just as it has been in country after country.

Take the American inter-country adoption suspensions track record for example:

Americans rushed in to grab whatever kids they could in Romania until adoptions were suspended in June 2001.

Next to suspend was  Cambodia in December 2001.

Then Georgia, in August 2003.

Followed by Azerbaijan in May 2004.

Belarus suspended in October 2004.

Then Guatemala, December 2007.

Next came Vietnam, September 2008.

and more recently, Kyrgyzstan, September 2008.

Haiti suspended all but adoptions already in process (although there are questions about how thorough that suspension is in practice at the moment) back in late January.

At the beginning of March, Swaziland just suspended all U.S. adoptions, pending an investigation by the Department of Social Welfare reviewing its adoption procedures. No date has been set for completion of the review. In the mean time, only adoptions already underway are being completed.

You would think certain lessons might be learned from that litany of suspensions, but nope. When a country like Guatemala closes, hotels near the airport in Ethiopia begin filling up with would-be-adopters in the next destination du jour.

Those of you who have been following along on my twitter, have likely seen a number of articles I’ve been pulling relating to the Ethiopian mess, such as this misnamed piece, Adoption watchdog suppresses Ethiopia findings.  Horribly misnamed, in that the Joint Council of International Children’s Services, or JCICS is anything but a “watchdog” group, it is an adoption industry trade lobby.

Core to it’s very function is to fight off industry regulation by falsely positioning itself as an advocate working on behalf of children. The industry cannot, by definition, “watchdog” itself.

As I mentioned on my Twitter, how bad has it gotten? Apparently bad enough for the industry trade lobby to suppress its own report on how bad its gotten.

The Joint Council of International Children’s Services (JCICS) says it has completed its probe, but to release its conclusions would not be “appropriate”.

In”appropriate” only in that releasing said findings might just mean a one one ticket to having to find themselves new jobs.

Well that, and for what their own report might reveal concerning Christian World Adoption and former JCICS President Tomilee Harding.

Prominent adoption reform advocate Maureen Flatley claims JCICS is stacked with adoption agency figures and does a poor job of self-regulating.

“We’ve really let the fox guard the henhouse,” she said.

“They are the ‘big tobacco’ of adoption. They are a trade association that nominally espouses the highest standards but which is harbouring the very people who have been involved in some of the biggest abuses in adoption – and they haven’t laid a hand on them.

“The JCICS has one goal and one goal only, and that is to avoid federal regulation of adoption.

All of this is the big picture.

But at the end of the day, what the international community should be listening to are the voices of the mothers, the families, and those subjected to these adoptions themselves, particularly those few old enough to speak out on their own behalf:

Tonight Foreign Correspondent exposes more cases, including that of Journee Bradshaw, who claims CWA told her she was heading off on a study trip to the US, only to learn after her arrival that she would not be returning to Ethiopia.

“I didn’t know that I’m going to stay here,” she said.

“They never told me that I’m going to have a family I’m going to stay with and I’m supposed to be their daughter. They never told me that. I just find out when I got here.”

She is already facing kidnapping and criminal-association charges stemming from the New Lifers’ January 29th attempted child export trip that ended in ten members of the team being arrested. (At least seven other team members were on the Dominican Republic side of the border at the time of the arrests.)

Judge Bernard Saint-Vil has added a new charge of “organization of irregular trips.”

As explained in this article, Haiti judge: New charge for US missionary leader:

Saint-Vil has added the new charge of “organization of irregular trips,” from a 1980 law restricting travel out of Haiti that was signed by then-dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier.

The judge said Friday he has until early May to decide whether to release Silsby or order a trial.

The new charge stems from the trip the 10 missionary scavengers made 3 days before, on January 26th.

Assumedly this would pertain to the bus trip with 40 kids that a Haitian police officer put a stop to, telling them what they were doing was illegal, and that they could not go about it that way before offering to help them.

Importantly ten missionaries were on the bus at the time the officer stopped them and told them their child export attempt was illegal.

Whether or not those were the same ten who were then arrested three days later, or merely a subset of that group filled out by others who were on the Dominican Republic side of the border at the time of final fateful trip and arrests is unknown. But in light of the incident with the police officer on the 26th, to later claim they were unaware they didn’t have the appropriate paperwork certainly rings hollow.

I wrote about that trip on February 9th, in my post Thwarted by a police officer in an earlier attempt 3 days before their arrests to export 40 *Other* kids- more on Silsby and the Scavengers. The post and my comments contain links to the initial reporting I was able to find on that previous child procurement trip the New Lifers’ made in to Haiti.

This is why I have repeatedly referred to the child victims of the New Lifers’ child trafficking attempts as at least “73″ not merely the 33 from the attempted trip on the 29th.

To date we know of at least two attempts by the New Lifers at child trafficking. It is unclear as to whether or not there were any other additional or previous attempts.

What we can piece together by way of a very bare bones sketch with just a few details added begins to look like this:

• January 12 was the earthquake
• January 22, we have this report telling the story of the children on the New Lifers’ final bus trip and their families from Calebasse (a rare bit of useful reporting from the otherwise tabloid rag, the Daily Mail UK.) The piece includes a number of details pertaining to the New Lifers trip to Calebasse marketing their “orphanage” and attempting to collect kids:

…”ten days later when the U.S. Baptists arrived at Calebasse and began knocking on doors. They handed out flyers saying they wanted to ‘help children who have lost their mother and father in the earthquake or have no one to love and care for them’. The flyers said, inaccurately, that the group had the Haitian government’s permission to take 100 children abroad to the Dominican Republic, which shares a border with Haiti.”

• January 26th, was the foiled attempt to move the busload of 40 kids out of Haiti from which, assumedly the latest charge stems
• January 29th, (a week after marketing in Calebasse) the final attempt to take the Calebasse kids out of Haiti, which eventually results in the arrests of the ten missionary scavengers.

Clearly the New Lifers were in Haiti as early as the 22nd, the question remains whether they only attempted two trips, or whether there were other trips or attempts in that week that have yet to come to light.

The article pertaining to the new charge describes the trip on the 26th as a:

newly discovered, alleged attempt

Despite the fact that the articles I found at the time mentioned the officer who stopped their bus on the 26th and got the 40 children out MAY HAVE already been questioned by the court in relation to the incident (although it is unclear, the two articles I was able to find here and here, may be speaking of separate officers. If so, the New Lifers would have had multiple Haitian officers trying to help them export the kids. As I have been trying to piece this together from secondary sources, I am unfortunately unable to clarify that point.)

Perhaps by “newly discovered” they mean by Judge Saint-Vil, as the CNN piece refers to:

The Americans, who were interviewed Wednesday by Judge Isai Jean Louis, are to appear Thursday before the attorney general, who is handling the case, lawyer Edwin Coq said.

(Coq is no longer representing the missionaries, it is unclear the extent to which information did or did not travel between the two Judges as the case moved along.)

All we can hope is that a case is being carefully constructed and that the additional jail time will provide additional time for further details to come to light and some clarifications.

Not exactly surprising, especially considering her medical condition.

(How insane do you have to be to be diabetic and yet run off to a post earthquake disaster zone where access to electricity and access to refrigeration is marginal at best?)

In any case, she was released this afternoon and taken to the airport by U.S. Embassy staff.

See Haiti frees US missionary; group leader still held

and American missionary held in Haiti released

Silsby answered questions in Saint-Vil’s office Monday. Later, she refused to comment on what the judge asked her, but she said she was happy Coulter had been released. She added that she expected to be released soon.

Silsby repeated comments denying she’d done anything wrong and said she was still in custody “because I’m the leader.

Saint-Vil said that he has some additional questions that he needs answered but that he expects to make a decision about Silsby’s detention by the end of the week.

While Laura Sislby is listed as the New Life Children’s Refuge “Executive Director and Founder” Charisa Coulter was certainly more than merely Sislby’s live in nanny.

Coulter was listed in the Central Valley Baptist Church online marketing material for the mission as New Life Children’s Refuge “VP and co-founder.”

By way of a brief refresher overview on the Rendells’ Raid, readers may want to refer back to this piece from my earlier post Haiti series- “It is madness. It is insane…” Bribes, Bullies, and Traffickers extract kids, Part 4: Kids not in an adoption process being exported, bullies and bribes & the Rendells’ Raid.

Now, at the beginning of March, the cost to taxpayers is finally coming to light, see Gov. Ed Rendell’s trip to rescue 54 Haitian orphans cost taxpayers after all

Gov. Ed Rendell has described his January rescue mission that brought 54 orphans out of earthquake-ravaged Haiti to Pennsylvania as one that cost taxpayers nothing.

But the state plane log for January shows there was a cost to taxpayers after all.

The state Department of Public Welfare was charged $5,578.29 for use of the state plane to transport the governor and the state’s first lady, Judge Marjorie Rendell, to and from Pittsburgh. Once in Pittsburgh, they then boarded a privately-funded plane to travel to Haiti.

At the time Governor Rendell had insisted:

“This trip cost the taxpayers of Pennsylvania nothing,” Rendell said after the trip to Haiti.

His spokesman, Gary Tuma, was quick to excuse Gov. Rendell’s lie as only pertaining to the U.S. to Haiti leg of the trip, which yes, was by way of a private flight:

“I’m sure he interpreted the questions about cost to taxpayers to mean the trip from Pennsylvania to Haiti.”

However, this spun narrative also ignores the fact that the kids, (some of whom were not matched to any American would-be-adopters,)  left Haiti on an American Military flight, which again, also would have also come at a cost to the taxpayers.

Once in Florida, the group left the military flight and reconnected with their private flight for the final leg back to Pennsylvania.

The welfare department was billed for the cross-state flight because of “the children and youth function related to these kids,” said Stacey Witalec, a department spokeswoman.

Let’s get this straight,that $5,578.29 came out of the Pennsylvania welfare budget so Governor Rendell, and his wife, Marjorie O. Rendell of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit could fly cross state to meet the private flight that took them, Representative Jason Altmire, and a number of Doctors and Nurses on to Haiti.

In essence, he’s arguing his cross state flight to meet the plane that would take them on to Haiti was PART OF the ‘humanitarian aid’/child extraction related trip.

Pennsylvania’s first family flying across the state, the first leg of their trip, had nothing to do with kids. There were no kids on board.

Simply put, there was no “children and youth function related to kids” about the Governor flying cross state to meet a flight, but if you think he’s going to own up to that fact and restore the money to the state’s welfare budget, think again:

Rendell has no plans on reimbursing the department for the trip, Tuma said.

But wouldn’t you know it, this gets even worse, because Tuma goes on to argue the flight billed to the taxpayers was to “assist the McMurtrie sisters….”

Ali and Jamie McMurtrie work with the BRESMA orphanage in Port-au-Prince, an explicitly “faith based” christian “orphanage.”

Donations to BRESMA are funneled through the  Keystone Center of Life Church in Pittsburgh (see link).

Now in the aftermath of the quake, donations are coming at a rapid pace for the destroyed “orphanage:”

Donations continue to pour into the Keystone Church of Hazelwood on behalf of an orphanage that is uninhabitable,…

So what we’re really talking about here is Governor Rendell flying cross state and charging $5,578.29 to the Pennsylvania state welfare budget and then saying that cross state flight was somehow in support of an explicitly religious based ‘child saving’  mission (yes, complete with all the christian implications of “child saving” you might envision. ) Emphasis added by me:

He said the governor’s cross-state travels were not merely to help out foreign kids, but also to assist the McMutrie sisters and to fly medical supplies and a team of Pennsylvania medical personnel to Haiti.

“Considering the benefit to the 54 orphans, to the two native Pittsburghers needing assistance in Haiti, and to the Pennsylvania citizens who made up the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center humanitarian relief team, the cost of several thousand dollars is not unreasonable,” Tuma said.

Such can only be portrayed as “reasonable” if you have first bought the notion that the state should exist in order to come to the church’s aid in times of the church’s need. For those of us who reject such theocratic poppycock, we think it’s time that $5,578.29 went back into the welfare fund for impoverished Pennsylvanians, for starters.

Even wingnuts like Matthew Brouillette of the Commonwealth Foundation recognize the public relations mess Governor Rendell’s trip has created and, never one to miss an opportunity to bash Democrats, is quoted in the article  as finding  Governor Rendell’s (who was the general chair of the Democratic National Committee during the 2000 Presidential election) trip “disturbing:”

But Matthew Brouillette, president of the conservative-leaning policy center Commonwealth Foundation of Harrisburg, found the governor’s statement disturbing.

Naturally, Brouillette would rather see the cross state trip be privately funded:

Brouillette suggested that perhaps the medical center should pick up the tab for the good public relations they derived out of this trip.

Paul Wood, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center vice president for public relations, said the medical center has no intention of reimbursing the state for any cost taxpayers incurred. He said he was unaware there was a cost.

Instead, it appears the state will end up simply eating the cost, putting further strain on a state welfare budget already underfunded and facing demands from every direction imaginable:

This is a difficult time for Pennsylvania and many of its residents. The state barely slid through last year’s budget crisis, revenues are still not what had been expected, the federal stimulus money is going to be drying up, long-term transportation funding is uncertain and the pension crisis is about to hit.

Meanwhile, unemployment remains high and the demand on social services is only increasing.

Nothing like taking from the poor to buttress child evangelism efforts.

Now, just when you think this mess has gotten about as twisted as it possibly can? Along comes Governor Rendell’s own policies regarding travel by state personnel and attempting to curtail even in state travel when possible as a cost cutting measure (which should be more than enough to break anyone’s irony meter permanently.)

As Patriot-News Capitol Bureau Chief Jan Murphy reported Sunday, in the nine months after state workers were banned from traveling outside of Pennsylvania, there have been 5,482 trips across the state border.

Of those, 4,893 trips costing more than $1.8 million were under Gov. Ed Rendell’s jurisdiction. And it was the governor who on Sept. 16, 2008, said that in light of the state’s mounting budget deficit he was prohibiting out-of-state travel by commonwealth employees, board members and commissioners.

Apparently the Governor feels budget cutting in relation to travel is for other people, not for him or his family, and their religiously based extra curricular “orphan” collecting activities.

Apparently not.

By way of keeping this post short and to the point, I’m going to focus tightly down to five quotes from two articles:

Baptist Pastor: We’d Do It Again in Haiti from February 2nd

and

Detained US missionary: I’d come back to Haiti which as I write this is less than 24 hours old.

You would think that sitting in a Haitian jail for a few weeks might help Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter pull their heads out of their collective asses as far as not becoming re-entangled in the complexities of child custody and the so called “orphan” trade and adoptions in relation to Haitian children, but no.

Not having the benefit of access to media in their cell, they apparently blithely want nothing more than to continue on with their adoption centered so called “Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission” upon their release.

Laura Silsby (from here):

…she wants to go ahead with setting up that orphanage…

Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter (from here):

…both of us would come back to Haiti…

&

We would definitely come back to help them once this misunderstanding or whatever you want to call it is sorted out.

In light of such personal delusion and failure to comprehend that they have done anything wrong, if the Judge releases them, I suppose we can expect to see these New Lifers headed right back into Haiti for “orphans round 2″ the sequel, instead of experiencing new lives behind bars.

Then you have we haven’t learned a damn thing comments such as the below from the assistant pastor of the church that used its tax status to collect money to send their members Silsby, Coulter, Carla Thompson (the church’s “missions director”) and others to Haiti.

(Again, I remain convinced “New Life Children’s Refuge” is best described as Central Valley Baptist Church’s Haitian “orphans” mission, it being an almost wholy owned subsidiary of CVBC and CVBC’s members. )

Central Valley Baptist Church’s assistant pastor Drew Ham (from here):

Based on the information we have, I’m not sure that we would do anything different. I think they did handle it in the best manner possible.

Which again, comes back to that “we’d do it again” aspect of  the article, but goes further implying they wouldn’t do anything differently if given the chance (other than of course, the getting caught part.)

So, the question becomes, just how serious is Central Valley Baptist Church about doing it again?

That’s not a question I can answer, but it is a question the Judge should weigh heavily as he contemplates releasing these child traffickers.

Finally, you have the adoption industry’s reaction and response to the New Lifers, and how much their actions threw a wrench into the industry’s ongoing demands that Haiti ‘open up and make adoptions easier,’ that were commonly heard long before the earthquake.

National Council for Adoption’s (NCFA’s) chief operating officer, Chuck Johnson (from here):

…calls the Baptist group’s actions a “critical mistake” that could undercut efforts to expand adoptions.

Yeah, you heard that right, Johnson and NCFA can’t condemn Silsby and the New Lifer’s actions, all they can do is bemoan how these rank amateurs got in the industry’s way, essentially getting underfoot and tripping up the industry’s best laid plans at export expansion.

They drew too much attention to the issue at exactly the point Haitian adoptions are currently going through the roof, making it a bit more difficult for the industry on the public relations front, even as the child exports continue.

So, lessons learned?

Hell no.

If anything, all four want to come back for more Haitian kids (each in their own way, of course.)

It takes sheer unmitigated gall to get caught with your hand in the cookie jar only to proudly announce and promise that the minute watchful eyes are taken off you, you’ll be getting right back in there, all over again.

The Wall Street Journal article Teresa references below concerning Laura’s Silsby’s apparent previous attempt at building a complex in Kuna, Idaho for runaway youth via Idaho contractor Eric Evans has been a side saga all its own. In the wake of the article Eric Evans, the contractor the WSJ spoke to about the proposed complex back tracked and began a series of  denials almost immediately after the article hit.

Fortunately, another blogger followed up on Evan’s denial with the Wall Street Journal getting this response:

Robert Christie, Dow Jones & Co. Spokesman, speaking on behalf of the Wall Street Journal, confirmed to me “we stand by our story” referring to Eric Evans denial today in the Idaho Statesman of comments he made in a February 3 WSJ article.

Evans denial is not surprising considering how by early February, a number of people connected to Laura Silsby previously were distancing themselves just as quickly as possible.

The Evans side saga is but one of many such back peddles, but if true, Silsby’s earlier vision for an Idaho based facility would certainly be in keeping with broader trends in “runaway youth”, “orphan,” “maternity camp” and “troubled teens” containment, all growing segments of the christian child detainment industry.

Much as I was going to write about how Silsby fits well into the broader trend, my commenter, Teresa has done so with the clarity of her own first-hand experience:

Teresa Says:
March 2nd, 2010 at 6:34 am e

If I may, I would like to share a comment I posted last night on this blog (that is still awaiting moderation….)

http://www.newuniversity.org/2010/03/opinion/doing-good-badly-when-intention-matters/

I find your article insightful without a doubt. However, if you would allow me to bring up one point that I find the press and other writers are totally overlooking (or maybe purposely ignoring), it would be most appreciated. I see that your entire piece centers around this question: “Why did Silsby try to illegally smuggle Haitian children across the border?” The two answers you relayed were these: “out of duty to help the Haitian families”, and “to alleviate her feelings of helplessness”. I will agree with you on the latter as well, but not for the same reason as you.

Since the story of Silsby’s and her companions arrests, I have followed this drama closely. The reason behind this is because approximately 29 years ago, I was a resident of a fundamental girl’s home in Louisiana called New Bethany. The director of this place (who also ran a boy’s facility under the same name) would tour all over the United States with select “residents”, prompting them to sing like angels and give testimony to the congregations of the numerous churches they would visit. Then this man would solicit church members for a “love offering” in order to finance his operation. He would declare that his “homes” were supported only by donations submitted by church members or private organizations who had been blessed by the singing and testimony of “his” girls(made to feel the obligation). Little did these church members know that the parents of these same children were invoiced monthly for the schooling and boarding of their children. The director of this home would claim from whatever church pulpit he might be standing behind at the time that his “girl’s refuge” was a christian, love-filled place where girls were given the opportunity to have a good education, horse-back riding, swimming, and all number of recreational activities. Please, if you would, remember this part, as it is important.

A rough calculation had been done recently by another former resident who found that possibly THOUSANDS of children had resided under this man’s “care”. While we girls lived in a roach-infested dormitory, being fed starch-laden (and who knows what else) food, and made to bathe in and drink water so sulphur-filled that it smelled of rotten eggs, the director and his family lived on the same property in a newly-built, two-story brick house with a separate water supply.

To get to my point, when the Wall Street Journal article came out a few weeks ago about Silsby’s failed “pre-Haiti” plans in Kuna, ID with the following description: “Ms. Silsby had equally grand ambitions closer to home, according to a local builder. The Idaho plan called for a “multi-million-dollar complex” for runaway children on a 40-acre lot in Kuna, Idaho…… Ms. Silsby told him it would have an indoor swimming pool, tennis courts and dormitories for the children….”, the familiarity in this description jumped right out at me.

Considering all of Silsby’s failed “business ventures” in Idaho (one I’m sure being her “children’s home”) before her jaunt to Haiti, I most certainly can see how she might feel helpless, and even desperate in finding a way to validate herself from a combination of a “christian/BUSINESS” standpoint.

I won’t go into all the OTHER things that happened over the space of three decades at New Bethany. I have included the URL for the website for that. You can also glean a plethora of additional information by simply googling the name.

Lasly, I would like to add that there are MANY homes operating as mirror images of New Bethany in the United States as we speak. As a matter of fact, TODAY 3/1/10, if you google “Reclamation Ranch” you will find that the director of THIS place was scheduled to be in court in Blount Co. AL facing some pretty serious charges. He is also blatantly asking for “donations” to his legal defense fund.

My primary question about this whole debacle is: Considering that Kuna, ID appears to be a hotbed of fundamentalism, containing churches that support places just like the ones I described above, could it be possible that Laura Silsby knew of them? Or maybe even knew someone who formerly/presently operate(d)/(s) or was employed at such a place, and filled her in on how much money she could make if she opened one? I think if this question could be answered, then quite a few more answers regarding her true intentions would come to the forefront. Thanks for letting me post here.

I am all too familiar with such facilities. Frequently advertised in the back of christian and even secular magazines, promising a religiously based “solution” to “troubled youth” programs such as these, and their pregnancy industry cousins, the maternity camps dot the landscape. Some have roots going back more than a century, others have been formed far more recently. Kids are warehoused and left to endure all manners of “discipline” while the founders often live in relative luxury.

Sadly, with the popular trend in christians focusing upon “orphancare” both as a long term means for potential movement growth and in the more immediate time frame the as a funding stream for various child related programs, often via State and Federal “faith based” grants, facilities such as these are if anything becoming all the more common, not less so.

Thanks Teresa, for speaking out about your experiences and hopefully helping readers gain further insight into the industry to which the New Lifers hoped to become a part.

It was a project built upon church networks, and supported financially by churches and the members thereof.

In this post, I’m going to focus on Central Valley Baptist, but obviously it represents only one of at minimum, five churches that had members either in Haiti or the Dominican Republic working as part of the “New Life Children’s Refuge” team:

• Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho (Laura Silsby, Charisa Coulter, Carla Thompson, Corinna Lankford, & Nicole Lankford)
• Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho (In Haiti- Pastor Paul Thompson, Silas Thompson & Steve McMullen and in the Dominican Republic- Matt Crider, Lora Crider &  John Requa)
• Paramount Baptist Church in Amarillo, Texas (Jim Allen)
• Bethel Baptist Church Topeka, Kansas (Drew Culbert)
• First Baptist Church in Andrews, Texas (see Bastardette’s post)

As I said some time back, prior to the (vastly premature) release of the 8 missionary scavengers, to even begin to get a handle on the scope of the effort, a thorough investigation would have to take place in at least three countries:

A full investigation would require information gathering in at least three countries at this point, the United States, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti itself.

Sure enough, evidence of church financial involvement has begun to surface.

Take this document,  Google’s cache of Central Valley Baptist Church’s  Haitian “orphan” mission that had been on Central Valley Baptist church’s website.

CVBC’s Pastor Clint Henry describes 5 of the 10 who go on to be arrested in Haiti, including Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter as

our Haiti Rescue Team

as part of his plea to raise money for expenses relating to the team’s child collecting trip in Haiti.

Carla Thompson, herself one of those who goes on to be arrested in Haiti goes on to add:

We have sent a team to Haiti…

Carla Thompson is listed in the document’s sidebar as Central Valley Baptist Church’s Missions Coordinator.

Her arrest in Haiti as part of the child collection mission then must be viewed in full context, that of the CVBC Missions Coordinator arrested in the course of her missionary work on behalf of the church itself.

Silby’s New Life cannot be viewed as a distinct entity somehow separate from Central Valley Baptist Church, rather, it must be viewed as a project of the church, receiving direct financial support by way of Central Valley’s church tax status as donations to the New Life mission were explicitly being solicited for and collected by Central Valley under the umbrella of the church’s tax status. Again see the document from Google’s cache (emphasis is my own):

We need to raise $2,000 in the next 24 hours for our Haiti Rescue Team. We have already had $10,000 committed to this mission. Please help us! Call the church office and bring your gift in right now!

and

Finances:

*Support the Temporary Orphanage in Cabarete, Dominican Republic
*Support a Response Team to Dominican Republic $1500.00 each

Both of these are tax deductable donations that need to be given through Central Valley Baptist Church. Write on the Memo Line: Haitian Orphans.

Finances to support these on-going needs:
Needed NOW!

* Teddy Bears for a Traumatized child to hold New (or almost new)
* Non Latex Surgical Gloves
* Diapers & Pull ups
* Wet Wipes
* 100 Twin Sheets , 50 Full Size Sheets clean, (used ok)
* Baby & Toddler Formula
* Pediasure & Powdered Gatorade
* Powerbars
* Hand Sanitizer
* Hospital Soaker Pads, Surgical Masks, Gauze, Antibiotics and ointments
* Tylenol Liquid & Chewables, Deworming Medicine, Hospital Soaker Pads

Please bring these donations to Central Valley Baptist Church. A bin will be located in the Hall by the kitchen.

Central Valley was collecting (what it claimed would be) “tax deductable” donations on behalf of their team: Sislby and other “Central Valley Baptist Church team” members.

Once the request for donations went out, CVBC saw its members respond:

Before the Jan. 12 earthquake, two church members had started a charity in hopes of building an orphanage in the Dominican Republic for Haitian children. But once the magnitude of the devastation became apparent, Laura Silsby, 40, and Charisa Coulter, 24, accelerated their plan.

They asked the church’s missions program to help them get to the impoverished island nation as soon as possible and, according to family and friends, secured a motel in the Dominican Republic that could function as an orphanage. The congregation responded, Henry said. Stacks of donated goods began piling up in the church lobby.

The quote above from the L.A. Times makes it appear Silsby was the one requesting the donations, but as we see from the cached document, no less than CVBC’s Pastor, Clint Henry himself was asking his membership directly.

Money, as well as items came in according to Henry:

The 500-member church, where signs taped to large bins on Sunday read “Donations for Haiti,” gave several thousand dollars toward the mission, Henry said.

But even while employing language such as “our team” and using the church’s tax status as means by which money could be funneled to New Life, the church has attempted to create the fiction of a “separation” (emphasis mine:)

Henry told reporters Sunday that the organization and the mission is separate from the 25-year-old church, which has been involved in at least 100 different mission trips involving construction projects and assisting in medical relief efforts both in the United States and overseas.

Let’s be clear here, you cannot both collect donations headed for New Life and promise donors that their donations, funneled through your church will be tax deductable under the church’s tax status and then turn around and pretend New Life is somehow “separate” from the church.

While Laura Silsby (listed as “New Life Children Refuge Executive Director and Founder”) and Charisa Coulter (listed as VP and co-founder)  also headed up New Life, New Life cannot be seen as a separate entity from Central Valley Baptist Church.

New Life was, in effect was Central Valley Baptist Church’s Haitian “orphans” mission.

The media has a terrible habit of attempting containerize people and organizations, feeling that if they can be associated with one organization that somehow precludes involvement in another, as if church and ministry involvement for individuals is some kind of zero sum game. Yet clearly, Silsby, Coulter, Carla Thompson and others are better described as “both/and” or as wearing multiple hats at any one given point in time.

This has led to false impressions of Laura Silsby (who is let’s face it, is quite the unsympathetic character with a previous history of screwing over her own employees) as some form of evil mastermind with other ‘god fearing, do-gooders’ in tow, merely along for the ride, naive and innocent of any nefarious plans. In the pop perception Silsby alone bears their animosity, whilst the other team members actions are excused.

She makes a good ‘fall guy’ and allows American’s notions of the ‘nice church folk’ down the block go unchallenged.

These artificial barriers are useful not only to the media narrative, but certainly to the other ‘team’ members and churches as well.

Occasional blog posts such as Why is all the blame being put on Laura Silsby when her own pastor was involved? point out the foolishness of such container-i-zations.

Silsby AND the rest of the CVBC arrestees were working together on behalf of their church’s mission’s program. ALL bear responsibility.

Furthermore, Pastor Henry and those who wrote the checks that enabled Silsby and the rest of the Central Baptist team to do what they did may also bear some responsibilty.

The cached document that had been on Central Valley’s website lays out their team’s “plan” sumarized thusly:

Rescue Orphans from Port au Prince, Haiti

JAN. 22 (Friday/Saturday): NLCR team fly to the DR

JAN. 23 (Sunday): Drive bus from Santo Domingo into Port au Prince, Haiti and gather 100 orphans from the streets and collapsed orphanages, then return to the DR

JAN. 24 (Monday): Bus arrives in Cabarete, DR at New Life Children Refuge

Nowhere in that summary is there any mention of gaining permission from Haitian authorities. If anything, in the sidebar, under “prayer requests” the document ONLY makes mention of the role of the government of the Dominican Republic:

For God to continue to grant favor with the Dominican Government in allowing us to bring as many orphans as we can into the Dominican Republic

Note that this even goes beyond the 100-150 kids mentioned at various points, expanding the goal all the way out to an open ended “as many orphans as we can.”

As other bloggers and I have pointed out repeatedly, the documents the “team” had drawn up before leaving for Haiti, their mission plan were clearly known beforehand to at least some in the church structures. Note that this document, for example, has been, and continues to be available on the Eastside Baptist Church website.