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Fate of jailed missionaries in Haiti points to difficulty of foreign adoptions
St Louis Today ^ | 02-06-2010 | TIM TOWNSEND

Posted on 02/06/2010 4:17:32 PM PST by MarMema

"God wanted us to come here to help children," Laura Silsby told The New York Times last week through the bars of a Port-au-Prince jail cell. "We are convinced of that."

But that conviction wasn't enough to keep Silsby and nine other Idaho missionaries from being charged with kidnapping Haitian children. In fact, that confidence in God's plan was the reason they sat in jail awaiting word from a Haitian judge about their fate.

(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: baptist; haiti; laurasilsby
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1 posted on 02/06/2010 4:17:33 PM PST by MarMema
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To: MarMema

Silsby is a con woman. Sued in her home state for failure to pay her employees. Her home was foreclosed upon and in general she’s not a reputable person at all.


2 posted on 02/06/2010 4:30:52 PM PST by Carley (Are you better off now than one year ago? HELL NO!!!!!)
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To: MarMema
Please read today's Wall Street Journal...(sorry, I'm link-challenged)

It clearly states most of the parents willingly gave their children to these missionaries so their children could have food, shelter and better opportunities in life.

3 posted on 02/06/2010 4:32:18 PM PST by Guenevere (....)
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To: Guenevere
Most of the children came from the ravaged village of Callebas, where people told the AP they handed over their children because they were unable to feed or clothe them after the quake. They said the missionaries promised to educate the children and let relatives visit. Their stories contradicted Silsby's account that the children came from collapsed orphanages or were handed over by distant relatives.

This woman has been caught in many lies surrounding this incident.

4 posted on 02/06/2010 4:34:26 PM PST by MarMema (chains we can believe in)
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To: Carley
If you will read the Wall Street Journal (today) it gives more details ....these folks are caring & wanted to help these children...

..when they were accosted at the border, they were told they lacked one item of clearance.

You are quick to judge her reputation, but keep in mind Haiti is known for child trafficking, child slavery, and corruption.

5 posted on 02/06/2010 4:36:06 PM PST by Guenevere (....)
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To: Guenevere
here is a WSJ piece excerpt--

Carlos Castillo, the Dominican Republic's consul general in Port-au-Prince, gave a different account: In an interview he said he met with Ms. Silsby on Friday and told her she lacked any documents to transport children, and warned her not to try or she could be arrested.

6 posted on 02/06/2010 4:38:13 PM PST by MarMema (chains we can believe in)
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To: Guenevere

On of the cable stations did a story on this woman today.

She’s not honorable in her business dealings.

Rounding up children, some who clearly were not orphans and absconding with them is hardly a sensible thing to do.


7 posted on 02/06/2010 5:21:57 PM PST by Carley (Are you better off now than one year ago? HELL NO!!!!!)
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To: MarMema

Whether God called them or not, it was not confidence in God’s plan that was the reason they sat in jail as the anti-Christ N.T. Times charges, but not doing a good thing a wrong way. And who hasn’t.

Thanks for the WSJ link:

“Laura was the only one who had knowledge of what was going on,” Mr. Coq said. “The rest said only that they love Haiti. That is why they came to Haiti.”

John Sander said his daughter’s motives shouldn’t be misconstrued because her group’s efforts went awry. “In their intent to do something good they may have been a touch naive about what was required. You can be blinded by your ambition.”


8 posted on 02/06/2010 5:44:08 PM PST by daniel1212 (Rm. 10:13: whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord [only object of petition] shall be saved)
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To: MarMema

Taking kids out of a country is not a good idea. Even in a disaster that is not good. How about taking the bus full of food and water to them instead?


9 posted on 02/06/2010 5:55:50 PM PST by Hattie
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To: Guenevere

Yes, and most of these parents are desperate to believe promises from *anyone* about opportunities to take their children away to a better life. That is why it’s 100% illegal to take them. This is exactly how people who traffic in children for slavery and prostitution get children from parents in desperately poor countries.

Silsby had no orphanage, no regular source of funds, no staff (the people with her on this trip had told friends and family they expected to be gone from a couple of weeks to as long as one month), and no permission from any government anywhere to be doing what she was doing. She’s a con artist with an ugly trail of unpaid debts back in Idaho. Little wonder she wanted to run her next scam in another country.

With the amount of money Silsby was collecting and proposing to spend for this grand adoption mall/resort scheme, she could have provided new homes, a school, and a lifetime of food for all these children *and* their parents IN HAITI. But you can’t make money giving aid to poor children and parents. The money is in scamming naive church members into sending checks for grand schemes to “save children” and in illegal adoptions (if she ever got that far — frankly I don’t think she cared if she ever did — this was about raking in money for herself on a day-to-day basis).


10 posted on 02/06/2010 6:03:43 PM PST by GovernmentShrinker
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To: Guenevere
..when they were accosted at the border, they were told they lacked one item of clearance.

No, Guenevere, that the LIE that Silsby told the media and probably told to her sucker followers as well. It's been refuted by a raft of government officials from both the Dominican Republic and Haiti. In fact, she did not have any documentation whatsoever that had anything to do with authorizing the removal of these children from Haiti, nor had anyone in any official position indicated to her that she could ever get any such documentation.

11 posted on 02/06/2010 6:08:07 PM PST by GovernmentShrinker
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To: GovernmentShrinker
And now, thanks to this idiot, parents who have been in the process of adopting a child and loving it from afar for years will be forced to wait even longer.

And perhaps never be able to complete the adoption...

Not only that but you can be sure that other countries who allow children to come here for adoption are watching as well.

So in one fell swoop this woman and her crew could have jeopardized real homes with legit paperwork for REAL orphans. I can only hope her time in jail is miserable. I am so sorry but I can say no less.

12 posted on 02/06/2010 6:33:15 PM PST by MarMema (chains we can believe in)
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To: MarMema; Carley; Guenevere; daniel1212; Hattie; VicVega; CharlesWayneCT; Dubya; Mrs. Don-o; ...

Slow news day on this story (no doubt due to the weekend, and Haitian officials wisely not making a priority of working overtime to deal with this motley band of crooks and idiots), but the one significant new piece of info that pops up on a Google news search is a whopper:

Adopted Children Home Safe in Bowling Green
http://www.wbko.com/news/headlines/83728562.html

These kids were already on their way out of Haiti the legal way, and Silsby tried to intercept them and take them to her nonexistent orphanage, apparently as hostages, to extract money from their legal adoptive parents:

From the article: Malinda says the phone calls raised some red flags. “Do you realize?” she asked Silsby, “we’ve been waiting 5 years to get our children, you know it’s not that easy to just go to Haiti and pick up kids. You know, you can’t do that.” She kept persisting, and Malinda kept saying no, don’t bother our children,” said Richard, “and Laura decided to show up at the orphanage anyway, and ask for our children, and said that malinda had sent her there. And our children were not there at the time, they were with me.”

I’d really like to know where all the others in the group were while she was doing all this stuff — this attempted abduction from an orphanage, her meeting with the DR embassy official who told her no way, and all the other meetings and phone calls where she got the door slammed in her face and/or got loudly warned against continuing with her plan. They came into Haiti with her, and it’s not like they were staying in a hotel. Did she leave them all sitting on the sweltering bus while she had these meetings? And they went along with that? Even now, with all of them in jail, they’re letting her do all the talking. What the heck is WRONG with these people? I can’t quite figure it out, but it definitely goes beyond having been conned by Silsby into making this trip to “save orphans”.


13 posted on 02/06/2010 6:44:54 PM PST by GovernmentShrinker
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To: GovernmentShrinker
Malinda kept saying no, don't bother our children," said Richard, "and Laura decided to show up at the orphanage anyway, and ask for our children, and said that malinda had sent her there. And our children were not there at the time, they were with me."

Sick and evil. Keep this woman in jail in Haiti. She lies at the drop of a hat to get her way. Something is very wrong with this woman.

14 posted on 02/06/2010 6:48:56 PM PST by MarMema (chains we can believe in)
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To: Persevero

see post above by governmentshrinker. ICK.


15 posted on 02/06/2010 6:50:09 PM PST by MarMema (chains we can believe in)
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To: MarMema

I’m starting to feel like even a post-earthquake Haitian jail is too good for this woman, but I can’t figure out any place worse to demand that she be sent. If the US government lifts a finger to bring this woman back to the US before the Haitian government has taken its own sweet time dealing with her however it wants to, I’m going to be hopping mad. But the US government should be helping in any way it can to get her prosecuted in Haiti, on every single applicable charge — like arranging affidavits from people like the Picketts, or even paying for them to go down to Haiti and testify.


16 posted on 02/06/2010 7:02:48 PM PST by GovernmentShrinker
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To: GovernmentShrinker
Check this out too...

NBC News is reporting that the group is now starting to turn on leader Laura Silsby.

17 posted on 02/06/2010 7:03:35 PM PST by MarMema (chains we can believe in)
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To: MarMema

FINALLY! http://www.ktvb.com/news/Local-store-collecting-donations-for-planned-orphanage-shocked-by-arrests-83732252.html

< NBC News is reporting that the group is now starting to turn on leader Laura Silsby. In a jail cell interview, the group handed NBC News a note saying, “Laura want to control. We believe lying. We’re afraid. We had nothing to do with any documents and have been lied to.” >

But I just don’t get why they didn’t pipe up sooner. They sat next to her on camera during a bunch of media interviews, letting her speak for them. Why on earth didn’t they shout her down, and point out that things she was telling the interviewer were very different from what she’d told them? How can it possibly have taken them this long to figure out she was a scammer?


18 posted on 02/06/2010 7:09:18 PM PST by GovernmentShrinker
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To: MarMema

We’re on the same wavelength :-)


19 posted on 02/06/2010 7:10:02 PM PST by GovernmentShrinker
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To: GovernmentShrinker

wonderful analysis. I appreciate your in depth facts and I suffer with you. I think she was a classic opportunists looking for bucks to pay the mortgage on her $375.000 house. The rest were altruists who really need to stop all this “good works “ and trust in the propitiation for their salvation.


20 posted on 02/06/2010 7:29:16 PM PST by ReyTurner
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