One Haitian child believed she was going on a brief vacation when missionaries took her away from Haiti.
In a frightening story that shows how sometimes the best intentions can go wrong in times of crisis, a group of American church missionaries have ben detained for trying to take a group of children out of Haiti as orphans, many of whom were not actually orphans at all and still had family in Haiti.

Allegedly at least one child even told the U.S. church group that she still had family there, and at first she thought she was just going on a brief vacation, not being taken out of her home country for good. The church group was stopped and detained, and at first called kidnappers by the Haitian Prime Minister Bellerive, but he has since softened his tone a bit on the issue.

The case continues to develop as agencies and workers struggle to maintain order in a chaotic situation where it’s difficult to document who children are and what their family situation is, muchless whether they are already in an adoption process. Hopefully the best interests of these children can be served in the long run.