Ms. Silsby described herself as a person devoted to meeting her goal of rescuing, loving and caring for orphaned, abandoned and impoverished Haitian and Dominican children by demonstrating God’s love, and helping each child find healing, hope, joy and new life in Christ. She had planned to accomplish her goal by placing children from Haiti and the Dominican Republic in an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. Her plans were on paper ready to be implemented. However, progress came to a screeching halt as she faced a mountain of personal and business debt. Her business struggled, her house was foreclosed on.
Then, on January 12, 2010, an earthquake struck Haiti. The capital of Haiti was demolished. Hundreds of thousands lost their lives. Legal and law enforcement agencies were left in ruins. Homelessness, helplessness and lawlessness abounded. Who would care about the lives of homeless children now? Not their parents – some were willing to give their children away – one less mouth to feed.
This would be the perfect opportunity for Ms. Silsby to kill several birds with one stone. She could help homeless children, while providing a valuable service to parents in the US who were desperate to adopt, and of course, make the money she needed to get out of debt.
Her blind ambition caused her to neglect warnings about the legalities involved and throw caution to the wind. So, on Thursday (Jan. 21, 2010), the group left Meridian and headed for Salt Lake City. The next day, they flew to Santo Domingo. They brought with them 18 plastic tubs containing mostly donated clothing, diapers and other items intended for the children.
They entered Haiti from the Dominican Republic last week. They allegedly met with a Haitian pastor. Then, Ms. Silsby and her group of nine drove a bus through Port-au-Prince and gathered 33 orphans from the streets and collapsed orphanages ranging in age from 2 months to 13 years old. They were attempting to transport them to the Dominican Republic. But they were stopped at the Haiti/Dominican Republic border. Ms. Silsby lacked the documents needed to transport the children.
They were arrested in Haiti on January 29, 2010 and charged on February 4, 2010 with the crime of abducting children from the earthquake-ravaged capital of Haiti. They could face up to twelve years in prison if convicted.
Is Ms. Silsby a ‘Mother Teresa’ type who really intended to help those poor children find healing, hope, joy and new life in Christ? Or is she a shrewd businesswoman with mountain high debt who intended to sell those children to the highest bidder?
Unfortunately, we will never know the answer.
It was reported that Ms. Silsby had incorporated a nonprofit group, New Life Children’s Refuge, in November last year in Idaho. She planned a companion organization in the Dominican Republic, but those plans never materialized.
It was reported that she also began the process of buying land in Magante, on the north coast of the Dominican Republic, to build an orphanage, but those plans also never materialized.
Her sincere aspirations gave way to blind desire and greed. The earthquake caused her to jump the gun. By jumping the gun and getting the children before she had her business and the orphanage set up, she would have placed those children in harms way, and in a potentially worse situation than the one they were taken from.
She had no where to house the children, no professional care givers in her group, no doctors or nurses on staff. What would have happened to those children if her half-baked plan had succeeded? What condition would those children have been in today if she was not stopped? Where would they be sleeping, what would they have for dinner? Who would have been caring for the babies as they cried at night? They would have been in a situation ripe with the opportunity for the abuse and neglect.
Thankfully she was stopped.
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