Busload of American Christian missionaries kidnapped in Haiti

Do we have to be concerned about missionaries who willfully go into countries experiencing unrest and try to convert heathens? Seems like they did this to themselves.

They're probably a bunch of trumpie, homophobic evangelicals. Surely their god will save them?

what religion/cult are they from?

R2 maybe they are really lovely, non judgemental people?

I don't see you out helping with orphans, R1.

There is a special kind of arrogance to go to a country for which numerous warnings have been issued advising of its dangers.

This makes us look weak. Send in SEAL Team 6 and drop some fucking bodies. Otherwise Biden will have people clamoring for another “strong” Republican president.

I hope they're all forcibly converted to Vodou.

They only kidnapped them? Amateurs.

Kidnap ALL Christian missionaries!

Really R4? A busload of Christian missionaries? Sure.

Haiti is apparently 86.4% Christian I'm not sure who they're hoping to find who hasn't already heard about Jesus at this point.

These idiots go over and preach no condoms and homophobia.

Paging Deb Messing!

Kidnapped. You’d think that Jesus would be watching out for them.

Unless, of course, prayer doesn’t work and Jesus is imaginary.

Hmm. Wonder which is more likely.

I have an entirely annihilating comeback for the Bible Thumping Fundamentalists who ask where God was on 9/11. It is so polarizing that I will not publicly post it. I apologize if it seems I'm baiting you guys.

I can only tell you the reply contains the undeniable fact for those who choose to lasso some oppressive God into actually taking sides, and shows Cute Cavorting Christians the truth of the hypocrisy and hatred they espouse.

I sure they are getting fed well. Cod heads and prunes in a mixed broth of Froot Loops and mustard!

Haiti is Catholic. These are probably evangelical Protestants of some sort.

This reminds me of the guy who was killed trying to evangelize to the natives on forbidden North Sentinel Island. Haiti should have similar restrictions.

It was American missionaries in Uganda who gave rise to gay hatred and violence against gays. Fuck them all. Drive that bus off a pier into the sea.

I feel bad for the children.

Well, they're not dead yet.

are they vaccinated?

The children will grow up to be like the lot of them and reproduce more of the same. No sympathy.

Mmmmmm

Unvaccinated, missionary children pie.

Good.

I fucking detest missionaries

[Quote] This reminds me of the guy who was killed trying to evangelize to the natives on forbidden North Sentinel Island.

Fun times

No good deed goes unpunished.

I have people like this in my family - Methodists. They go to South America to "tame the natives." They're the same people who want us dead and are denying American women the right to an abortion. And I'm sure enjoy Joe Biden's child tax credit while they vote for Donald Trump.

R12 Haitians are the wrong kind of Christians . They probably don't even follow the KJV of the bible as the only true word of God .

The world would really be better off without missionaries, or religion in general.

Maybe God needed a busload of angels!

R 31: Amen to that. Missionaries are perhaps on the same mental level as Insurrectionists

I just feel indifferent toward them, neither hatred nor love.

RiP.

"Missionaries" is a cover for a child trafficking. Pedos the lot of them.

Locked Up Abroad did an episode on a group of missionaries abducted in the Philippines in the late 90s or early 2000s. I think they ended up being hostages for over a year and some but not all survived.

their church must be loaded. they don't pay any tax. So they should have plenty of money to pay for ransom

R5 probably because I don't care about helping orphans in another country that can take care of itself, and especially not under the guise of converting them to Christianity. The whole point of governments is to do things like that and if they are in there "assisting" (doing the government's job) then it's not going to treat the problem seriously anyway.

They practice voo-DOO down there. That shit ain't to be messed with. Even Islam is ascared of it.

I'm with R37. There have been constant warnings about the serious dangers of going to Haiti, but they ignore them. There are kidnappings occurring in Haiti on a daily basis, yet these folks go anyway.

Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay a penny of ransom for them. Let the church and the congregation cover the cost.

I know these folks are attempting to help (or think they are), but there's clearly a thin line between humanitarianism and stupidity.

Why would someone take children there?

My guess is they'll be eaten soon.

R28 Please identify the "good deed" here.

R7 Or let these smug bigoted idiots deal with the consequences of their own arrogance and stupidity.

The kidnappers are probably Christian as well. The point is, they want ransom money.

The King James Version of the Bible was commissioned by a king who was very well known during his time to be gay and had male lovers. Ironic, no?

From R12’s Wikipedia link:

[quote]Religion in Haiti according to the Pew Research Center (2010)

[quote]Roman Catholicism (56.8%)

[quote]Protestantism (29.6%)

[quote]Unaffiliated (10.6%)

[quote]Other (3%)

R18 is probably right, R6 is definitely right.

[quote]There is a special kind of arrogance to go to a country for which numerous warnings have been issued advising of its dangers.

[quote]These are probably evangelical Protestants of some sort.

"Locked Up Abroad did an episode on a group of missionaries abducted in the Philippines in the late 90s or early 2000s. I think they ended up being hostages for over a year and some but not all survived." GOOD!!!!!!!

[quote]This reminds me of the guy who was killed trying to evangelize to the natives on forbidden North Sentinel Island. Haiti should have similar restrictions.

Sady, only sane people ignore restrictions:

[quote]On the night of 14 November, he and some fishermen – Christians who had agreed to help – set out in darkness for North Sentinel, carefully avoiding coastguard vessels. Their journey was illuminated by glowing plankton, Chau wrote, and around them fish jumped “like darting mermaids”. They reached North Sentinel late at night and anchored nearby.

[quote]The next morning, 15 November, he made his first approach. [bold]The fishermen refused to go any closer to the island[bold], so he stripped to his underwear – he thought it would make the Sentinelese more at ease, the fishermen later said – and paddled a kayak toward the shore.

[quote]He saw a hut and some dugout canoes. As he paddled up to the beach, several Sentinelese, faces painted yellow and speaking a language of “high-pitched sounds”, came rushing out.

[quote]“My name is John,” he shouted from his kayak. “I love you, and Jesus loves you.”

[quote]When the islanders began stringing their bows, he panicked. He threw toward them some fish he had brought as a gift, then, according to his diary, “turned and paddled like I never have in my life”.

[quote]Later that day he made another attempt, this time landing on the island.

[quote]He laid out more gifts, then approached the hut he was chased from earlier, staying out of arrow range. About half a dozen Sentinelese emerged and began to “whoop and shout”. He walked closer to try to hear what they were saying. He tried to “parrot their words back to them”, and the Sentinelese burst out laughing. They were probably “saying bad words or insulting me”, he concluded. He sang worship songs and preached from Genesis. For a while the Sentinelese seemed to tolerate his presence.

[quote]Then a boy shot an arrow at him. The arrow struck the waterproof Bible he was holding. He pulled it out, gave it back to the boy, and hastily retreated. The Sentinelese had taken his kayak, so he was forced to swim almost a mile to the fishing boat.

[quote]“I‘m scared,” he wrote that night in his diary. “Watching the sunset and it’s beautiful.” He was “crying a bit” and “wondering if it’ll be the last sunset I see before being in the place where the sun never sets”.

[quote]“You guys might think I’m crazy in all this,” he wrote to his family, “but I think it’s worth it to declare Jesus to these people.”

[quote]Is this “Satan’s last stronghold”, he asked God – a place “where none have heard or even had a chance to hear your name?”

[quote]He decided he would make his next attempt without the fishing vessel floating nearby. Appearing alone might make the Sentinelese more comfortable, he thought. And if the approach went “badly”, this would spare the fishermen from having to “bear witness to my death”.

[quote]His diary makes it clear that he didn’t want to die, but accepted the possibility. “I think I could be more useful alive,” he wrote, “but to you, God, I give all the glory of whatever happens.” He asked God to forgive “any of the people on this island who try to kill me” – especially “if they succeed”.

[quote]Shortly after dawn on 16 November, the last day he was seen alive, John Chau asked the fishermen to drop him off alone. He knew the risks; but the people of North Sentinel were damned, and he was determined to save them.

[quote]He struck out once more for the shore.

Ugh, sorry about the bold at R49.

Who cares? They shouldn't have gone there in the first place. Idiots.

It’s be great if they were kidnapped in an attempt to reverse convert them into some kind of Haitian voodoo religion.

My fundie brother and his daughter have gone there on "missionary" trips in the past. I put quotes around the word "missionary" because the reality is, for most of these characters the religious aspect is just an excuse to take what they imagine is pretty much an exotic vacation - a chance to get away from their humdrum rural existence.

His church sent people over regularly to "teach" the "natives" how to do things like farm. How to use a hoe, how to plant crops. Yeah, like Haitians don't know how to do that already.

The most horrible aspect of it is the racism and condescension taught by the church to their "missionaries" to show towards the locals. They're considered low-IQ inferiors who need white christians to teach them how to support themselves. At the same time, the "missionaries" are warned not to let their women and children associate with the locals unsupervised, because - you know - primitive black bucks are just eager to grab white women, any kind of white woman, and rape them.

It wouldn't surprise me if some of the locals, fed up with this condescension and lack of actual assistance (because it's more of a vacation than a vocation) decided to get theirs back at these uppity white folks who come over to look down on them.

In other news the souvenir shops in Haiti just received a new shipment of shrunken heads.

Have they ever made a sequel to Serpent and the Rainbow?

Extreme religiosity like that idiot who was killed is mental illness.

I hope they're rescued so they can make it to their next stop -- North Korea.

why are xtian missionaries still a thing in 2021?

The idea of these morons trying to manipulate people around the world with kind deeds in order to get them to join their cult is so obnoxious.

R49 wow, that guy was truly a fucking lunatic. I mean we already knew that, but not to that extent.

Crying because he knew he was going to die, but still going back to the island? This goes beyond just mere religious fanaticism, I bet he legit had some kind of undiagnosed mental disorder like schizophrenia.

These people won some kind of award from that heathen Charles Darwin?

No entry, close the gate!

My neighbor traveled to Haiti in 2011 to rebuild houses with other church groups. She developed some sort of lung virus/fungus and was hospitalized after returning home. The fungus coated the exterior of her lungs. Doctors could not diagnose it. Biopsies and cultures were sent to the CDC and various international research groups but the fungus could not be identified. She was in the hospital for two months before she died.

R61, I love a post with a happy ending.

I’ve wanted to go to Haiti for years due to an interest in Vodou and for historical interest but haven’t due to the danger. It annoys me these idiots were so arrogant to visit. Any help they wanted to offer could have been done from afar.

r61 Did you tell her it was God's will?

All they have to do is pray and our Lorde and Saviour Jesus H Christ will rescue them like lil baby Jessica from that well.

Haiti is a major transportation hub for cocaine and heroin, all of it headed for the US. It is ruled by gangs that operate exactly like the ones in South America: they run drugs but also supplement their income by kidnapping people. It’s much too dangerous to visit. The missionaries who were kidnapped are Anabaptists—Protestants who believe that only adults can be baptized.

[quote]Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay a penny of ransom for them. Let the church and the congregation cover the cost.

But if they were liberal atheists you'd support an billion dollars per person to get them out.

[R41], my new favourite blanket term for fuckery like this is Untreated Mental Illness.

R58 Because Christian can't agree on what makes you the right type of Christian . So they go and try to convince other Christians that they do it wrong and that only their way is the right way . And for a lot of conservative Evangelicals Catholics aren't even Christion to begin with so most of South America for example it heathen territory.

They were thrown out of Switzerland years ago. They used to have a large farm near Lausanne. No idea what they did but they're gone now and no visa for these kinds of freaks any more.

Haiti should really double down on the Voodoo. They should do Voodoo-Eco-Tourism. The Christians are really ruining a better business model.

Dominicans are really afraid of the Haitians because of the Voodoo. I think they should do this Voodoo-Eco-tourism.

What religion/what church were these yahoos from?

The gangs who are taking over the country should hire me to be their Minister of Tourism and Voodoo.

This is what happening when your god hates you, and you piss off the Voodoo gods.

i searched this, and it is:

Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries

As soon as I heard about this story, and saw the word ‘missionaries’, I was glad it happened.

this is one program they do: Billboards to God (they are batshit)

Purpose Statement: “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins…” Acts 26:18

The Gospel message is being shared all across America CAM’s main vision for Billboard Evangelism is to make people stop and think about God, their relationship with Him, and eternity.

Many Americans call themselves Christians but do not follow Biblical principles. Others refuse to acknowledge that God exists. To remind people of God and His truth, CAM has posted more than 1,200 Gospel messages across the United States. Most of these messages are posted on billboards along interstates and major highways. Thousands of people call our toll-free number, searching for answers about God, the Bible, and life issues. In 2020, our phone team had the opportunity to speak to more than 37,000 callers.The average American spends 50 minutes commuting to and from work each day, affording quality time to think. Gospel messages on billboards provide the perfect opportunity to direct commuters’ thoughts to God.

they other program is: Bibles for the world

Bringing Jesus to the Maasai Jun 25, 2018

An African tribe, known as the Maasai, has been living as nomads in a remote part of Kenya for centuries. This tribe has little connection with the outside world and is steeped in traditional beliefs and spiritual darkness. Drunkenness, witchcraft, and child marriage are common.

Wanting to bring Jesus to this tribe, CAM staff in Kenya recently distributed Bible story books as a way to introduce the Bible. Although many cannot read, the beautiful illustrations speak the story of God’s love. Please pray that the simple truths of the Bible story books will shed a ray of light to this people group whom Jesus loves.

to the Haitian Gang, Finders Keepers. These people are terrible.

Thoughts... prayers....

The Maasai have a rich, vibrant, diverse Culture. They have always had contact with other cultures and expats. What the fuck are they asshole saying in [r80]?

Interesting fact. Amish and Mennonites raise money through auctions of homemade goods for Haiti. Don't know how the money is distributed.

Interesting that this group of missionaries are Anabaptist.

I would rather read a voodoo children's book.

child marriage is more link to Islam and Christianity (old testament). Another big fucking lie by these psychos. FUCK THESE PEOPLE. They sound like the criminal gang here.

They are Mennonites and Amish, and they don’t proselytize.

I thought that was Al Roker when I scrolled past the thumbnail.

Here’s hoping they all become adherents of Voodoo/Santeria/Catholicism.

A friend goes to church with a family that went to several church sponsored missions to Africa and they were not exactly living in comfort at a holiday inn. They did get to go on a safari once.

The church would take clothes, meds and household supplies for the benefit of a home that housed women, children and disabled people. The women and children were all HIV positive, any disabled or funny looking person was cast out by the family and left to die because they regarded them as being unlucky or cursed.

The home was the only place these social rejects could call home, they supported themselves by making small home made bags, wallets etc from recycled materials.

My cold atheist heart was actually warmed by the help they received because it was not an easy existence for them. If I were starving or homeless and ostracized by my family I would appreciate any help.

they are gay bashing, gay hate protetization cunts. They are spreading anti gay hate around the world. This is their statement.

19. We believe that marriage is designed by God to be the union of one naturally-born man and one naturally-born woman for life. Therefore, any sexual relationship outside this marriage is sin. Furthermore, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, pornography, lesbianism, and any other sexual involvement is condemned by God. (Hebrews 13:4; Mark 10:6-9; Romans 1:24-28; Matthew 5:27-28; I Corinthians 6:9, 10)

the people of Haiti have the right to defend themselves. The country should have banned these people. But now that they have these yahoo psychos, they can keep them.

We do NOT want them back.

I wonder if they were vaccinated? If not (which i suspect), they can put them on trial for murder.

They are against fornication. WHAT THE FUCK?!??!

Fornication means this: consensual sexual intercourse between two persons. They are against CONSENT. Who are these rapists psychos?

Dear Haitian Gang, KEEP THEM.

I was a cautionary tale and still, they don’t listen.

My guess is they were dong crimes against the Haitian people, probably child rapists. The community wants justice.

At least they will all stay slim.

Why are these kind of people allowed to travel the world with an US Passport? Can't Haiti deny them coming?

Interesting that the Haitians never kidnap Dr. Paul Farmer? Partners in Health has been in Haiti forever doing Medical Care.

The Haitians know that the yahoo psychos were up to no good. You cannot go to a country, with the intent to commit a crime. I have figured this out.

With all due respect, ma’am, I’ve got problems of my own.

Looks like they were there to build an orphanage for the kids left without parents after the earthquake. They were on their way home. I don’t understand why they had a 2 year old kid in tow. They’ve been going there for decades. I think they’re Mennonite persuasion.

Mennonites are always some of the first to respond to natural disasters. We take great stock by it. As mentioned above, we're not big proselytizers. Much of my family have been missionaries, my Dad's aunt was in China, India, and the RIo Grande Valley. They have provided medicine, food, construction, and physical labor to some of the poorest people on the planet. The outright hatred on this thread is not surprising, but really unwarranted.

Here's the Mennonite volunteer service where people take time off from work/farming to go help wherever needed.

[quote]Christian Aid Ministries came under public scrutiny in 2019, when one of the group's former workers based in Haiti was convicted of felony sexual abuse against minors in Ohio. Jeriah Mast, 40, is serving a nine-year sentence in an Ohio prison. During the hearing, the judge said Mast told him that he also molested at least 30 boys in Haiti in the span of about 15 years, according to The Daily Record newspaper in Ohio.

We'll see how this turns out.

What makes an Amish woman happy? Two Mennonite.

From the US STATE DEPT Haiti - Level 4: Do Not Travel Do not travel to Haiti due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and COVID-19.

And batshit christian psycho, pedo gangs.

It's all part of God's plan!

R102 do you really think you're helping, in the grand scheme of things? This is an entire other country and they have a government to deal with things like this. If the government can't or won't, then it's on the people to fix it.

I'm not saying that the people need to be left to fend for themselves. But Haiti is one disaster after another. Maybe the problem is us expecting to bring them up to our level when they clearly aren't ready for it. If the people want change, want the government to be more involved, then they are the only ones who can really change it.

Countries like this where they depend on aid from outside for basic functions should not be countries. I think the main reason the US gives them aid is to keep mass immigration incidents from happening like the one on the border recently. But it doesn't appear to be working.

Do you think that maybe, the situation in Haiti is actually God's will, and you are interfering with it? Maybe that's why they keep having so many natural disasters?

Also r102 I would not read too much into the vitriol on this thread. Gay people have been persecuted by every world religion for a very long time. It is difficult to see any good when you have that kind of negative psychic debt. And many of the religions still do persecute gays, even if it's just behind closed doors. So it's not something that is going to get better anytime soon.

R107 isn't that the strongest warning against travel the State Department gives?

If only Jesus gave a shit

Jesus, even on the long shot that he was ever operative, no longer has much juice here.

Best to let that myth go and find a better way to get through life.

R110, sure ideally they need a functioning government and to fend for themselves, but some people are unable to see people living in squalor and do nothing to help, even if it's at a huge risk to themselves. They may indeed be fools, but it doesn't mean they deserve to be shat on for it by bitter cynics in a gossip board's message thread.

It depends, R114. If these missionaries are in Haiti to build hospitals, or provide food, shelter and medical care, without proselytizing, then we would all commend them.

But if the assistance is infused with religion, then let the games begin. Suffering people are easy marks for religious predators and should be protected from them.

Haiti has been through decades and decades of instability, but much of that is due to what the US & European governments have done to them. Restrictions, embargoes, coups, punishments. All because Haiti has tried to declare their independence. The missionaries are one symptom, and they are feeling the heat. There is a local group here that goes on mission trips to Haiti all the time, including during the pandemic. R102, it is great that this group provides assistance, but that is the exception. Most groups are there to manipulate and push themselves into communities. It's sick. I have relatives living on a Native American reservation, and I have heard TOO MANY stories of what missionaries and churches will do.

R116 please don't blame Haiti's issues mostly on the US or EU because that is not the reason it's such a mess. We weren't responsible for their latest coup attempt or instability or the repeated natural disasters that strike the area.

[quote]They may indeed be fools, but it doesn't mean they deserve to be shat on for it by bitter cynics in a gossip board's message thread.

Then what are you doing here, R114/R5/R102/R103? Here for the homosexuality? Whatever would the Mennonites say about that?

Mennonites aren't any better than Christianity's other sectarian cultists. Every sectarian clown car has grifters and sex offenders aboard, who hide under the shade of the sects' ostensible good reputations. See R105's link for a look at the Mennonite situation.

R118, Once asked a man raised Amish (we met on a blind date for hiking) what would happen to a gay/lesbian in his community. Remember families of 10+ kids are the norm and any form of birth control is forbidden.

He told me they'e know to leave the community. Sexuality wasn't ever discussed. Girls in the Old Order Amish weren't even allowed to watch animals giving birth let alone being bred. They were told babies come from Heaven with the help of angels.

Sadly the former Amish man also told me child molestation and rape of young girls as well as young boys is rampant and generational.

R118 et al., there are a lot of Mennonites who are just regular folk living in the world. Their brand of religion doesn't make them extremely insular or place the Amish-type restrictions on them.

I'm not sure about "a lot," R120. All the Mennonites I've met are a conservative nightmare.

This article suggests the issue of LGBTs is splitting the denomination, as it has so many others. Tolerance is the minority view; most are against LGBTs.

It seems odd to have several different user accounts pop up on this thread with a positive view of Mennonites.

Haiti = Hatey = Hellhole.

Thank God it wasn't a Muslim country! They would have all been raped and beheaded by now, all filmed, of course, with shouts of allah akbar.

They are Amish missionaries.

Sorry, I am blind and missed that discussion above.

R121, maybe it's a regional thing. Different sects tend to live in different places.

This is why I don’t help people.

"But we're bringing bibles and footballs."

I don't donate to any international aid at all anymore. All of the orgs are problematic in one way or another, even if they're not religious, so what's the point? I'm not American, British, French or Dutch so I don't feel that I owe people in the developing world reparations due to the actions of my country. So many international aid groups are corrupt as fuck and it's not like your money actually goes to helping locals anyway.

As an aside, Mennonites are an odd group. Some are religious and live in cities, some are fairly rural, but they don't live like the Amish though and they're not communal like Hutterites. Many of them are only Mennonite through heritage and pretty secular - at least that's how the ones where I live are. You couldn't pick them out of a crowd basically. They used to have a pretty good organization that did a lot of actual good work, actual physical work such as building wells, schools, etc...for communities in the developing world, but I don't know if it still exists or not, not that I'd donate to it. I approve of foreign aid through taxes, but with all the corruption, that's all I'm willing to give.

[quote]They used to have a pretty good organization that did a lot of actual good work, actual physical work such as building wells, schools, etc...for communities in the developing world, but I don't know if it still exists or not

You bet. See the link.

Oh shit, R130. That's it. I remember them because way back when I was in university they used to have a store that sold all kinds of goods from around the world. I never though of them as being missionaries though, more as a church related disaster relief organization. A long time ago a friend had a going away party for a relative who was going oversees with that group to help with a water treatment plant.

Yeah OK, but it comes with religious indoctrination that wants to eliminate the Gays. Who needs that horse shit?

[quote]Who needs that horse shit?

People who are starving, maybe?? I grew up in a more "liberal" branch of Mennonites (who are still pretty conservative by normal standards) and I know most don't support LGBT, however, they aren't militant about it. They're not out campaigning to restrict rights. In fact, Mennonites have traditionally been completely apolitical

I'm gay and haven't been a Christian for several decades myself, but I still value my heritage and know the kind of people who are involved with both long-term and short-term missions (many of my family, a number of close friends from college, etc.). Of course, there are outliers, but overall these are dedicated, caring people willing to put their own lives on hold to actually make a difference in others lives.

From what I remember, the person who went overseas wasn't religious at all, R132. I think that group took all kinds of experts/skilled people in certain areas to go and help. But this also leads me back to my point I made in R129 and why I'm against foreign aid. There are problems with the organizations INCLUDING the non religious ones. It's also clear that people have a problem with the work these groups do, so maybe it's best to leave those in the developing world or in disaster areas to their own devices. Give aid through taxation but no more boots on the ground. Let them figure out what to do with the money they receive. Constantly going to disaster zones or impoverished areas to do the rebuilding or provide expertise does nothing for the locals in the long run.

[quote]Constantly going to disaster zones or impoverished areas to do the rebuilding or provide expertise does nothing for the locals in the long run.

You've got a point, R134. That's why many NGOs now focus on getting locals established in their own entrepreneurial pursuits. For example, my sister-in-law works with a group that helps women in viliages to establish their own microbanks to fund other women's projects and create income for their families independent of the men (who are often unreliable, absent, or conscripted).

I've got a close family friend who helped locals in an African town to start their own successful bicycle-manufacturing company building bicycle-amublances which are often the only kind of vehicles that can be used in remote locations to transport sick people to hospitals.

It's not like the old "white man come and distribute blankets" paradigm anymore.

It hasn't been like that for decades.

That sounds excellent, R135.

someone is posting the WRONG group. it is christian aid ministries. They hate gays. They are doing problematic shit in Haiti. One of their programs is giving out bibles. They are convicted child rapists. They are the bad guys here.

Some reported said the rumor is this gang wants ONE MILLIONS dollars per person.

Good luck with getting any money from a money laundering operation of convicted sex offenders.

Why is this group in Haiti in the first place? I suspect to HURT children because there is no functioning government to stop them now.

86.4% also believe in voodoo at the same time

My guess is that the gang will kill them all. It's probably fate and a good lesson anyone thinking of going to a country like Haiti where mass kidnappings are becoming more and more common.

Like Afghanistan, it's best not to interfere and whatever happens, happens. All the help in the world won't change things for anyone there, let them figure out how to run their own country.

Who would pay a million a piece for Mennonites? Absurd.

Yep, they want $17 million for the return of all of them. Good luck with that!

Some Haitians want them freed.

But R142 and R143 are probably right that there's no one willing to pay the ransom.

this gang wants one million dollars per person. What is this gang thinking? Do they think this money laundering head of this Batshit church is going to pay this? This does not sound very organize.

The US "officially" doesn't negotiate with terrorists, but they wouldn't stop the Christian orgs from doing it. I bet there's already a GoFundMe set up to finance it.

200 plus years of self rule,and Haiti is such a shit hole that people on the other side of the same fucking island dont want anything to do with them. Now who's fault is that ?

r148 according to a poster above it's everyone else's fault but theirs.

R147, that suggests, frankly, that this could be a scam by the swindling church. They can raise millions of dollars online and then split the proceeds with the gang, who I'm sure will take 50% of their original ask.

r150 that's a very cynical and likely also entirely possible scenario!

R151, I would't have thought that a few years ago, but my view of humanity is getting pretty grim.

The Mennonites sound like awful people, so why are the locals protesting their kidnapping? You'd think they'd be happy to see them gone.

I don't think this is a plot R150, kidnappings in Haiti are a thing. All of the articles posted here mention how bad this year has been for them.

Mennonites do a lot of good charity work. However like the Amish they strictly follow the Biblical proscription of "be fruitful and multiply."

Therefore anyone who's barren, asexual, doesn't want a huge family for medical or financial reasons is not fully accepted. Courtship rules are strict, vary between each community, and all are pressured to follow suit.

Sadly child sexual abuse when kids aren't taught the basics is rampant.

Gays and lesbians would never fit in to such a regimented society.

I was raised Catholic in the deep South (my parents were transplants from the Midwest) and to some types of Protestants, Catholicism is basically Satanism. I'm not kidding.

MARY WORSHIPIN' IDOLATRY!!!

Not the worship of Mary but the power of the Pope that's the issue for Christians. If you disagree with your minister or pastor you can always switch churches. Not true for Catholics who have a rigid hierarchy of authority.

[quote]I was raised Catholic in the deep South (my parents were transplants from the Midwest) and to some types of Protestants, Catholicism is basically Satanism. I'm not kidding.

My first bf's parents were Christian Reformed and told him they didn't care what race, ethnicity or religion he dated EXCEPT they didn't want him to bring home a Catholic girl.

So he bought home a Catholic boy, instead.

Is the poster worried about pedophilia in the Mennonite community a Catholic, by chance? That'd be rich.

Question: What do you call a busload of American Christian missionaries kidnapped in Haiti?

Answer: A start!

[quote]Not the worship of Mary but the power of the Pope that's the issue for Christians.

Maybe in your limited experience, R157.

Exodus 20:4-5 says, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them."

Catholic genuflecting to statues of Jesus and Mary is a huge deal for lots of right wing Xtians. They see it as idolatry and specifically forbidden in the Commandments.

R159, No I'm not a Catholic. Yes pedophilia is rampant everywhere but especially among regimented religious sects with a lot of rules and little tradition of sex education for young kids. Worse when women are pushed to birth lots of babies.

Haiti is the gay man’s homeland, yes?

You need a busload of faith to get by, watch, baby.

Is there not one drone on that tiny island that can find this lot?

Do they need more? Because we can send them more busloads of Christians.

Knownothingism has never gone away, especially in the American Sowth, as this thread reflects.

That’s what they fucking get for ramming Jesus down throats . They’re trumpsters and q anon I. Disguiee

Who bumped this? Anyway, I thought Haiti was a pretty Catholic place. Maybe they just don’t like those pesky born-agains?

Maybe they think Haitians are voodoo witch doctors? Or that Catholic Saint-worship is false idols?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA