I can see this being an analogy on next year’s SATs: missionaries are to the new millennium as televangelists were to the 80s. First a group of missionaries basically coaxed Uganda into killing all gays, and now another group allegedly tried to kidnap children from Haiti.
When I first heard the story, I was sort of like, well, they shouldn’t try to take them out of the country without permission, especially if their parents are still there, but I can’t totally blame them. I mean, I can’t imagine what it must have been like to see children suffering in all that devastation (I kept flashing back to that news clip of a young boy having a cinderblock thrown at his head before being saved by Anderson Cooper). Hell, I want to kidnap every dog in the shelter when I go there, and they’re simply in cages. I think the natural human instinct SHOULD be to want to get those kids out of that nightmare.
But it’s gotten a lot more complex than a good deed gone wrong. The last I heard, one news crew got to see the ten missionaries in jail, and one of the missionaries slipped the reporter a note signed by most of the missionaries saying that one chick in particular was acting as the spokesperson for all of them (the one who keeps saying on the news that she believes God will get her out of there safely), and that she’s involved in some shady adoption dealings they knew nothing about when they came to Haiti, and that they fear for their lives as a result. WTF???
Hopefully the truth will come out and justice–if it’s needed–will be served, but damn! Give God a break! Missionaries have been doing more good than any of us could probably imagine for longer than we can imagine. All it takes is a handful of despicable products of modern society to permanently tarnish the long-standing reputation of the missionary movement.
