A Timeline. Additions, changes, corrections are welcome.
Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter visit Haiti in late December, early January and take food and clothes and toys to the children at Pastor Daniel's church in Quiminthe, Haiti
FRIDAY JANUARY 8, 2010
Laura Lavonne Silsby and Jose Altagracia Ovando Hidalgo register the Refugio de Niños Nueva Vida Dominicana with the Dominican Republic government
(New Dominican Life Children's Refuge)
Sometime between January 8 and January 12, Laura Silsby and her cohort, sidekick, joined at the hip nanny and assistant Charisa Coulter leave the DR and return to their home/s in Idaho.
TUESDAY JANUARY 12, 2010
An Earthquake strikes Haiti at about 5:00 PM EST time.
FRIDAY JANUARY 22, 2010
This is the day that all The Baptists are to meet in Miami. According to Jim Allen of Amarillo, Texas he went a day early and arrived in Miami on January 21st.
It is possible that the Baptists flew to Puerto Plata, got their bus and then drove to Santo Domingo on Sunday.
SATURDAY JANUARY 23, 2010
Did the Baptists visit the Hotel/Orphanage today?
SUNDAY JANUARY 24, 2010
The Baptists arrive in the Dominican Republic and check into the Hotel Lina, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. (Barcelo Lina, Santo Domingo - located in the center of Santo Domingo about 25 miles from Las Americas International Airport)
By chance, they meet Anne-Christine d'Adesky, a writer and human rights activist who after listening to Silby's 'plans' to collect Haitian orphans, informs her that it would be regarded as illegal.
Ms. Silsby's response: "We have been sent by the Lord to rescue these children, and if it's in the Lord's plan we will be successful."
Silsby calls Malinda Pickett of Kentucky, she and her husband Richard are in the process of adopting some orphans in Haiti. Laura offers to help 'get' the kids. Malinda informs Laura that Richard is in Haiti now and please do not do anything to our children.
Silsby informs d'Adesky that the group hoped to cross the border later this Sunday night, or the next day, and be back in the DR by Monday evening. d'Adesky informed Silsby that they needed documents and they had to inform Haitian authorities and UN people at the Protection Cluster who were in charge post quake.
Silsby agreed to meet up with d'Adesky in the morning. However, by morning, the Baptists were gone.
The director of "His Home for Children" in Haiti said a bus had turned up at his orphanage (near Delmas 60) late Sunday night, unannounced, with a missionary group that asked him to turn over remaining children in his care. He declined, telling d'Adesky 'it smelled fishy'
MONDAY JANUARY 25, 2010
According to Anne-Christine d'Adesky (in an email to the UN), Silsby had planned to bring children back to the Dominican Republic on Jan. 25 (today)
Silsby calls Malinda Pickett twice today, offering to get their adopted children out of Haiti for them. The family declines her assistance.
TUESDAY JANUARY 26, 2010
Orphanage worker Isaac Adrien , 20, meets Silsby at the Quisqueya Christian School in Port-au-Prince. Isaac was raised at the House of Blessings Orphanage (founded by Phillip Murphy) in Callebasse. Isaac is coordinator for the Children of Promise program in Haiti. He and his brother, Steve, begin translating yesterday with the relief efforts being coordinated by Quisqueya Christian School. He says Silsby tells him she is looking for homeless children.
Acting on behalf of the Baptists, Adrien went the same day to Callebasse and convened nearly the entire village of Callebasse, about 500 people, on a dirt soccer field and presented the Americans offer. He told his neighbors the missionaries would educate their children in the neighboring Dominican Republic, the villagers said, adding that they were also assured they would be free to visit their children there. The Baptists also offered swimming pools and tennis courts.
Silsby showed up at the Compassion for All orphanage in Haiti, asking to collect the Picketts' three adopted children and claiming to be Malinda Pickett's friend, according to Richard Pickett.
David Louis, son of the owner Arthur Louis, of the Compassion for All orphanage
was there that day. He said Silsby asked if she could help them by taking a few of the children. He told her that he cannot make that decision. (intvu with AC360)
When David wouldn't give Silsby any children and the Pickett children were not there -- they were with their new father Richard Pickett -- Silsby hired David Louis to go from orphanage to orphanage and be her translator and guide. And no one would turn children over to her. And, in the end, she was frustrated and crying that none of the responsible adults would give her any children.
Three interpreters who worked for the Baptists told CNN the group met twice with a man, a mystery man, thought to be a Haitian policeman, who offered to help.
The first encounter took place on January 26. He told team leader Laura Silsby that they couldn't gather up Haitian children as they were doing, but then offered his help, according to an interpreter's account.
"They met a police guy and he told them that he could help and he was helping them with some paper," said Steve Adrien, one of three interpreters employed by the group. "We did not meet him in a police station, but in the street in a car."
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 27, 2010
Pastor Jean Sainvil claims he first met up with Silsby and The Baptists on this day at Quanamithe on the northern Haiti-Dominican border and agreed to help her collect children for a 150-bed orphanage the Americans were establishing near the beach resort of Cabarete in the Dominican Republic.
THURSDAY JANUARY 28, 2010
20 children in the village of Callebasse were surrendered to the Baptists today. Parents there told The Associated Press they surrendered their children on Jan. 28, two days after a local orphanage worker acting on behalf of the Baptists convened nearly the entire village of about 500 people on a dirt soccer field to present the Americans' offer. As they loaded children onto a bus in Callebas on Jan. 28, the Americans took down contact information for all the families and assured them a relative would be able to visit them in the Dominican Republic.
The Baptists again met with the mystery man in Port-au-Prince on Thursday, near the Dominican embassy. "He was helping Laura (Silsby) to get in touch with the ambassador in the Dominican embassy," according to Isaac Adrien, Steve's brother and another one of the interpreters. He said the group came away from the meeting with a document from the embassy that they took with them to the border on Friday.
Silsby, accompanied by Sainvil collects 13 children from Citron.
Sainvil, a former orphan who says his nondenominational Haiti Sharing Jesus Ministry has 25 churches in the countryside, said the two agreed to meet again in Port-au-Prince on Feb. 13 to get more children.
John Requa of Twin Falls, Idaho, member of Eastside Baptist Church arrives in the Dominican Republic with plans to help the Baptists. He busied themselves working with another mysterious group from Texas to get the hotel that would serve as a temporary building ready for the children. Also, Requa and the Criders to come were joined by Nancy Rodriguez - wife of Paul Rodriguez the director of missions for the Magic Valley Baptist Association.
FRIDAY JANUARY 29, 2010
Matt and Lora Crider arrive in the Dominican Republic. (probably Puerto Plata)
2:00 PM The Dominican consul in Port au Prince told the American Baptists that "you do not have the paperwork. It is illegal, what you are doing. Do not travel."
6:00 PM The Baptists with 33 purloined children are stopped at the southern Haitian / DR border crossing of Malpasse and detained. According to Jim Allen they spend Friday night at the border in a secured area.
The group in Haiti called the group in the DR to say they had to get another document and wouldn't be across with the children that night.
Pastor Jean Sainvil said when border authorities were questioning the missionaries, One of the police officers called me and I was talking to him, and thats when my phone went dead.
SATURDAY JANUARY 30, 2010
The Baptists are escorted back into Port au Prince and Silsby is questioned. Later in the day the Baptists are arrested and jailed.
The children are turned over to an orphanage in Port au Prince run by the Austrian-based SOS Children's Villages charity.
The Criders during a trip to Santo Domingo, got a call from Paul Thompson that the Baptists in Haiti had been arrested. Matt and Lora immediately went to the U.S. Embassy for help.
Sainvil, meanwhile, became sick with vomiting and diarrhea and decided to fly back to the U.S. on a military transport plane, he said. ??? when ???
SUNDAY JANUARY 31, 2010
Baptists in jail. No shoestrings, no phones, no belts. Got to keep their Bibles.
The mysterious Texans working at the rented hotel/orphanage, left to go back to U.S.
MONDAY FEBRUARY 1, 2020
Baptists are scheduled to attend a hearing with the judge.
Anne-Christine d'Adesky sends an email to the United Nations and recounts meeting the leader of the missionaries before they entered Haiti and warning that the group's plan to collect 100 Haitian orphans was illegal because they lacked proper authorization.
Ms. d'Adesky also told the U.N. officials that Ms. Silsby had planned to bring children back to the Dominican Republic on Jan. 25, four days before the group was arrested. She therefore urged the U.N. officials to "check on the orphanage" in the Dominican Republic because children might have been brought there before the group was arrested.
Jorge Puello might have met in person with the Baptists today.
John Requa and Matt and Lora Crider, all of Twin Falls, Idaho and Nancy Rodriguez left the DR and flew back to the U.S.
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 2, 2010
Jorge Puello contacts Jose Hidalgo and requested documents detailing Silsby's plans to open the orphanage in the Dominican Republic so he could prove her innocence. Hidalgo said he turned over copies of the documents after Puello showed him a video in which he interviewed Coulter, one of the missionaries.