Missionary Finds U.S. Children Abandoned in Nigeria

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A Texas pastor calls it a miracle. Child Protective Services calls it a hellish situation. A church missionary finds seven Texas children, ages 8 to 16, abandoned by their adopted mother. Where were they? Halfway around the world in an orphanage in Nigeria. They were skinny, sickly and just wanted to go back to America. Reporter Jeremy Desel with CNN affiliate KHOU picks up the story from the Texas high school where the oldest girl was a model student.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DESEL, KHOU REPORTER, (voice-over): For years she was a standout student at Sterling High School.

RASHEDA MALVEAUX, TEACHER: She was a pleasure to have in the classroom. She was just a really good student.

DESEL: Not just the classroom, in ROTC, too.

CPO JOSEPH BENNETT, TEACHER: She was attached, you know, teach me everything. I'm going to go in the Navy when I get out of school.

DESEL: Enough to give teachers high hopes. Then the 16-year-old simply vanished.

BENNETT: The only thing that I ever heard from her was, I think we're going to move.

DESEL: She is one of seven adopted children on the move, the youngest just 8. They also spent time at the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Houston. The younger kids had more to say.

MONA BATES, BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS: Well, they came up to me and told me that their mom didn't want them anymore and that she was sending all of them to Africa. It was very sudden.

DESEL: Then they were gone. That was last October, found earlier this month in a Nigerian orphanage by a Pastor Warren Beemer.

WARREN BEEMER, CORNERSTONE CHURCH: It was a very, very desolate feeling place. It felt like about the end of the Earth, about the last spot you would want to end up.

DESEL: Beemer quizzed the oldest girl. She rattled off her school and the names of these three teachers, her form of ID.

CELESTE MCNEIL, TEACHER: That's on thing that touches my heart, because you really never know. I mean, we hope that we affect a child's life, but you never really know.

DESEL: The teachers hardly recognize her now.

MCNEIL: It is. It's someone you actually know. So it really -- it bothers me.

MALVEAUX: And you see how she looks and you're, like, oh, my God. This child is really sick.

DESEL: They all knew the oldest girl, the one playing cards on the porch, the one first talked to by the missionary who would be their savior, was strong, more than they could see.

BENNETT: That's devastating to me. It is. It hurts me because I know this girl.

DESEL: The teachers may know the oldest child well. Laquinta Teague (ph) knows three of them. She should. She's their birth mother. Now all she has is their pictures.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I knew something wasn't right. I could feel it. I could feel it in my heart that something just wasn't right, wherever they was at.

DESEL: Seeing the pictures of them now, malnourished and sickly, is too much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I miss them. I want them to come home. I don't know how they ended up way over there.

DESEL: Only one woman does and she's not talking. Jeremy Desel, 11 News.

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PHILLIPS: Well, joining me now from San Antonio, Texas, is Pastor Warren Beemer of Cornerstone Church. He is the man who discovered the orphans in Nigeria and helped to get them home. Pastor Beemer, great to have you with us. I guess I want to start by talking about the mission. You were just on a regular mission in Nigeria, you were in this orphanage, you heard the kids speaking English. Take it from there.

BEEMER: Our church sponsors several missions in Nigeria, feeding the homeless and widows. And we were there just trying to bring light into some kids's lives. And all of a sudden we heard a young lady talking with an American accent. It was shocking.

So we asked her, where are you from? She said in a very strong, very spirited, American way, Houston. And we asked her where she -- why she was there. She said, well, all my brothers and sisters are here. We said, where? And she took us right around the side of the building to a dark room where her six brothers and sisters were shut up inside. And they just sat there on a wall looking at us.

PHILLIPS: So their mother -- the adopted mother I guess we should say, to this point had somewhat taken care of these kids because you were saying -- the kids were telling you that usually she just took the government money and spent it on other things? I mean, these were kids that weren't cared for even in America, right?

BEEMER: Even in the States, according to the children's account, they weren't taken care of. Their actual words were, mama gets a big check for us, she spends it on herself and we shop at a thrift store. And it was a heartbreaking thing. When I asked them point-blank, why did your mom do this? They said, because she don't want us, she don't want us anymore so she left us here. That was their answer.

PHILLIPS: So you were telling me the mother met a man, got married. He already had kids. So she just wanted to get rid of these children and dumped them off in Nigeria. They were living in some shanty with a distant relative, ended up in this orphanage. Where is the mother?

BEEMER: The mother right now is still in Houston, Texas. Hopefully, she's facing some charges. As soon as I got the information, I sent it back to my pastor, Pastor John Hagee. He immediately called Senator John Cornyn and Congressman Tom DeLay. They worked tirelessly with CPS and the State Department.

And thanks to their good work, a week later, seven days later, those kids were home. And also thanks to their good work, something is being followed up on this lady. And hopefully, she's going to receive just what the kids said she deserved. The kids themselves said they hope she goes to jail. PHILLIPS: I want to point out, too, I did try calling that home phone number for the mother. It has been disconnected. We should also point out, this is definitely, at this point, just allegations. But when we see the pictures, we're hearing your story, let's continue that. Do you know if these kids were exploited at all?

BEEMER: I asked them several times, has anybody touched you, anyone hurt you. They said their uncle was nice to them there. They said they hadn't been, other than the abandonment, of being exploited in that place. It is a place literally -- I don't even know if I know an American that would put their dog there in what we saw, the conditions they lived in. Sleeping on frames, springs with no mattresses, the smell of urine so strong it took your breath when you walked in the room and food that -- it just wasn't describable even to see them eating it.

PHILLIPS: What about the people that ran this orphanage in Nigeria? Did they accept you and let you talk to these kids cart blanche? And when you told them you wanted to bring them back to the United States, were they OK with all of that?

BEEMER: Initially, they weren't. They were objectionable to us talking to them and taking pictures. God gave us the wisdom and the strength to push through that. Once we finally saw these were Americans and we knew these were American kids, it would have taken a whole lot more than what was there to stop us from getting the information that we needed, getting the pictures we needed and making sure our kids were taken care of.

PHILLIPS: Well, now the kids are back in the States. You say they are OK. Are they going back to school? Are they in foster homes now?

BEEMER: We've heard that right now three of them have started school back. They are right now in two different foster homes. They are wanting to stay together. We've offered at Cornerstone, a church in San Antonio, Texas, our pastor, John Hagee, has offered to bring them down to -- he has acquired a home -- a five-bedroom home to hire houseparents and to give them a life, a free education.

We would love to see them really taken care of. We've started to receive donations from around too to make sure the kids are taken care of. Our youth group has raised about $700 that they took in. I gave the kids some American money while I was there. The children started crying when they held American money. And I told them, I said, when you get back to the States I'm going to trade this $1 bill for a $100 bill. One of the young ladies said, you're going to give me a Benjamin? And I said, yes, sweetheart, we're going to give you a Benjamin. Well, our kids raised the money to give them all a Benjamin and hopefully we can see them soon to do that.

PHILLIPS: Well, in addition to Benjamins, hopefully get a lot more love. Pastor Warren Beemer, very admirable what you did. Thank you so much for telling us the story.

BEEMER: Praise the lord. PHILLIPS: Well, we're going to definitely follow this story for you. Child Protective Services in Houston is now investigating allegations that the adoptive mother abandoned those children. She faces a court hearing on August 26. We're going to keep you posted.