Metro Ministry Denied Haitian Orphans, For Now

By Jay Black

(WSB Radio) A Metro Atlanta mission group, hoping to bring orphans eligible for adaption back to Georgia, returns empty-handed.

A private jet carrying members of God's Plumbline Ministry of Marietta left Gwinnett County's Briscoe Field Friday to take doctors, medicine, and food to the victims in Haiti's earthquake zone.

"They went in and started saving lives immediately," said Sheila Lynch with God's Plumbline Ministries. "There was no red tape at all."

But the Haitian government would not allow the group to take back the orphans because they were flying out on a private jet, donated by Kids-R-Kids of Duluth. The mission said the Haitians won't allow kids to leave on non-military or governmental planes without proper U.N. paperwork.

"I get it that they're trying to protect the children," said Lynch. "But from my perspective it was really heartbreaking."

Lynch believes the U.N. is worried about the risk of child-trafficking and is clamping down on adoptions.

However, the 22 orphans were picked up by Heartline Ministries, the the international adoption agency God's Pumbline is working with, and flown back to Orlando.

Lynch says she can make another trip to Haiti to pick up more orphans as long as she brings the adoptive parents and the proper papers.

"If I can bring their (adoptive) parent with with me, then I can release them into their parents," she said after their plane landed in Lawrenceville Friday night.

She hopes to bring back five or six as early as Tuesday.