In Port-au-prince, Haiti, around a hundred gangs fight for control of the capital city. After the president of Haiti was assassinated in July 2021, the gang fighting worsened, and the entire nation plunged into chaos. Gangs frequently use kidnapping as a way to finance their work. In 2020, nearly 800 people were kidnapped, and in 2021, the number was even higher. In April 2021, the 400 Mawozo gang captured a Catholic priest and nun from France, along with eight others from their commune. The ransom the gang demanded for their release was $1 million. It is unclear whether the ransom was paid, but two weeks after the initial kidnapping, the 400 Mawozo gang had released all the hostages.
Seven months after their April kidnapping—and three months after the president’s assassination—this same gang kidnapped another group of missionaries: seventeen people serving in Haiti with Christian Aid Ministries.
The Kidnapping
It was a Saturday in mid-October, and the morning was sunny, with the temperature a balmy and tropical 70 degrees. In the village of Titanyen, located northwest of Port-au-Prince, seventeen missionaries had their heads bowed in prayer. Those gathered in prayer were six men, six women, and five children. The adults ranged in age from 18 to 48, and the children were ages eight months, 3, 6, 13, and 15. One man was from Ontario, Canada, and the rest were from various American states—Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. They were all missionaries with Christian Aid Ministries (CAM).
CAM has worked in Haiti for over 30 years, and the work they do includes ministering to orphans and widows; supplying medical clinics throughout the country; delivering nutritional products to malnourished children; rebuilding homes destroyed by earthquakes; offering biblical-based leadership training to teachers and pastors; and paying wages to Haitian workers improving their communities through repairing roads, clearing canals, and laying water lines.
The missionaries were gathered outside, and they prayed for safety and protection. They planned to drive to an orphanage in the small village of Ganthier, located around 25 miles away, and they would be heading through areas known for gang activity. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world—one out of every two Haitians lives below the poverty line, three out of every four don’t have clean water, and one out of every four can’t read. These missionaries serving with Christian Aid Ministries in Haiti were there with one goal in mind: to share Jesus’ transformative love with the Haitian people.
The drive to the orphanage was mostly uneventful, and the missionaries arrived about an hour after they left CAM’s base in Titanyen. The missionaries spent three hours with the children at the orphanage, playing soccer and other games, and left around one o’clock after a time of fellowship and a fried chicken dinner. The trouble began on the way home. A few miles west of the orphanage, the road was blocked by an ambulance and a truck laid crossways across the road. Knowing that this stretch of road is known for gang activity, the driver did not want to stop, so he yanked the steering wheel to the side, making a tight U-turn, and headed back in the direction of the orphanage. In the rearview mirror, the driver saw a small white Ford pickup with gunmen in the back racing towards them. These armed men demanded that they follow them, so the driver turned back toward the roadblock. The pickup diverted the van off the main road and down a bumpy trail. The armed men stopped the van again, yanked the driver out of the van, roughed him up, and forced him into one of the other vehicles. The other missionaries were afraid they’d never see him again. One of the armed men got into the driver’s seat, slammed his foot on the accelerator, and sped recklessly over the pothole-riddled road, trying to keep up with the pickup truck. During this time, one of the missionaries shared his location in a text thread with over two hundred people. Another one texted CAM’s Haiti Country Director: “Please pray, the gang has taken us. We’re being kidnapped.”
The dirt road dead-ended in a circular clearing, and the missionaries in the van saw a shack to their left and a house to their right. The ambulance that had blocked the road and another SUV pulled into the clearing, and gang members with assault rifles poured out of the vehicles. The gang members ordered the missionaries out of the van and took everyone’s phones and cash. The gang members brought out the driver and stood all seventeen missionaries in a line against the wall of the house that the gang members called “The Devil’s House.” The hostages feared that they were going to be executed by the gang. Despite their trepidation, they prayed and repeatedly sang the song The Angel of the Lord, based on Psalm 34, verses 7 and 8:
“The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.”
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“AMID THE STRESS AND FEAR, THEY SOUGHT PEACE THROUGH PRAYER AND SONG.”
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The gang members yelled at them to stop singing, but the missionaries continued anyway. After taking everyone’s shoes, the gang ordered the missionaries towards the shack. This concrete shack had a porch and two rooms; both rooms were already filled with hostages, so the gang members removed two Haitian hostages from one of the rooms to make room for the missionaries. The seventeen walked barefoot into the now-empty room: it was windowless and small—roughly ten feet wide by twelve feet long—and they crammed next to one another to fit inside. After they got in, the guards boarded the door shut. Mosquitoes whined around their heads, slipping in through cracks in the door, and fire ants crawled over their bare feet. It was a sweltering 90 degrees outside, and it felt just as hot crammed inside the small room. As their eyes adjusted to the darkened room, the missionaries noticed the concrete walls were pockmarked with bullet holes and splattered with blood. The children cried, everyone’s hearts pounded against their chests, and adrenaline-trigged sweat dripped down their bodies. Amid this stress and fear, the missionaries sought peace through prayer and song. In a testimony given to his home church in Wisconsin, one missionary said, “The acoustics were pretty good [in that room], so we sat there and sang. It was encouraging to sing together.”
That evening the leader of the gang had one of the missionaries call CAM’s Haiti Country Director. After he confirmed to the Country Director that they were all safe, the leader grabbed the phone from the missionary and spoke to the Country Director directly.
The gang leader said, “Everybody is in my hand, and I’m in control. I have them all. They’re all in my hand… I need one million dollars for each, or I kill them all.”
The Country Director was shocked by this number: seventeen million dollars to free everyone. CAM has a no-ransom policy, and he knew that they would not pay the ransom. So, the Country Director calmly replied, "We're missionaries. We're here working for God. We're not going to give you money. You got the wrong people — these people are children of God."
The gang leader screamed back, "You don't talk. You're not in a position to talk. I do the talking—the money or they die!" And then he hung up the phone.
Immediately the US government got involved with the hostage situation, and they began working with the Haitian authorities and CAM on a plan to free the hostage. They realized that the missionaries had been captured by the 400 Mawozo gang, the same gang that had kidnapped ten Catholic missionaries earlier that year. The news spread around the world, and phone calls and e-mails poured into Christian Aid Ministry's headquarters in Holmes County, Ohio. The staff there began holding twice-daily conference calls via phone with the family members, and they brought in Christian counselors with experience in traumatic situations.
Meanwhile, back in Haiti, the 400 Mawozo gang pressed harder for the ransom money. Five days after he kidnapped the seventeen missionaries, the gang leader released a video on social media where he said, "I swear by thunder if I don't get what I'm asking for, I will put a bullet in the heads of these Americans."
The same day that the gang leader released his life-threatening message, the family members of the hostages released this life-affirming message:
Dear Church of Christ around the world,
Thank you for your prayers on behalf of our family members who are being held hostage in Haiti.
God has given our loved ones the unique opportunity to live out our Lord's command to, "love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you" (Matthew 5:44). God invites us to call upon His name in the day of trouble. (Psalm 50:15) We thank Him that He is God and ask Him to hear our prayers and bring our families home. We also pray that the light of God's love might shine out into the darkness of sin, and that the gang members might be freed from their bondage to sin and experience freedom in Jesus Christ.
Thank you, brothers and sisters in Christ, and PLEASE keep praying!
Day to Day Life
The missionaries struggled with unclean water, insect bites, infections, boredom, spiritual distress, terror, and disagreements on whether to escape or remain captive. Yet, amidst these tribulations, they created a daily rhythm centered around living out their faith. They began their days with prayers and singing, which would sometimes last until noon. At one pm every day, they prayed for deliverance. And in the evening, they ended the day with singing and prayers.
The one missionary who spoke the most Creole preached the Gospel every night to the guards, they all invited the guards to have church with them on Sundays, shared Bible verses with one another from memory, and—through it all— the group continued to sing. According to one missionary, the songs they sang the most included There is a God [Beyond the Azure Blue], One More Miracle, Come Bless the Lord, We've Got the Power, and Unto Thee O Lord.
The gang did look after the missionaries. They allowed them time outside, provided fresh coconuts and mango for them, brought fans so they could cool off, and ensured that they had access to hygiene products. They did not physically abuse the missionaries and paid particular attention to the children's health. But all of this was done in a cold and calculating way. In their eyes, taking care of the missionaries was no different than taking care of a business asset—they wanted a good return on investment, so why would they risk someone dying and losing a million dollars?
One of the missionaries shared about the behavior of the gang members:
“Those men made no bones about it that they serve Satan… there was a lot of smoking and lots of drugs. [One of the gang members] would sell cigarettes and cocaine to the guards. Whenever the battery on the radio would stand for it, the guards would listen to terrible music… women would come around that were obviously up to no good. There was also a lot of cursing. The battle between light and darkness was very obvious at that place.”
After ten days at the first location, the gang moved the seventeen missionaries to a new location, spooked by news they heard over their radio of the US military coming to Haiti. After three-and-a-half weeks at the new location, the gang moved them back to their first location: the small concrete shack. Not long after bringing the missionaries back to the shack, they released two of them—a husband and wife. The gang released them because they didn't have the medical supplies they needed to care for the husband. In addition, they may have feared reprisal from the US government if he died as a hostage.
Four days after two of the missionaries were freed, the remaining fifteen celebrated Thanksgiving. The guards gave them Haitian stew, and the change of meal from the regular rice and beans was appreciated, but their homesickness was particularly sharp this day. Back in the US and Canada, families of the hostages also yearned to have their loved ones back home at the supper table. It had been over a month since their loved ones had been kidnapped. They struggled with feeling helpless, yet they continued to pray. One family member shared, "…although I really can't do anything from here for our loved ones, I can pray, and God can take my petition, and thousands more like mine and do BIG things… Hallelujah!"
During this time, those working for the release of the hostages told CAM that an anonymous party had offered to pay ransom. CAM was under pressure to put money on the table to negotiate with the gang for the release of the hostages. As CAM management—in light of a no-ransom policy—agonized over the decision of whether or not to pay ransom, this offer came. With prayerful consideration, CAM agreed to hand negotiations over to others, agreeing that ransom funds from the anonymous donor would be offered.
On the first Sunday of December, the gang released three more missionaries. This was a bittersweet moment for one of the missionaries who had been released: she was reunited with her husband, but four of her children were still being held hostage.
Even though a ransom was paid before these three missionaries were released, the gang didn't let the remaining twelve hostages go. The hostages were not aware of any of this — they were busy planning their escape.
The Escape
During Sunday services and meeting times, the group discussed escape and deliverance. In a journal that he kept during this time (written with a pen on pieces of paper towel), one of the missionaries wrote the following concerning the subject:
We had church this morning, but with food, liberty, and stories as our topics. Stories of people being delivered and how God delivered us. Another topic we discussed was faith. How do faith and works work together? How do our wants and wishes mesh with what God wants for us? We discussed that topic a lot. Is faith just believing God can do something, and then we sit back and wait? Or is it believing that God will do something and then we react because we believe God is going to have our backs? Do we step out? Are we the ones to make the first move? A lot of that discussion had discussions of escape along with it. We gave God a lot of good ideas on how to deliver us.
Of the twelve who remained—a married couple, four single men, two single women, and four children—the decision on whether to attempt an escape weighed heavily on them. They prayed constantly for discernment.
The remaining twelve hostages finally came to an agreement, and they decided to escape in the middle of the night. The sunset on the eve of their escape attempt was stunning, and a rich array of colors transformed the sky into a fiery blaze. As the missionaries watched the sunlight fade into twilight, they prayed and sang Is that the Lights of Home?
The group had planned to escape at one that morning, but it took nearly two hours until the guards settled down. According to one hostage, "The guards were super worked up. They were smoking and jamming out on their radios and drinking and getting up just random times and walking around, and it just didn't look like they were ever going to settle down and give us an actual good 10-15 minutes to make an attempt at the back door."
Finally, around 3 am, the group opened the door into the moonlit yard. The guards were distracted, playing with their phones and not paying attention to the shack. The generator rumbling nearby covered the sounds of their footfalls as they stepped over briars and brambles and crept to the edge of the brush. With bags of water in their pockets, one of the women carrying the baby, and one of the men shouldering the toddler, the ten missionaries on foot walked for miles, moving as fast as they could away from the gang. They walked through the underbrush, past barking dogs, across a sleepy village, and between cacti with sharpened barbs that stung their feet and ankles. Finally, they heard cars from a distant highway and soon reached a village nearby.
Not long after daybreak, the two missionaries who spoke the most Creole found a Haitian man willing to help them. He let them use his phone, and they called CAM's Haitian Country Director. The missionary told the Country Director that they had all escaped, and he said, "The Lord delivered us."
After two months of captivity, they were finally free.
After the missionaries arrived back safe in Canada and the US, they continued to pray for the people of Haiti, even the members of the 400 Mawozo gang who had kidnapped them and held them hostage. In their press release, Christian Aid Ministries included a specific message to the kidnappers:
We do not know all of the challenges you face. We do believe that violence and oppression of others can never be justified. You caused our hostages and their families a lot of suffering. However, Jesus taught us by word and by His own example that the power of forgiving love is stronger than the hate of violent force. Therefore, we extend forgiveness to you. The hostages told you plainly how you can also be forgiven by God, if you repent. Our desire is that you and all who hear or read this statement may come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Savior, the Son of God, and the Prince of Peace. Jesus died for all so that all can be saved. //
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Christian Aid Ministries offers various ways for supporters to help meet physical and spiritual needs. You can make a cash contribution, gift assets or commodities, donate products, assemble, and donate kits or clothing packs, or buy a book from CAM's subsidiary, TGS International. Feel free to contact CAM to receive their free monthly newsletter.
Special thanks to Weston Showalter at Christian Aid Ministries for help with this article, Plain News for transcribing many of the missionaries' testimonies, and Strength to Strength for their in-depth interview with one of the missionaries.
Christian Aid Ministries
a | PO Box 360, Berlin, OH 44610
p | 330-893-2428
e | camweb@camoh.org
w | christianaidministries.org
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Nic Stoltzfus is the editorial manager at Plain Values magazine. This month, he is getting married at the Nicholas Stoltzfus Homestead in Reading, Pennsylvania. He and his new bride Jen enjoy gardening, canning, and cooking (especially food from other countries!). He is currently working on a novel about the immigrant Stoltzfus family.