PORT AU PRINCE, HAITI - The group, which mostly includes church members from Idaho, was arrested for reportedly lacking the proper documents as they were taking children aged 2 months to 12 years to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic as part of a "Haitian orphan rescue mission."

The team had traveled to Haiti to help rescue children from one or more orphanages that had been devastated in the 7.0-magnitude earthquake on January 12th, according to an announcement featured in the websites of Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, and Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho.

“The children were being taken to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic where they could be cared for and have their medical and emotional needs attended to,” the churches announced Saturday.

“Our team was falsely arrested today and we are doing everything we can from this end to clear up the misunderstanding that has occurred in Port au Prince,” they added.

Though the spokesman for the group, Laura Silsby, told The Associated Press that they received the children from Haitian pastor Jean Sanbil of the Sharing Jesus Ministries, the ministry spearheading the operation had reported prior to the arrests that its plan was to drive a bus from Santo Domingo, Haiti, into Port au Prince “and gather 100 orphans from the streets and collapsed orphanages, then return to the DR.”

“NLCR is in the process of buying land and building an orphanage, school and church in Magante on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic,” reported New Life Children’s Refuge, which Silsby founded and serves as executive director for.

“Given the urgent needs from this earthquake, God has laid upon our hearts the need to go now versus waiting until the permanent facility is built,” it added.

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