FBI Says Mennonites In Nicaragua Aiding Mother To Avoid Custody Change To Former Lesbian Partner

AP today reports on the international kidnapping investigation by the FBI that is looking for Lisa Miller and her daughter who fled the country after her former same-sex partner, Janet Jenkins, was awarded custody of of the girl.  In 2003, Miller broke up with Jenkins, renounced homosexuality and became a Baptist, and then a Mennonite.  Miller, the birth mother, was originally granted custody, but after she refused to comply with visitation schedules for Jenkins, courts in both Virginia and Vermont granted custody to Jenkins. But Miller had already fled to Central America.  In April, the FBI arrested a Nicaraguan missionary, Timo Miller, and charged him with abetting an international kidnapping by arranging a flight for Lisa Miller and her daughter from Canada to Nicaragua. More than $30,000 has been raised for a Timo Miller defense fund.  Apparently the Mennonite community in Nicaragua is helping hide Lisa Miller and her daughter.  At one point, it appears she stayed at a beach house in Nicaragua owned by the father of an administrative assistant at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University Law School. Liberty Counsel represented Miller in her Vermont court proceedings.  Pablo Yoder, a Mennonite pastor in Nicaragua, said:

[T]he Nicaraguan Brotherhood felt it right and good to help Lisa not only free herself from the so called civil marriage and lesbian lifestyle, but especially to protect her nine year old daughter from being abducted and handed over to an active lesbian and a whole-hearted activist.