LilMtnCbn
08-20-2004, 05:55 AM
http://www.indystar.com/articles/3/171715-3543-010.html
Abandoned children returned to Texas
By Steve McGonigle and Terri Langford
The Dallas Morning News
August 20, 2004
DALLAS -- Warren Beemer was ministering to children at a putrid orphanage in
Ibadan, Nigeria, when he heard a girl speaking English with a distinct American
accent. Asked where she was from, the girl replied, "Houston."
She then led the youth minister and his companions to a darkened back room
where they found six other children, ages 8 to 16, some with sores and
suffering from malnourishment and malaria.
The children, three of whom were originally from Dallas, said their adoptive
mother had relocated them to Nigeria but then abandoned them almost a year ago.
The children supplied the names of their schools and teachers in Houston, as
well as their church pastor. One teenage girl recited her Social Security
number. When Beemer began singing "The Star-Spangled Banner," the children
chimed in, hands over their hearts.
Beemer, a 34-year-old San Antonio youth minister, said he didn't need any more
convincing. He picked up the phone, called his pastor, John Hagee, and said he
had found seven Texas kids in danger of being lost for good. They had to bring
them home.
Eight days later -- last Friday -- the seven children flew home to Houston.
Their return was arranged by the U.S. State Department after the intervention
of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Sen. John Cornyn, both Texas
Republicans.
The children are now living in Houston foster homes. A court hearing will be
held Aug. 26 in Houston to determine whether their adoptive mother, Mercury
Liggins, will regain custody. No charges have been filed against the
47-year-old woman, who could not be reached for comment.
Hagee, who heads Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, said it is a miracle Beemer
found the children because they could have been sold into slavery.
"One of the (orphanage) workers told us very quietly that if anyone involved in
child trafficking finds out about these children, who have no proof of whom
they are, that they would be gone immediately and never seen again," Beemer
said.
Hagee said, "We feel this was the hand of God leading him there to liberate
those kids."
Child Protective Services, the state agency that approved the adoptions and
provided monthly support payments of $3,600 to Liggins until this spring, is
investigating the story of their remarkable odyssey.
The agency, a part of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services,
said that Liggins was thoroughly screened before being approved for adoption.
Stuart Roy, DeLay's spokesman, said CPS did not know where Liggins' adopted
children were until they were advised by the congressman's office.
All seven children came to CPS because they had been abused or neglected by
family members, said Geoffrey Wool, an agency spokesman.
CPS said Liggins was receiving more than $500 a month for each of the four
Houston children until March, when she notified state officials that a
grandmother in Houston was taking care of the children while she was undergoing
breast cancer treatment in Shreveport, La.
Payments were stopped because the children were no longer in Liggins' care,
Wool said. CPS did not try to verify Liggins' story or find the children
because they had been legally adopted and no allegations of abuse had been
filed, he said.
The oldest of Liggins' adopted children told Beemer that she and the other
children had been living in Houston until their mother withdrew them last year
and took them to Nigeria, the native country of the man she called her husband.
The children told Beemer that their mother left them in the care of the man's
brother, who was kind but abandoned them last October.
Hagee said he was told that Liggins made an arrangement to pay the man to care
for the children but she never made the payments.
"In other words, they were going to sublet the children," he said.
After the children spent two weeks alone, neighbors alerted Nigerian police,
and the children were taken to the orphanage, the Ibadan Women's Center for
Abandoned Children and Remanded Youth, Beemer said.
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
Abandoned children returned to Texas
By Steve McGonigle and Terri Langford
The Dallas Morning News
August 20, 2004
DALLAS -- Warren Beemer was ministering to children at a putrid orphanage in
Ibadan, Nigeria, when he heard a girl speaking English with a distinct American
accent. Asked where she was from, the girl replied, "Houston."
She then led the youth minister and his companions to a darkened back room
where they found six other children, ages 8 to 16, some with sores and
suffering from malnourishment and malaria.
The children, three of whom were originally from Dallas, said their adoptive
mother had relocated them to Nigeria but then abandoned them almost a year ago.
The children supplied the names of their schools and teachers in Houston, as
well as their church pastor. One teenage girl recited her Social Security
number. When Beemer began singing "The Star-Spangled Banner," the children
chimed in, hands over their hearts.
Beemer, a 34-year-old San Antonio youth minister, said he didn't need any more
convincing. He picked up the phone, called his pastor, John Hagee, and said he
had found seven Texas kids in danger of being lost for good. They had to bring
them home.
Eight days later -- last Friday -- the seven children flew home to Houston.
Their return was arranged by the U.S. State Department after the intervention
of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Sen. John Cornyn, both Texas
Republicans.
The children are now living in Houston foster homes. A court hearing will be
held Aug. 26 in Houston to determine whether their adoptive mother, Mercury
Liggins, will regain custody. No charges have been filed against the
47-year-old woman, who could not be reached for comment.
Hagee, who heads Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, said it is a miracle Beemer
found the children because they could have been sold into slavery.
"One of the (orphanage) workers told us very quietly that if anyone involved in
child trafficking finds out about these children, who have no proof of whom
they are, that they would be gone immediately and never seen again," Beemer
said.
Hagee said, "We feel this was the hand of God leading him there to liberate
those kids."
Child Protective Services, the state agency that approved the adoptions and
provided monthly support payments of $3,600 to Liggins until this spring, is
investigating the story of their remarkable odyssey.
The agency, a part of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services,
said that Liggins was thoroughly screened before being approved for adoption.
Stuart Roy, DeLay's spokesman, said CPS did not know where Liggins' adopted
children were until they were advised by the congressman's office.
All seven children came to CPS because they had been abused or neglected by
family members, said Geoffrey Wool, an agency spokesman.
CPS said Liggins was receiving more than $500 a month for each of the four
Houston children until March, when she notified state officials that a
grandmother in Houston was taking care of the children while she was undergoing
breast cancer treatment in Shreveport, La.
Payments were stopped because the children were no longer in Liggins' care,
Wool said. CPS did not try to verify Liggins' story or find the children
because they had been legally adopted and no allegations of abuse had been
filed, he said.
The oldest of Liggins' adopted children told Beemer that she and the other
children had been living in Houston until their mother withdrew them last year
and took them to Nigeria, the native country of the man she called her husband.
The children told Beemer that their mother left them in the care of the man's
brother, who was kind but abandoned them last October.
Hagee said he was told that Liggins made an arrangement to pay the man to care
for the children but she never made the payments.
"In other words, they were going to sublet the children," he said.
After the children spent two weeks alone, neighbors alerted Nigerian police,
and the children were taken to the orphanage, the Ibadan Women's Center for
Abandoned Children and Remanded Youth, Beemer said.
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
