A lay missionary from the Diocese of Upper South Carolina has been released unharmed after he and four nurses were kidnapped on Nov. 23 in Haiti.

Charles Warne, a communicant at Christ Church, Greenville, S.C., was seized outside Port-au-Prince by an armed gang and held captive for 48 hours, the parish rector, the Rev. Robert S. Dannals, told The Living Church.

For more than 20 years Christ Church has supported the ministry of The Episcopal Church in Haiti and has funded the purchase of a 60-acre agricultural station in Cagne in the northeast of the country. The parish also supports a medical clinic, vocational and elementary schools, as well as the ministry of the local parish, Fr. Dannals said.

Mr. Warne’s wife, Elaine, a horticulturalist, was working at the station when he flew out to join her for the Thanksgiving holiday. An engineer by trade, Mr. Warne has assisted the agricultural station with its irrigation and water resources.

A delayed flight into Port-au-Prince caused Mr. Warne and four Haitian nurses from the Boston-based Partners in Health to begin the three-hour trip to Cagne as night fell.

Just outside of the city their car was stopped and Mr. Warne, the nurses and their driver were taken captive by a band of approximately 50 brigands. In an email sent after his release, Mr. Warne described the “harrowing experience” to the Greenville News.

“The 48 hours from start to finish happened so quickly and yet so prolonged when you are held in the scrub bound and blindfolded for the most part,” he wrote. “We were continually moved from one camp to another by foot and blindfolded so that we had no idea where we were. We were herded together -- that is the six captives -- and were allowed minimum communication.”

A ransom of $500,000 was demanded for the release of the captives; however the circumstances of Mr. Warne’s release continue to remain unclear.

On June 7, 2005 the Rt. Rev. Jean-Zache Duracin, Bishop of Haiti wrote to Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold urging The Episcopal Church not send additional short-term volunteers to the island due to the rising tide of lawlessness. “We are all targets, including our visiting mission groups. No one travels safely in Haiti today,” Bishop Duracin said.

The incident will “prompt the vestry” to rewrite its travel guidelines and be as “security conscious as we can,” Fr. Dannals said, adding that he hoped “it doesn’t diminish the work of a lot of Episcopal churches in Haiti” who continue to need the support of their American partners.

(The Rev.) George Conger