Yea, I’d be hiding my children too before I’d let them get chewed up in the steely jaws of the Beast…

Source: The Associated Press

Parents or followers of a jailed evangelist have been hiding children sought by state welfare officials, the state director of human resources said Wednesday.

John Selig said the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries routinely ferries members across the nation to churches in California and elsewhere. The practice and the ministry’s secrecy have stymied officials trying to find as many as 100 children named in court orders allowing the state to take them into protective custody, he said.

“They may have gotten some word that we were about to come in, whether they knew about the court order or not,” Selig told The Associated Press. “They may have just said, ‘Let’s take them somewhere else.’”

Protective orders filed in Arkansas courts carry no weight outside the state, further complicating the effort. Selig said his agency has talked with other states about locating the children. So far, 36 children from the ministry have been taken into custody, six of them from outside Arkansas.

Initially, Arkansas officials took six girls into custody when state police and the FBI raided the ministry’s compound in Fouke on Sept. 20. Another 18 children from passenger vans traveling in Arkansas near the line with Texas were seized Nov. 18. Family members said the ministry wanted to take the children to a park. A total of six other children were taken elsewhere in the state that same day or on Dec. 12.

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