BOISE -- After spending more than a month in a Haitian jail, Charisa Coulter is finally home, welcomed by dozens of friends and family.
Her flight from Florida arrived at the Boise Airport around 8:30 p.m. Saturday.
With Charisa coming home, nine of the 10 are back in the arms of family. To welcome her home, five of the six Idahoans who returned a few weeks ago were at the airport to show their support.
Charisa says she's happy to be home but sad to have left behind her friend, Laura Silsby.
Coulter and Silsby were among 10 Baptist missionaries, mostly from Idaho, who were detained Jan. 29 trying to take 33 children out of Haiti after a devastating earthquake.
“Please continue to pray for Laura,” said Charisa's father, Mel Coulter. “Even as we gather here in the freedom of this place, she doesn’t know that freedom because she’s still in a Haitian jail.”
Charisa Coulter related her last words to Laura Silsby.
“I told her I loved her and that it was just a matter of time before she was here,” she said.
Coulter said she wasn’t concerned that it took her so long to get back after the eight others were released.
“That’s the way the system is,” she said. “We just have to be patient and let them work it out.”
Charisa said she was in good health and that she had “got rid of all (her) parasites.”
When asked for her take on the situation in Haiti, Coulter said. "It’s all in God’s hands. I don’t know. We’re just going to sit back and we’re going to let him do his job and when he will she’ll be back.”
Coulter said she wouldn’t speculate on when Silsby might be released.
KTVB was able to talk to all of the other missionaries tonight. None of them are ready to tell their stories right now, but they said it's incredible.
Kim Barton, Laura Silsby's sister, gave KTVB a statement she had prepared. It reads in part:
“We are so very happy to have Charisa home! ... Please continue to pray for my sister Laura, while she remains in Haiti waiting for her release. Tonight will be her 43rd night to spend in jail and away from her children and family.”
As for Silsby's fate -- the judge is reviewing the three charges she faces. He could take as much as two more months to decide what to do.
But CNN reports that he wants to make his decision sooner rather than later.
