Do it for the children

A Republican ex-congress critter showed up in Poland with sixty (60!) Ukranian children he claimed were orphans!

Let’s meet him!

[Matt Shea], who represented Spokane Valley in the state House for 12 years, opted not to seek reelection in 2020, after the House-commissioned report found he had planned and participated in domestic terrorism against the United Stateswith his involvement in a trio of standoffs against the government

That report alleged that Shea assisted “in the planning and preparation” of the 2016 armed takeover at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Eastern Oregon. It also examined Shea’s travel to the 2014 armed standoff in Bunkerville, Nevada, and a 2015 conflict in Bonner County, Idaho…

…Shea, who wants to create a 51st state in Eastern Washington, once distributed a four-page outline called “Biblical Basis for War” and has long been linked to Christian extremist movements. Shea’s wife, Viktoriya, was born in Ukraine.

Shea, a lawyer, also became pastor of Covenant Church of Spokane in 2020. But he was “let go” after less than a year, the church’s prior pastor told The Spokesman-Review. He then started his own congregation, On Fire Ministries, where he is senior pastor.

So Shea shows up with an army of white kids, I guess people have question!

Shea has said his group helped rescue 62 children and their two adult caregivers from an orphanage in Mariupol, the city in southeastern Ukraine that has been bombarded by Russian forces.

So who is his “group?”

Speaking on a Polish television show, “Idź Pod Prąd,” Shea said he was working with a Texas group called Loving Families and Homes for Orphans (he also called the group Loving Homes and Families for Orphans).

“It is a hosting organization that hosts Ukrainian orphans in America with Ukrainian families with the intent that ultimately that ends in adoption,” Shea said on the show. “It’s been doing this hosting program for several years.”

Loving Families and Homes for Orphans appears to have a website, but it is nonfunctional.

The group, based in Fort Worth, registered with the Texas secretary of state in 2018. No such group is registered as an adoption agency with the Texas Department of Health and Human Services. The group is also not registered with the Intercountry Adoption Accreditation and Maintenance Entity, the group that oversees American agencies involved in international adoption.

A nonprofit group called Loving Families and Homes for Orphans was registered in Florida just one month ago. It lists its purpose as: “To provide loving and caring homes and families for the orphans from other countries for a short time period.”

Shea says he is trying to help bring these Ukrainian orphans in the U.S. for adoption, which as we know  shouldn’t happen during a war, as families get separated. It’s sometimes thought of as trafficking.

Sounds legit. So a white Xristian separatist representing a flakey untraceable organization shows up in Poland with 60+ kids and he wants to bring said white kids into the States for adoption, what could go wrong?

An aide to the mayor of the Polish town said the whole thing felt off:

“I asked him many times, ‘What are you going to do with these children?’ and he told me that it’s not my business…I got the feeling in my gut that something’s wrong with this guy; he didn’t want to tell me his last name.”

Old habits die hard, I guess.