God's law first?

In 2003, Lisa Miller broke up with her lesbian partner, Janet Jenkins, renounced homosexuality and became a Mennonite. When a custody battle over Miller's biological daughter ensued, Miller and the girl disappeared.

Mennonite pastors and other faith-based supporters may have helped hide the two in Nicaragua and are now coming to the aid of one who the FBI says helped Miller.

"God's Holy Law never recognizes a gay marriage," said Pablo Yoder, a Mennonite pastor in Nicaragua. "Thus, the Nicaraguan Brotherhood felt it right and good to help Lisa not only free herself from the so called civil marriage and lesbian lifestyle, but especially to protect her 9-year-old daughter from being abducted and handed over to an active lesbian and a whole-hearted activist."

In 2000, Miller and Jenkins traveled from Virginia to Vermont to obtain a civil union. Two years later, Miller gave birth to the Isabella in Virginia through artificial insemination. The women split in 2003 when Miller renounced her homosexuality and became a Baptist, then a Mennonite. Miller filed a request in Vermont for the civil union to be dissolved and she was granted temporary custody on the condition that Jenkins still had visitation rights.

However, according to ABC.com, Miller's attorneys claimed in court documents that Isabella would undergo "trauma" because of Jenkins' "different religious beliefs."

"[Isabella] knows that Ms. Jenkins' choice to continue to live a homosexual lifestyle is a sin," ABC quoted Miller as saying in the court documents. "Ms. Jenkins does not share these beliefs."

"Jenkins has testified repeatedly that she'd leave religious decisions to Ms. Miller to the greatest extent possible," Sarah Star, Jenkins' attorney, told ABC.com. "Meaning that the obvious stumbling block is Ms. Jenkins is gay and she [Miller] won't personally teach her daughter that [Jenkins is] going to hell."

Miller filed another suit in Virginia court based on the "Marriage Affirmation Act," which declares civil unions and other agreements "purporting to bestow the privileges and obligations of marriage" between persons of the same sex to be unenforceable in Virginia, where marriage is limited to a union between one man and one woman. The Virginia Court of Appeals ruled it did not have jurisdiction in the case, and Miller's appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court was denied.

The ACLU argued in favor of Jenkins and a Vermont judge decided in 2009 to award sole custody to Jenkins. That's when Miller and Isabella disappeared.

The FBI revealed in April that it had arrested missionary Timothy David "Timo" Miller in Alexandria, Va., and charged him with abetting an international kidnapping by helping arrange travel and lodging for the two. He is awaiting trial. According to the FBI, Timo Miller - no relation to Lisa Miller - arranged to fly Miller and her daughter from Canada to Augusto C. Sandino International Airport in Managua. Timo Miller has pleaded not guilty and is free on $25,000 bail, awaiting trial. His lawyers did not return requests for comment.

"Tim believes there is a higher law than the laws of any country that all people, including himself, are accountable to," said Loyal Martin, a friend of Timo Miller's from Philadelphia, N.Y.

In an April 1 affidavit, FBI agent Dana Kaegel noted various religious groups and people may be involved in some fashion with Lisa Miller. Yoder, who works in the remote village of Waslala, 161 miles from Managua, told The Associated Press Miller celebrated her daughter's birthday in his house last year. He wouldn't say more.

"We want to remain silent because we do not know whether it would cause [Timo Miller] problems," Yoder said. "The moment may arrive when we are going to want to talk, when we deem it necessary to tell Nicaragua the true story."

Nicaraguan police haven't questioned Yoder and other members of his church, he said in an interview last month.

"They know we are not involved in this matter," said Yoder, who likens the help given to Lisa Miller to aid Mennonite and Quaker abolitionists gave runaway slaves.

Richard Huber, of Myerstown, Pa., a friend of Timo Miller's who agreed to assume custody of him after his first court appearance, sees Timo Miller's actions as faith-based.

"Choosing to heed God's law over man's would be an accurate way of putting it," he said in an email message.

Sarah Star, Jenkins' lawyer, told the FBI she got a call in June 2010 from an unidentified source who told her that Lisa Miller and the girl had stayed in a beach house in coastal San Juan del Sur, about 68 miles south of Managua.

The house is owned by Philip Zodhiates, the father of Liberty University Law School administrative assistant Victoria Hyden, according to the FBI. Jenkins' attorney, Sarah Star, told the FBI that the caller told her Zodhiates had asked his daughter to put out a request for supplies for Lisa Miller.

An affiliate of the university, conservative Christian law firm Liberty Counsel, represented Miller in her court case in Vermont over custody of the girl. Law school dean Mathew Staver, who leads Liberty Counsel, said Zodhiates isn't affiliated with either.

"From our perspective, she just dropped off the face of the Earth. We haven't heard from her or from anyone who said they've heard from her," Staver said of Lisa Miller.

Miller, 42, is wanted by the FBI and Interpol, which recently requested the help of Nicaraguan police in the search. U.S. Embassy officials in Nicaragua said they don't know where she is.

Timo Miller, meanwhile, awaits trial on the abetting count, which could send him to prison for three years. For now, he and his wife and their four children are staying in Pennsylvania.

"When Isabella was about 18 months old, Lisa Miller realized the emptiness of her lesbian lifestyle, and her mother's instinct alerted her to the danger that lifestyle posed for her young daughter. She chose to leave that lifestyle, repented of her immoral ways, and began a new life," according to the Timothy Miller Family Support Network's website.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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