U.S. House honors American missionaries murdered in Haiti

The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday honored the Missouri missionary couple killed in May while working in Haiti. Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., gave a short speech on the House floor, calling the missionaries steadfast disciples of Christ and expressing sorrow for their deaths.

Who were the missionaries? Davy Lloyd, 23, and Natalie Lloyd, 21, were serving at a mission in Haiti as members of the Oklahoma-based ministry Missions in Haiti, Inc. While the Lloyds were leaving a church in Port-au-Prince on May 23, gang members ambushed, shot, and killed them. The mission’s director, Jude Montis, 47, was also killed.

What else has been done to recognize their deaths? U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., asked President Joe Biden to ensure safe transportation of the bodies of the couple back to the United States. More than 2,000 people attended the couple’s visitation in early June, according to Rev. Timothy Laurito, the pastor at Bible Holiness Assembly of God Church in Neosho, Mo., where funeral services were held. The couple’s alma mater, The Ozark Bible Institute & College, announced Monday the Davy & Natalie Lloyd Memorial Scholarship.

Dig deeper: Listen to Jean Marc Brissau, a staff attorney for the Notre Dame Law School Global Human Rights Clinic, explain the latest efforts to disrupt Haitian gangs on The WORLD and Everything in It podcast.