April 18, 2019 - Three U.S. citizens held in Laos since last week on suspicion of disseminating bibles and Christian material without government approval have been released and deported to neighboring Thailand on Thursday, their organization told RFA’s Lao Service.

The volunteers for the Wyoming-based Vision Beyond Borders--identified only by their given names, Wayne, Autumn and Joseph--were picked up by police in a scenic corner of northern Laos’ Luang Namtha province on April 8, after handing out religious materials to villagers, a policeman and a witness told RFA.

The three had their passports seized and were being kept in a guesthouse in the provincial capital of Luang Namtha, 60 kms (36 miles) from where they were arrested.

“We have just received word that Wayne, Autumn, and Joseph, our volunteers who were detained in Laos from April 8, have been deported and crossed the border into Thailand a few minutes ago,” Eric Blievernicht, operations manager of Vision Beyond Borders, told RFA by e-mail.

“Our prayers for their release and that they might be home for Easter are being answered,” he wrote.

Details on their route out of Laos, their whereabouts in Thailand, and their arrangements for returning to the United States were not immediately available. Easter falls on Sunday, April 21.

The detention of the three, who were able to move about the guesthouse and surrounding village, played out as Laos observed the traditional New Year holiday and government offices were closed, slowing down negotiations on their fate.

Speaking to RFA on Tuesday, a police officer from Sing district said the three “didn’t get approval from the relevant departments. Their activity of disseminating religion was wrong.”

“Usually this kind of activity must go through many steps to get approval. You can’t do whatever you want,” said the officer.

The Casper, Wyoming-based Vision Beyond Borders says on its website that it has “carried over 1 million Bibles and 15,000 hand-wind tape players containing the Gospel into closed countries."

"With donors' support, we have also provided for over 800 children (and) nearly 200 native pastors in Gospel-resistant nations," said the group. It also has administered humanitarian aid and medical care to refugees from Burma, Syria, and Iraq, and provides vegetable seed packets to poor villages.

While the constitution of Communist-run Laos technically protects freedom of religion, conflicts between Christians and local authorities often flare up because authorities in the traditionally Buddhist nation consider Christianity a “foreign religion.”

In December, seven Lao Christians were arrested for attending an ‘illegal’ church service. They were later allowed to return home.

In a 2017 report, the U.S. State Department said that Lao local authorities often arrested or detained members of minority religions during the year, with a district-level official in Houaphan province expelling 26 Hmong Christians from their village, advising them they could return only if they renounced their faith.

Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Written in English by Paul Eckert.