When Texan Zach Ennis moved to Haiti to do missionary work in 2021, he was under no illusions about the political situation in the country. But by the end of 2024, now married and the father of a baby girl facing health complications after an emergency C-section, the situation in the city of Saint-Marc had grown dire.
“The danger was always prevalent and always there, but this past year it has definitely been getting more and more severe,” Ennis said. “Christmas Day, there was a kid right outside the compound that got his head chopped off. Going out into the city, driving over piles of blood, or going out and there’s a dead body in the street — the things we shouldn’t be getting used to became the normal.”
So Ennis’ mother, Dianne, reached out to Project DYNAMO for help.
Founded in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Project DYNAMO brings together American military veterans and veterans of the intelligence services to rescue U.S. nationals from overseas in the “gray space,” where official channels cannot function freely.
“In a perfect world, there shouldn’t be a need for Project DYNAMO, but the simple fact is that the world has become more globalized,” said Mario Duarte, president and CEO of Project DYNAMO and former soldier in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve. “The embassies, as we are seeing firsthand, are not always able, capable or legally allowed to help.”
As a fully donor-funded organization, Project DYNAMO is able to clear bureaucratic hurdles that NGOs, which receive U.S. government funding, cannot.
“We have a smaller chain of command so we can make decisions immediately — ‘OK, we’re gonna go get those people,’” said James Judge, a Coast Guard veteran who acted as team leader in the effort to rescue Ennis, his wife, Mica, and their daughter, Niah.
Despite the limited operations of the U.S. Embassy in Haiti and the closure of the Port au Prince airport, the Project DYNAMO team was able to fly from Miami to a small airport in Cap Haitien. From there, they took a private helicopter into the missionary compound in Saint-Marc and performed a hard extraction. They loaded the family onto a fixed wing aircraft to an undisclosed third country, finally landing in the Dominican Republic.
With the assistance of Sen. Ted Cruz and the government of the Dominican Republic, Project DYNAMO was able to secure safe passage for the Ennis family back to Zach’s home in Conroe, Texas.
If Dianne Ennis had never seen Project DYNAMO mentioned in a Facebook group for missionaries, it’s unclear when she might have met her new granddaughter.
“She’s a gorgeous little princess,” Duarte said of 5-month-old Niah. “We’ve been to different embassies, and everyone wants to be her friend.”
Duarte is proud of the work Project DYNAMO does to rescue people like the Ennis family from war and combat zones.
“There are Americans all over the world,” he said, “and at some point, they need help.”
Visit Project DYNAMO for more information on supporting the organization’s operations.
