Three Years, No Way Out: A Texas Missionary's Rescue from Haiti to Houston
Most missionary stories end with a sermon. This one ends with a helicopter extraction.
On January 31, Rick and Dianne Ennis waited at the bottom of an escalator at George Bush Intercontinental. The terminal hummed with the usual airport static: notices to board, shuffling travelers. And then into view emerged their son and daughter-in-law, cradling a five-month-old granddaughter they’d never met. “Seeing them on that escalator, I don't take that for granted,” says Dianne. “Every single day. I know it’s a miracle they’re here, but I also know the cost. There's a cost to everything. It's the cost of leaving things behind.”
In 2021, following his call to serve, 19-year-old Zach Ennis was dispatched from Conroe, Texas, to begin Discipleship Training in Port-de-Paix, Haiti. Seven days a week, he spread the Word throughout the country, administering supplies and spiritual counsel. Handing out blankets, handing out food, Zach and his team provided group settings for local teens to gain an understanding of Christianity while also developing their social skills. Not quite fluent in Creole, another counselor, a 22-year Haitian woman named Mica, would translate for him. It didn’t take long for Zach to realize that days spent working alongside her were the ones he treasured the most.
A year later, the two were married. A blend of American and Haitian traditions, the lack of access to even simple decorations made wedding planning difficult. Zach credits Mica’s family for getting creative -- hand-building an altar and live streaming the event on Facebook to allow family back in Texas to take part.
It was a blossoming love story set against the backdrop of harrowing circumstances. A picturesque island, Haiti is a land fallen into the hands of men with automatic rifles. According to the UN, 85% of the country is now gang-controlled, leaving the family to navigate barricaded-streaked roads, strewn corpses, and nightly echoes of gunfire. In one incident, Zach recalls a cop being slaughtered a hundred yards in front of him. Embroiled in the crossfire, he lay concealed, blanket over his head, in the back of a truck for three hours. In another, he recounts an exchange with a gang member who, armed with a hammer, told him, “I’ve killed seventeen people where you’re standing. Why shouldn’t you be number eighteen?”
As chaos pervaded, Zach and Mica, began charting a path back to Texas. They applied for the CHNV Humanitarian Parole Program and various visas. All denied. Then, in December of 2023, all plans were put on hold: Mica was pregnant.
In Port-de-Paix, the nearest hospital was an hour’s drive, sitting at the end of a glorified dirt path. This prompted a move to Saint-Marc, offering the Ennises access to the region’s only private hospital. But this, too, came with its own set of challenges.
Medical services, like everything else in Haiti, can only be paid for with cash. In addition, care will be administered only once the money is in hand. When Mica went into labor, she urgently required a C-section. And as Zach reports it, “The doctors told me, ‘Hey, she needs oxygen for surgery.’ So, I said, ‘Of course, do what you need to do.’ The doctor goes, ‘Great. You just need to pay for the oxygen first.’” Zach recalls that at one point during the operation, he overheard one doctor saying, “You have no idea what you’re doing,” to another holding a scalpel.
But after 40 hours, Niah Ennis was born. She survived. Barely. On the final day in the hospital, a doctor attempted to draw Niah’s blood. A miscalculation left the needle protruding through her elbow.
And what continued around them were local eruptions of violence. “There were gangs closing in on Saint-Marc. On one side, they slaughtered 70 people. A week later, on the other side, they killed something like a hundred,” says Zach.
The situation was no longer tenable, magnified by complications Mica experienced following birth. Hopes dwindling, a Google-search led Zach’s mother, Dianne, to the discovery of “Project Dynamo.”
Founded in 2021, Project Dynamo is a non-profit search and rescue organization. Led by CEO and Houston native, Mario Duarte, Dynamo has conducted operations in many war-torn areas, including Ukraine and Afghanistan, all with the goal of saving American lives. Recently, Dynamo completed nine rescue missions in Tel Aviv, transporting civilians, over 300 so far, across the Allenby Bridge into Jordan, as arcing orbs of missile fire etch the night sky.
It was December 2024 when Dianne clicked “submit” on the organization’s website. Hours later, her phone rang. After assessing the situation, Duarte brought it to the board for authorization. “Then we run through something called ‘courses of action,’” Duarte tells me. “The main concern for us, always, first and foremost, is the safety of the people we help.”
The planning is meticulous, architected by veterans and intelligence personnel. There are legal processes – stamps, paperwork. Volunteer lawyers help cut through the bureaucratic web, expediting Visas and clearing the family’s passage into the United States.
On January 27, Project Dynamo greenlit the recovery mission. That morning, Duarte and two volunteers deployed from Miami en route to Cap-Haïtien. (Months earlier, a Spirit Airlines flight was shot at while attempting to land in Port-au-Prince, grounding all American travel to the capital.)
Arriving in Haiti, intelligence gathering provided reports of gunfire near Saint-Marc. “For the most part, we had already determined that it's not necessarily safe, but we're still going anyway,” says Duarte. The hour flight to Saint-Marc was taken aboard an Agusta 109 helicopter, hugging the coastline to avoid detection.
The goal: on the ground, in and out, ten minutes. Landing in a tight field, Dynamo’s priority was the health of the family. The team of combat veterans, all trained in Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC), conducted checkups efficiently, every few moments scanning for threats within the trees. Nine minutes elapsed. But for a family who’d waited years, it felt like an eternity.
And then, a last-minute snag: compromising the speed of the A109 is a strict weight allowance. “We dumped a couple hundred pounds of gear we brought. It’s all emergency gear that’s going to serve them over there,” says Duarte. Zach adds, “At one point, I saw the Dynamo guys take their Bibles out of their bags, then dump all their stuff out, then put the Bibles back in.” The Ennises carried one backpack and diaper bag as the helicopter rose above the treetops, blades slicing the coastal air, watching the jungle fall away beneath.
They fought turbulence back to Cap-Haïtien. Then, because diplomatic tensions with the Dominican Republic prevented a hop across the border, the evacuees cleared customs in a third Caribbean country. Back in the Woodlands, Dianne Ennis had no contact with anyone for the entirety of these 13 hours. She sat by the phone, waiting, waiting, until finally, her prayers were answered: her son called; they’d landed in the Dominican Republic.
In Santo Domingo ensued two days of interviews at the Embassy, health checks, FaceTimes, more diplomatic hurdles. Night one, Zach and Mica realized they didn’t even have a toothbrush.
And finally, on January 31, the return to George Bush Intercontinental. Along the concourse, down the escalator, back into their family’s arms on US soil. “It’s still hard to talk about,” says Dianne. “To go to sleep having to pray: ‘Lord, don't let gunfire be by my children.’ That night was the first night I didn't have to pray.”
The transition back to American life hasn’t been seamless. Soon after they returned to Conroe, Rick Ennis asked Mica what she wanted to eat. “I don’t even know what there is,” Mica responded. Every place, every trip has been a new experience. Zach jokes Mica is yet to grasp the principal function of a Buc-ee’s.
There’s also a lingering trauma. The weight of their sacrifice measured in scar tissue. Mica developed a hernia from the C-section, and Zach sustained a jawbone infection, resulting in the removal of 10 teeth.
And yet, with everything lost, no bitterness remains. “My heart is to serve. And I could serve every day the rest of my life and not get paid, and I’d be completely happy,” Zach says. When asked if he’d ever return to Haiti, his answer is an immediate “yes.” It’s another layer of resilience in Zach’s story, in Mica’s, Dianne’s, Project Dynamo’s. It seems the world is dotted with these selfless, impressive people, able to find family in its most hopeless places.