Back in July, it was announced that Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard would be headed to El Salvador to spend the foreseeable future serving the less fortunate.
Jill and Derick even took donations from fans to fund their new life, but just a few weeks later, they were back in Arkansas.
Some claimed that life in Central America proved too difficult for the Dillards. Others believed Jill and Derick planned to scam fans out of their cash by accepting donations for work they never intended to complete.
Now, some fans are theorizing that the Dillards assumed that they would be accepted (and partially funded) by the Southern Baptist Church and the International Mission Board, only to be rejected by both due to their lack of qualifications, their families recent scandals, or both.
Several fans (some of whom made donations) have taken to social media to ask the Dillards if their missionary work was ever affiliated with the SBC and IMB.
Not surprisingly, they have yet to receive a response, but Derick has dialed back comments that he made which implied that he and Jill had the full support of both organizations.
“We are so grateful for the support of our church fellowship Cross Church [the largest Southern Baptist church in Arkansas] as we were officially commissioned during the morning service today,” Derick wrote on Instagram last month.
He’s since clarified that the “commission” consisted of a group prayer session for which he and Jill were present, writing:
“Just this past weekend, we were commissioned to the mission field by our home church. The commissioning consisted of our pastor leading the congregation in praying for our family as we work on the mission field.”
Some have gone so far as to claim that the Jill faked her midwife certification as part of a last-ditch effort to be approved for service.
That may seem rather desperate (and it is), but without funding from organizations like the SBC and IMB, Duggars would only be able to permanently relocate to El Salvador at great personal expense (or with a lot of donations from fans).
And unfortunately, it seems Jill and Derick didn’t get the okay before they went ahead and started requesting donations from fans.
Suddenly, that premature return to Arkansas doesn’t seem quite so surprising.