Cap-Haitien , Haiti ( CNN ) -- The Christian Motorcyclists Association came to Haiti to distribute motorcycles to pastors . Instead , angry Haitians , some of them on motorbikes , ended up attacking the 11 American missionaries when they tried to flee this city aboard a big , yellow bus . `` We almost made it out of town , '' team member Kerry Gibson told CNN in a phone call after his team survived the attack unharmed . Until Wednesday morning , Gibson and his fellow volunteers had been holed up in a hotel on a hilltop overlooking Cap-Haitien , after demonstrators put up networks of barricades through the streets and began attacking the bases of United Nations peacekeepers with rocks , bottles and petrol bombs . The demonstrators have accused peacekeepers of starting the cholera outbreak . The motorcyclist team is part of an American organization that has hundreds of branches across the country . One of its goals , Gibson said , is to donate motorcycles to Christian leaders . `` We put wheels under indigenous local pastors , '' Gibson explained . `` We were presenting seven here in Cap-Haitien . Obviously , that wo n't happen now . '' Given the violence that has led to the death of at least one protester , the team decided Wednesday to cut their trip to Haiti short by a week . A Haitian pastor informed Gibson that the road out of town was open , so the missionaries climbed aboard a commercial bus and tried to make it into nearby Dominican Republic . But on the outskirts of Cap-Haitien , the bus suddenly ran into trouble . `` We saw one guy with a machete raised up and he 's running and yelling and screaming and pointing up ahead . We suspect they put a blockade up in front of us . That 's when we stopped and they busted out the glass on the door , '' Gibson recalled . `` Our driver , he was like a NASCAR driver . He started backing up , '' Gibson said . `` But they put out two burned-out cars on the road in an effort to block us . '' Gibson said protesters began hurling rocks at the bus and smashed the windshield . The bus was incapacitated and started spraying oil . At some point , demonstrators dragged a Haitian employee of the bus company out of the vehicle and began beating him . Gibson said the driver then maneuvered the bus onto the sidewalk and lurched the vehicle forward toward the gate of a nearby U.N. peacekeeping base . `` I feel like God protected us , '' Gibson said . `` Just the fact that the bus stopped , died right in front of the U.N. compound , is confirmation that he 's looking out for us . '' Peacekeepers from Chile opened the gate and ushered the bus and its passengers inside the compound . The 11 CMA representatives were preparing to spend the night with the Chilean military and pondering their next step for escaping Cap-Haitien . Gibson insisted that , throughout the adrenaline-packed attack on the bus , he never felt he was in danger . The man who was dragged off the bus escaped without serious injury , Gibson said . `` Of course it 's a nerve-wracking situation , but I never got the impression that there was any real effort to do physical harm to us . '' Asked what he planned to do Thursday , he said , `` Pray a lot . '' Journalist Dmitri Fourcand contributed to this report .
` ` We almost made it out of town , '' says Christian sarcastically . Protesters broke the windows of the bus . They made it to the safety of a U.N. refugee camp .