Tim Peters, Helping Hands Korea, is he telling the whole story?
Tim Peters
Helping Hands, Korea
Is he telling the whole story?
Tim Peters is in the news again, speaking to the House Committee on International Relations, giving interviews about his work to aid North Korean refugees and the underground railroad, and, asking for your donations.
Peters, a.k.a. Tim A. Peters or Timothy Peters, appears as a soft-spoken evangelical Christian pastor from Benton Harbor, Michigan. Perhaps he is. In any case, we urge him to disassociate himself from controversial groups typically characterized as cults. Sex cults, to be precise.
Tim Peters is heavily featured on the pages of the Family Care Foundation (FCF) — an organization with inextricable ties to The Family International.
Tim Peters is on record proudly associating himself with The Family International (TFI), which call themselves "an International Christian fellowship," presenting themselves as a loose-knit group of independent missionaries. A peek beneath the veneer will reveal that The Family—formerly known as The Children of God—is anything but. It is a high-control group, typically referred to as a "sex cult," with a history of running prostitution rings and trafficking children. To the best of our knowledge, Tim Peters has to date, not renounced or distanced himself from them publicly (see "For the record" below).
Does Tim Peters realize the incredible irony of running a "Freedom Railroad" while still tied to The Family—a group which is responsible for human rights violations re. breaking up families and witholding contact; a group that has been documented in court for running its own internal gulags, where its teens were imprisoned for retraining and forced-labor, beaten and deprived of food for days?
Tim Peters, poster boy for freedom? Touting himself as a proponent for social justice and nonviolent resistance, Tim Peters is bringing awareness to political circles—a good thing. But we are obliged to ask this: Is Tim Peters merely/mainly chanelling resources and using existing South Korean government programs once the refugees have arrived; and taking credit as the Caucasian savior of Koreans who don't do much for themselves? One could get that impression from reading the FCF's pages.
According to a TIME magazine article, the operatives working inside China, South Korea and Laos are critical. Apparently the border between the Koreas is impossible to pass—the only smuggling of refugees that can take place is done by fishermen or other very clandestine operations. Could it be that the real heroes of the day—S. Korean relatives and indigenous Chinese Christians—do the real work, but for their own safety must remain in the dark and away from publicity?
While we believe in supporting bona fide charity organizations and do not want any genuine charity work to suffer*, we provide this information because the public has a right to know the facts, in order to make informed personal judgments about where to place their hard-earned money:
- Tim Peters is/was an admitted member of The Family, a notorious cult which ran prostitution rings and promoted & institutionalized child abuse.
- Tim Peters has solicited donations through the Family Care Foundation (FCF)—a front organization which was founded by members of that same cult.
- The FCF in turn proudly features Tim Peters on their own web pages.
- Helping Hands Korea was one of many front organizations created by The Family, under directives to masquerade as NGOs and win converts.
You decide the following—we urge you to find the answers for yourselves. If you are new to looking into this topic, we urge you to carefully scrutinize the answers you may get from Tim Peters, the FCF or The Family, as they believe in using deception as a matter of policy, and members of The Family have been found lying in court, under oath.
- Is Helping Hands Korea a pseudonym and front organization of The Family?
- Will you be supporting an abusive cult by giving to Tim Peters?
- Is Tim Peters' humanitarian/charity work tainted—is he recuriting for The Family?
- Has Tim Peters misrepresented himself in order to defraud the public?
- Does Tim Peters tithe to The Family (via the FCF or otherwise)?
- Can the FCF assure you that no portion of your donation to Tim Peters' ministry will end up in the hands of members of The Family?
- Can Tim Peters provide yearly income and expenditure reports that show how your donations are disbursed? (legitimate NGOs will provide this)
- Is Tim Peters really a proponent for social justice and nonviolent resistance? Or does he give stock PR answers to avoid culpability for funding/supporting The Family's harmful practices?