PERU — His Hands Support Ministries volunteers travel all over the world to find poor children who need financial help to go to school or buy the uniforms and books needed to attend school in their countries, according to ministry board member Marilee Colpitts.

The charitable organization is run by volunteers because its members want the money coming in to go to the children and not toward the running of the ministry itself, Colpitts said. Even the volunteers’ yearly trips to villages in Africa, Mexico, and Guatemala to get updates on sponsored children or those needing sponsorship are paid for by the volunteers.

The organization got its start in 2003 when Philip Charles and his wife, Jamie, and their daughter went to Haiti on a church building construction mission with other church members. While they were there the Charleses witnessed the extreme poverty of the children in the area and decided that they had to help.

When they asked the pastor in Haiti for the names of children who needed financial help to attend school, they were “overwhelmed” when they received a list of 57 names.

At the time Jamie Charles was home-schooling their children and she wasn’t even sure she knew 57 people who would serve as sponsors for the children.

“(But) when you submit to God and say, ‘OK, God, lead us,’ you never know where he’s going to take you,” Philip Charles said.

So, with the help of the people from local churches and communities, the ministry now has nine board members and it is sponsoring children in 13 countries.

In each country the organization works “alongside with what (the church or school) is already doing; we don’t create a program,” Philip Charles said. And that’s why in countries like India the ministry’s funds go toward feeding the children during their after-school program.

“We’re just bringing in the support and it helps them (run their program) better and on a larger scale,” he said.

To learn more about His Hands Support Ministries and how to sponsor a child, visit the website at www.hishandssupportministries.org, call 434-227-1944, or stop by their office at 1066 Auburn Road in Peru.

mhutchinson@sunmediagroup.net

Members of His Hands Support Ministries were joined by pastors of local churches and River Valley Chamber of Commerce members at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday. Third from left are ministry board members Wanda Meisner, Philip Charles and Marilee Colpitts. (Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times)