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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.

As a donor you have a right to full disclosure regarding Peters' financial obligations. If Tim Peters is a tithing member of The Family, anywhere between 10% to 14% of his yearly income will go to The Family's leadership. That money is then used for the promotion of controversial doctrines like mastur**ting to Jesus. That money will continue to support leaders who live in hiding to avoid criminal prosecution.

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?

*For the record, Tim Peters is aware of this page—his daughter has been online discussing this, but to date Tim Peters refuses to retract his earlier statements that he was proud to be a member of The Family. For more information, see discussion on GenX board, our Open Letter to Tim Peters, as well as Newdaynews.com where Tim Peters openly states "For the Record" he is a member of The Family International.

More about The Family

The Family is the subject of liability suits
Many 2nd generation members currently seek justice, compensation and specific acknowledgment/apologies for crimes perpetrated by members of The Family. Yet The Family continues to avoid responsibility for reparations to its own offspring, while touting its good works to solicit your donations. (See movingon.org for more information)
Documentation for crimes by The Family
Criminal child abuse, child neglect, kidnapping, plagiarism, charity fraud, document fraud, etc., can be found at xfamily.org. (Use the search terms: Child Abduction, Plagiarism, Abuse, Discipline, Pseudonyms, Secrecy, Loris May Yamaguchi)
The Family's leadership live in hiding
Their sustained ability to get away with crime does not establish their innocence. Karen Zerby, Peter Kelly, and Sam Perfilio live in hiding under assumed names. Pseudonyms and secrecy have allowed The Family's leadership to avoid arrest and escape prosecution.
The Family has not always been cleared of all charges in courts of law
Contrary to their PR statements, very few (if any) of the child abuse cases that were prosecuted against Family adults resulted in an acquittal or complete exoneration of the defendants. Most cases of child abuse were dismissed on legal technicalities or tried in absentia; several cases were settled out of court; there was never a full hearing of the evidence by an impartial jury. Although The Family claim they never lost a court case, this is not true. The Children of God/Family has to date not paid up $1 million in damages granted to a plaintiff; member(s) was/were found guilty for contributing to the delinquency a minor/minors; in just one court-case alone, the judge investigated The Family and found them to be overtly responsible for promoting child/adult sex and lying in court. Major reforms were forced on the entire movement, in order to ensure the safety and basic human rights of its adherents and those born into the group.

DISCLAIMER: exFamily.org understands the information on this page to be correct and factual and provides it in good conscience for information purposes only. We urge you to make your own judgment as to whether individuals perform bona fide charity work according to their claims, and if they do in fact tell the whole story about their affiliation with The Family. If you believe exFamily.org has made erroneous claims regarding The Family's suspected front organizations and/or their pseudonyms, or published inaccurate information of any kind on this page, please write to us -- we welcome your suggestions/corrections and will compare them with our own evidence to make any necessary adjustments.