It was on his first trip to southeast Asia that Patrick Klein found his purpose.

It was 1986. He saw poverty, hunger, disease, desperation. On his travels to Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, he met children living on the streets, who were either abandoned or who ran away from home lives that were even worse.

He saw villages without medicines. He saw parents addicted to opium. He saw standing water around houses, breeding grounds for malaria-infested mosquitoes.

What he didn't see was hope.

"That just really broke my heart to see so much need. I saw a hunger for God's word and the Bible," he said.

He made it his life's mission to bring hope to these people on the other side of the world. It is work he does today, from an unremarkable building on Main Street in Sheridan.

From his meager offices here - converted from an old car wash - remarkable things happen: A girl in Burma now has feet she can walk on and that will look pretty in her shoes. A man in Vietnam is awaiting surgery to get a new face, after his was badly disfigured by acid burns. A boy in Nepal has a heart that works.

Thousands of men, women and children have food grown from the seed packets distributed by the work of the people within this unremarkable building. It happens because Klein, an otherwise unremarkable man, decided to commit his life to what he believes.

"What I learned over time is we can't just preach to people. We have to help meet their needs. The Bible says, if they are hungry, feed them," he said.

Klein is the founder of the Christian ministry Vision Beyond Borders, a non-profit organization with a 4,000-person mailing list across the country. It's primary mission is to feed, clothe and deliver Bibles and other Christian materials to villages in the poorest parts of the world.

Each year, volunteers take nearly 20 overseas trips to deliver seeds, clothes, medical supplies, Bibles and other goods to men, women and children who need so much. Sometimes, they must smuggle in Bibles because foreign governments don't allow it's people the same religious freedom as America.

Vision Board member Kevin White, of Baftrop, Texas, took his first trip oversees this year. In Nepal, he met a couple who had been touched by a missionary 30 years ago. The two had since devoted their lives to rescuing children from the streets. Since, they've rescued hundreds of children and touched thousands of lives, White said.

"That was so exciting. Hopefully, we helped carry on the same thing. It was just very rewarding, knowing the impact that it has. It is something in this country we can so easily do."

In Vietnam and Laos, Vision is working with Voices of the Martyrs - an interdenominational group which aids Christians around the world persecuted for their faith. Here, they are helping Hmong, a people who have lived in extreme poverty for generations. Most children have never been to school and the illiteracy rate is close to 80 percent, said Somchit of Voices of the Martyrs. (She does not use her last name for her own protection.)

Vision is working with Voices to deliver hand-wound tape recorders with Christian messages in the people's native languages. They are also helping with water projects to bring clean water to the villages.

"The Hmong people face one of the heaviest persecutions by the communist government. When you go into the village and go into their life, they have nothing. Anything we bring over there, they are always so appreciative. Even a small thing," Somchit said.

"Patrick, I think he has the heart for the people."

As a Christian, Klein believes it is his place to pass on the word of God and bring salvation to the people of the world. It's what Vision is based on.

Not all good that is done for people in need is done in the name of Christ. Still, something must be said for a man who lives by what he believes and who devotes his whole life to it - no matter what his religion.

Twenty years after his first trip to southeast Asia, Klein looks around and still sees so much poverty. Sometimes it overwhelms him. But then, he delivers a duffle bag of seeds, clothes, Bibles and medicines.

"How do you eat an elephant?" he asks.

"One bite at a time."

And you save humanity one person at a time. Just consider some of Vision's most recent charities:

Moti of Nepal was 15 when doctors told him he needed an operation to fix a faulty heart valve. But he was 123rd on the surgery list and his family had begun preparing for his death. They could have never afforded the $5,000 required for the surgery. Visions donated the money and, unexpectedly, there was an opening on the list. Moti survived the surgery and is a healthy, growing young man. Doctors said if he would have waited another three weeks, Moti likely would have died.

A man in Saigon, Vietnam, is a man without a face. The tip of his nose is gone, his eyes are scarred open. He has no hair on top of his head thanks to the acid burns that severely disfigured his face. Vision is working to take the man to Bangkok for reconstructive surgery. Klein told the man they wanted to help through a village woman who was translating. Soon, she started to cry, Klein said.

I can't believe you want to help this man, she had told him. Nobody wants to help him.

But it's the smile of 10-year-old Shwee that most touches Klein. Shwee lives in Ha Liang in Burma. It's a poor village in a swamp-infested jungle with mosquitoes and poisonous snakes. Malaria and tuberculosis are real dangers. The infant mortality rate is high.

Vision Beyond Borders partnered with a YMCA in Burma to feed 600 kids a day and provide fresh water.

Schwee was born with club feet. Her left foot was completely backwards and her right foot was folded under so she had to walk on her ankles. She couldn't run or play. Kids made fun of her.

Once, she cried to her mother: Mom. I want to cut my feet off, she said. My feet are ugly. I'll never wear pretty shoes and no man will ever love me.

A year and a half after seeing her, Klein and his contact from the YMCA got the girl out of Burma n in the middle of dangerous political turmoil. In November, she went to Singapore where two doctors donated their time to operate on her feet.

Klein saw her in December, on yet another mission trip to the area: "I can't say what it was like to see her feet point the right way. I couldn't describe it."

In six months, she should be able to walk like all the other kids in her village. She asked her mom to buy her a soccer ball.

Klein keeps a picture of her on his desk, still in crutches but wearing a pink Chinese dress he bought for her.

Swhee is smiling and, for the first time, Klein can see hope.