At the age of 12 he began painting for his father and by the time he was 50 he was a successful businessman with his own company.

In March, Phillip Rego decided to sell his company, he was on the cusp of graduating his second and last child from college and appeared to have everything lined-up for a comfortable retirement.

But rather then choose the easy life, Mr. Rego decided it was his chance to make a difference in the world.

He said: "I wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle and go to the simple life.

"I wanted to do it at 23 or 24 years-old, but it didn't go that way. Then I thought, now that it's sold what's my life going to be about?"

That decision was made for him at a meeting in Florida of the Adentist-laymen's Services and Industries (ASI), an organisation that connects private sector businesses with charities earlier this year.

By August he found himself in a tiny village, Montrouis about 50 miles from the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, helping to feed orphans at the Eden Garden Orphanage.

Mr. Rego quickly became far more involved in the orphanage than he had ever expected from feeding not only the orphans, but also the people in the village, to raising thousands of dollars for the orphanage's medical clinic.

Now he is even adopting one of the girls at the orphanage who he plans to bring back to Bermuda.

He has given thousands of dollars to help, but Mr. Rego has found himself much richer gaining far more from the children who simply had nothing.

"It's not what I did for them, it's what they did for me. You have to experience it to understand. If there are five kids and four candies neither of them will take it because they are looking for the other one.

"If they see a kid crying they pick up the kid and take care of them. They are all babysitters and help one another. They are well-mannered; they have a head start on us.

"I think Bermuda is a very blessed country and I don't want to ask for money I want to tell the story and hope people call me.

"My family was behind me selling my business. They saw the stress level was quite hard on me.

"They saw me with my head between my legs, which the customers never saw. My wife is a 100 percent behind me."

She better be, because along with selling the company, Ideal Homes and Gardens Ltd, he also sold her job as manager of its books.

But Maria Rego holds no grudges and has already planned her first visit to Haiti in January to help teach the girls how to use a sewing machine to make their clothes.

She said: "It was always our plan to do mission work. We didn't think we would be able to be out of work to do this.

"When the opportunity arose and Phillip started telling us, our family and friends, and brought pictures and video, well when you see the poverty it's overwhelming.

"You cannot help everybody but you can help a little bit. This orphanage is almost like a community service for where they are.

"They have so much need, but when they have extra they open their doors. We are really excited about this. It's new to me."

For the 60 children at the Eden Garden Orphanage and the founder, Charles Le Morzellec and his wife Gigi, the help from the Regos means survival.

Mr. Le Morzellec saves the children from the streets where, abandoned they could literally be eaten by dogs or pigs, chewed on by rats or sold to another family as a slave.

But just trying to keep them all alive and safe at the orphanage costs $5,500 a month and any extra is put towards helping those in the community or to start projects at the orphanage.

Not since Mr. Rego began throwing his effort into the organisation has it been able to finish the roof on the medical clinic — the only one in the village — or hope to pay the teachers a decent wage.

Mr. Rego added: "He (Mr. Le Morzellec) has been trying to raise money for 12 years now. When I arrived a lot of things were started because when he got money he started something, but nothing was finished.

"I said I would help raise the money for him. It was a breath of fresh air for him. I told him to concentrate on raising the $5,500 for the orphanage and let me raise money for the other projects.

"He has reached out to people such as little kids that are just left on the side of the road with a tag with their name on it. If he doesn't take them in dogs will chew on their feet or the pigs will.

"They have buses full of people and if they fall off and break a leg nobody helps them. That's why the orphanage started.

"What's unique about this one is there is also a school and it has 140 kids going there (60 are from the orphanage and 80 are from the village).

"We educate them up until the 12th grade. But a lot of the kids that come there from outside the orphanage have no food. If we have a feeding programme in the middle of the day that might be the only food they get that day."

Mr. Rego now wants to raise money for a solar power system — to help keep the lights on when often they go off at night — money for the food programme and to continue the medical clinic.

After the first trip he was able to raise $20,000 for the food programme through family friends and the second time he took $22,000 which helped with the clinic's roof.

And the helping doesn't stop there. When in Haiti, Mr. Rego bought nine beds for people who even at the age of 65 had never slept on one.

He also gave $50 of his own money so a mother of six had more than a tablespoon of rice to feed her children.

Despite the severity of the poverty in Haiti, Mr. Rego said it's not easy to help because while the average teacher's salary is $40 a month, the price for something like a bag of concrete is $10 — the same as Bermuda.

Even the second-hand beds that Mr. Rego bought cost $125, which all makes it difficult for charities to help make a difference.

He said: "The problem is that materials are so expensive. A gallon of gas is $8 and a bag of cement is $10. They (Government) really keep people depressed.

"A teacher makes $40 a month and I have tried to raise it to $80 a month. My goal is to raise them above average. It's about helping one person at a time."

And that's his motto all along which is why his family decided to cancel the skiing vacation this Christmas and visit a second orphanage on Mr. Rego's list.

Starting tomorrow the Rego family will be in Peru helping with an all-girl's orphanage there, bringing money for the dormitory and buying care packages to deliver to communities in the Amazon.

Contact him via email at feedmylambsministry@gmail.com or call him on 535-8934 or visit his website at: www.feedmylambministry.org or donate directly to the charity's Bank of Bermuda account: 010305498012.