(K-LOVE Closer Look) -- Phil’s Friends was launched in 2009 by cancer-survivor Phil Zielke who was just 22-yrs-old when he learned he had Stage 4 Lymphoma. His health was dangerously fragile at the time of his diagnosis, but the devastation of the disease went so much deeper than body alone. “When people think about cancer they think of the physical effects, but for me, it’s not just the physical things that are so challenging but the emotional and spiritual.”
Phil was forced to put his career and upcoming marriage on hold, but the community support he received buoyed his spirits for the long, painful fight. “A group of people, a couple of weeks after I was diagnosed put a care package together for me,” he remembers. “They all said they thinking about me and praying for me.”
It was as he endured the harsh treatments necessary to beat back the disease that he got the idea for Phil’s Friends -- sending free comfort boxes and greeting cards to thousands of fellow cancer patients nationwide.
Phil’s plan arose from a particular moment of clarity after rolling his IV out of his hospital room for a short walk.
"What I saw absolutely devastated me more than cancer itself. I saw kids who had enough tubing to connect all the way down the hallway, I saw adults who were flying from across the country to go this hospital with no one there. I knew right then that God was calling me to support people in the same way I’d been supported -- by people loving me.”
Volunteers for Phil’s Friends stuff care packages with goodies designed to encourage men, women and children enduring chemo. The ministry sends items like word searches, playing cards, sudoku puzzles, unscented lotion, a Bible and a journal. “There’s (also) blankets to keep you warm whether you’re a home or in the hospital and there’s a special biotene mouthwash because sometimes you get mouth sores going through it.”
Items in the box are worth about $50 but care packages are always no-charge to patients. Friends or family can request a free package be sent to someone they love.
The ongoing goal of the ministry is to train local churches how to build a Phil’s Friends chapter locally, so that people going through cancer can have a nearby, neighborhood support system for the long term. “We see the hospital as the mission field,” Phil says, “and the the church is were we find the missionaries.”