180- Solace: Great Tools for Cancer Patients and Caregivers (with Steve and Monica Marquez)

Steve Marquez is husband to Monica, and father of Cody, Jared, and Andrew. 

Steve is a pastor, a teacher, a former church planter, a musician, a former journalist, photographer, and founder of a non-profit ministry called Stage 4 Ministries. 

Monica, Steve's wife, is her husband's co-laborer in life and also in ministry, She is a super effective and fruitful minister in her own right.  

In 2014, the Marquez family received astonishing and shocking news. Steve was diagnosed with stage 3 Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC), which is kidney cancer. Later, it was discovered that he had stage 4, metastatic RCC. Eventually, he and Monica started Stage 4 Ministries. That story is told in podcast 158 of Strength for Today's Pastor.

So, what’s new with Stage 4 Ministries? Steve and Monica are excited about Solace, a new way of serving not only potential end of life cancer patients, but also the ones who provide care (caregivers). 

Solace is a ministry tool and template for any church seeking to provide such care, not only to church congregants, but also to the surrounding community.

Listen in for more, and find out how you can gain a deep dive understanding of how the Lord might use Solace and Stage 4 Ministries in your ministries.

Spoiler alert: the exciting, God-glorifying story of Steve's healing is also contained in this episode!

Resources

Book: Grace for the Battle

Blog: https://stmarq.substack.com/

Website: https://www.stage4ministries.com/

For Poimen Ministries, its staff, ministries, and focus, go to poimenministries.com. To contact Poimen Ministries, email us at strongerpastors@gmail.com. May the Lord revive His work in the midst of these years!

Transcript

Providing Solace for Cancer Patients and Caregivers (with Steve and Monica Marquez)

Welcome to Strength for Today's Pastor, conversations with current senior pastors and leaders which will strengthen and help you in your pastoral ministry. And now here's your host, Bill Holdridge of Poimen Ministries. 

Welcome to podcast number 180 of Strength for Today's Pastor. 

Today we are with Steve Marquez and his wife Monica and we're going to be talking about the ministry that the Lord has called them to and they've been doing for years now and just an opportunity, open doors, just the great things that the Lord is doing in ministering to those that are victims of horrible circumstances related to cancer. So Steve Marquez is a pastor, he's a teacher, he has been a church planter, he's a musician, he's a journalist, he's a photographer, and hence has founded a nonprofit ministry called Stage 4 Ministries. And Monica, wife to Steve, co-laborer in all aspects of the ministry and super effective and fruitful in her own right as a wife, as a mother, and also in the Stage 4 Ministries. 

So I'm getting tired just listening to all this that I'm just reading to you guys, you know, you guys are busy people. But what a calling, you two, what a calling. It's a special thing, isn't it? 

It is. It is an honor. I was thinking about this last night about how, where the Lord has us, what an honor it is to be able to be able to minister to the least of these, to people that have gone through so much. And I probably would have never thought about this until I actually experienced going through the horror and the difficulty and trial of a cancer diagnosis, and then all of the medical aspects of it, and the mourning of the things you can't do anymore, and all those sorts of things. 

And it gave me compassion for those people who are also going through those things. And it's really, what it boils down to is the Second Corinthians 1, where for the things that I've gone through, I'm able to minister to other people. And my wife has also been able to minister to people who are caregivers as well, and just love on them. 

And what an honor it's been to be able to be in that sort of ministry and to see people so blessed because of it. The word honor, it's an honor to be in the ministry. Isn't it amazing? You know, Paul said, I thank Christ Jesus, my Lord, who has enabled me in that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. 

It is such an honor to serve our King. Thanks for doing it. So in 2014, Steve, you received astonishing news. 

You were diagnosed with stage 3 renal cell carcinoma, kidney cancer. Later, it was discovered you had stage 4 kidney cancer. And through a whole bunch of other stuff that happened in between, you eventually started stage 4 ministries. 

By the way, for those that are listening, that story is told in more depth in podcast 158 of Strength for Today's Pastor. So talk to us about what's been going on with stage 4. And you have recently started a new aspect of stage 4 ministry called Solace. And so, of course, you want to talk about that in an exciting event that's coming up later this month. 

Sure. I'll let Monica talk a little bit about the Solace. The Solace is a group, a small group, that has been put together for people facing life-threatening illness. 

We don't exclude people who have end-stage kidney disease or a heart that is giving out on them. So we invite those to come as well, and their caregivers, of course. And it brings people a focus on Jesus when they're in the midst of such a big storm. 

And it helps keep the eyes anchored solely on Jesus. And then that makes the path smoother. I call it going through the Red Sea on the dry land. 

What are some of the things you've seen, Monica, with Solace groups and just helping the caregivers and providing a common area where people can share and learn and grow from each other? Well, it's interesting. As we go through the book, and there's a companion workbook to Steve's book that we go through. And as we go through the scriptures, it brings it to light for them. 

And as we talk as caregivers, it helps the patients to see what the caregivers are going through. And then the caregivers are seeing different aspects from different patients. And so it just helps the compassion aspect to get our eyes off of self and helps to get eyes on each other as we're solely focused on the Lord. 

I know that with caretaking, many times if the caretaker is not receiving proper care, their caretaker can end up suffering almost as much as the victim of the disease or the malady. Absolutely. And this is helping that, isn't it? It's really mitigating against it. 

Yes. Can you share any anecdote or any particular situation where somebody was just so grateful and so touched by the group and the commonality of your shared experiences? Well, there was a couple we've had that came from another church. They don't attend our church, but they heard about the Solace Group and they wanted to come. 

And we got a testimony later that the patient, the cancer patient, hadn't been walking with the Lord at all in years. And the cancer diagnosis gave him a shake up. And he said coming to Solace put him back on his right path with the Lord. 

And that helped his wife, who was his caregiver, and they just flourished. He was only given 18 months to live. And I think that he extended it. 

His life was extended like six months past what they had said. And he was serving because we do care bags for chemo patients. And so we get together at the end of our session and we have food together and fellowship. 

And then all of the Solace people put together the care bags that we hand out to the hospitals. And that ministers to all the staff. They're blown away that it's cancer patients and caregivers that put together the bags to give to other cancer patients. 

Their focus truly did go off of themselves and onto Jesus and onto others, didn't it? Yes. And that was one of the things from a cancer patient. I can be very self-focused. 

And it's understandable because you have to survive. You're literally fighting for your life. And so you become very self-focused and selfish. 

And what this care bags for chemo patients allowed us, me to do, and the people in Solace is to think about while they're sick, these are people that are sick with illness, with grave illness. And they're able to fill these bags up with items that they themselves would use at a chemo session and be able to deliver that bag to a hospital oncology area where they're getting actual chemo. And we've gotten feedback where the patients are just, they're blown away by what, that somebody would do this for them. 

And we've actually had the privilege to be able to go and hand these bags to the patients themselves. And what a blessing that was. And then we're actually able to pray for these people as well. 

And that was a special blessing. I would bet that the fact that these gift bags are coming from cancer patients and their caregivers is incredibly impactful. I mean, it's not like some big organization decided to spend some money in an impersonal way, as good as that is to do, helping them. 

This is from actual people that are suffering. Yes. It's amazing, actually. 

And this was really Monica's brainchild that I guess the Holy Spirit spoke to her about doing this. Because she could see when she was caregiving for me, when we were in the throes of the most difficult times, she could see what we needed. And so she put those very things into the bags. 

And what a blessing that was. And so from the perspective of the patient, you mentioned this brother's lifespan extended way beyond what they had originally thought. Yes. 

The hope that they have now renewed, being part of solace. And the love that they're receiving from not just Jesus, of course, that's the best love, but from Jesus through other people. I mean, that mixture of hope and love has got to be part of them having an extended lifespan.

Wouldn't you think? I mean, my goodness. I believe so. Wow. 

I believe so. That's so powerful. And their quality of life goes way up in their final days. 

Yes. Way, way up. To that point, the scripture that we use for that in solace is Philippians 121. 

And it's where Paul says, for me to live is Christ. And so what do we want to do as cancer patients, as terminally ill people, as people going through life-altering, life-threatening illness? We want to live, right? But we most especially as believers want to live for Christ. But the other side of that verse is to die is gain. 

And so we see death almost all the time. Like every day a cancer patient is thinking about death. And that is a terrifying thing. 

If you're not living for Christ, if you're not a believer in Jesus, you don't know. But a believer in Jesus, one that has received the gospel that Jesus died for our sins and rose again on the third day, meaning that we as cancer patients, we will rise again. So we'll never lose our battle with cancer. 

We'll only win our battle with cancer when we get to see Jesus face to face. However long that is. Some of us have longer. 

Some of us have less time. But we are living for Christ until the day he says, OK, that's enough. And we say, you know, Psalm 90, verse 12, it says, teach us, Lord, to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. 

So how we get that wisdom? Because we know we're limited. And so we want to live for Jesus so that we get to see him face to face. And then Paul said, and this is our verse when we went out to Fort Smith, and we didn't even realize this, I'm sure. 

But Paul said in Acts 20, 24, it says, But none of these things move me, nor do I count my life dear unto myself, so that I may run my race with joy in the ministry I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And that, in a nutshell, is what we do at Solace. And what you're doing enables the cancer patient and the caregivers to live lives well in Christ, finish well, and until their very last human breath on earth is expended, they're viable. 

Amen. That is right. Absolutely. 

Absolutely. And we have seen such an incredible ministry in Solace. People love it. 

They love it. It's only for 10 weeks normally, and they just are like, when we get to the last, next week is our last of this session, and they're just like, oh, what are we going to do? And so we do two Solace groups a year for 10 weeks each. But then we also have service projects, and we're part of other things. 

We get together for fellowship. And then this particular time, we're going to get together for a conference that's going to be on November 22nd at Calvary Chapel, Santa Fe Springs, California. And it will be from 9 to 5, and it's very unique. 

It's a unique type of conference that really embodies the ideas of Solace. And maybe I can let Monica talk a little bit about that, unless you have a question. No, no, that's good. 

I keep going. This is great. No, we're really excited about it because it's going to give a practical aspect as well as spiritual, which it's everything that the Lord showed us that we had needed all along Steve's journey and mine along with him as his caregiver. 

But it's going to be medical doctors that are going to be speaking, nurses are going to be speaking, as well as cancer patients and a heart transplant giving their testimonies in between the big sessions. And then there's going to be a panel of nurses that's going to answer questions. There's going to be a nutritionist. 

So really excited. And then we'll also have the spiritual side of things as well, where we'll have, I'm going to be speaking and giving a portion of my testimony. The way I do my testimony is, as a pastor, I can't get away from teaching the Bible, I guess. 

But I will wrap my testimony in the Word of God, because the Word of God is powerful. That is what actually does the work. The testimony is the result of God's Word working inside of me, right? The thing that helps me to overcome in this cancer journey, this cancer battle, didn't happen the day I got cancer, but it happened the day that I got saved when I was 16 years old. 

And that right there is what made me be able to endure the cancer battle. So I'll give a testimony. But we're also really blessed because Karen Johnson will also be speaking to the caregivers, which is going to be really, really great. 

We wanted to combine the two together because, like you said earlier, the caregiver is so vitally important. And they can go, they can be so overwhelmed and go through so much. Because one of the things we talk about, too, is our marriage. 

And the fact that me, I was a totally different person before cancer. And then once the cancer happened, I was irritable, and I was angry, and I was selfish, and all that sort of thing. And in fact, a completely different person than I was before. 

And here Monica now is married to this totally different person. And I'll let her talk a little bit more about that. Yeah, tell us how bad Steve was, Monica, and then you can paint a contrast. 

No, I'm just kidding. No, that's a great story. That's a great story. 

Go ahead. Don't encourage her. Absolutely. 

Well, where the caregiver gets challenged, you know, I knew this from myself, especially when we got interviewed that first time from Calvary Magazine. They said, what is the Lord teaching you? And I said that I'm so sinful. Because when you're in that fire, all of it comes up to the top, right? And so that's what I was learning. 

But so going through that at the time, dealing with Steve, you have to lean on the Lord. Because I was like, God, I don't know how to do this. You know, I don't know who this man is. 

I don't know how to communicate to him. I don't know how to help him. And so you just have to rely on the Lord. 

I did to guide me through. That reminds me so much of Solomon's prayer when the Lord said, ask, what shall I do for you? And he said, Well, you've got this incredible thing that I've got to do. I've got to rule over your people. 

And I'm like a little child, I don't know how to go in, I don't know how to go out. So give me wisdom to be able to handle to work with your people. And the Bible says, and the speech Solomon gave, please the Lord. 

He loves that. He loved it when we're in a place of dependence. And this is what happened with you guys. 

You get you became more and more into a place of dependence upon the Lord. Yeah, completely. Because we had nothing. 

Yeah, we don't we don't have anything. Yeah. Well, and it was it was so difficult, because it puts such stressors on the marriage. 

And what we saw back then was a statistic that said that about something like 60 to 80% of marriages fail, when one spouse or the other has cancer. And it's usually the one that's the caregiver that leaves. And it's understandable, because they're married to a different person, and they're totally different personality, and then constantly under fire, and nothing's right, and everything is just so difficult.

 And so we had to, you know, come to that conclusion, like some of it was the drugs that I was on. And so one of the things I did when she told me about the that these drugs were causing me to be a different person, a hateful, angry person, I got off the drugs, even though I was still in pain, because I didn't want her to have to go through that sort of thing. So if I could mitigate that at all, I would. 

But still, it's been such she is just so amazing. You know, all that she has done to to help me, she has done so many things. And in that book, I go into some detail of some of the things that she does.

That is just overwhelming. And it shows me what true sacrificial love is. And I'm glad that that she's my wife. 

Amen. I'm glad she's your wife, too. No, that's great. 

Because it's a team ministry, for sure. You guys are doing this together as one flesh, and one spirit and one heart. So important. 

And I think that's what what I also want to get across when when it comes to this conference, that we're doing solace is that this is a place where cancer patients or like people with life threatening life altering illness can go and find hope. There's there's hope in this life, there's hope in the next life, they can find that they're at this conference. But also the caregiver can also find hope there as well. 

They can find refreshing encouragement from people that have been there. You know, we're going to on the caregivers panel, specifically, where there's going to be nurses, because nurses are caregivers. But then there's also going to be people that have gone through it, like my wife, and that are are currently going through the caregiving aspect and the stressors that it causes. 

You not only get this, you're seeing your loved one dying, but you're also going through the emotional aspect of, gosh, who is this person. And so I give great honor to what the caregivers do. So we want to do both aspects. 

And those things are very important to the ministry. Bill, I just wanted to bring this up that you and I actually, when we were sitting at the Golden Corral, not to plug anything, but we were sitting there in Fort Smith, and you and I were sharing a meal. And we actually came up with this idea, excuse me, of stage four ministries. 

And I mean, we were praying about it, we were already thinking about it, but you and I talked about it. And it was really cool to be able to see what it has become and what the Lord is doing. Eventually, we want to get solace groups. 

The same thing that happens here, we want to get those groups into other churches. And so we want to help. We don't want to take over or anything like that. 

We want to actually just provide whatever we can, encouragement, whatever we can, to any church that would like to start a solace group with even two or three cancer patients or people going through these life-altering, life-threatening illness. And so they can be blessed and encouraged. And if we can help in any way, we would love to do that. 

I'm glad you said that, Steve, because this is something that is so unique. An in-Christ, fellowship-based, mutually encouragement-based, informationally-based ministry to help both patient and caregiver. That's unique within a completely Christian context. 

And so this podcast goes out to hundreds of pastors all over the world. And they're listening to this. And leaders of Christian ministries, board members, elders of churches are listening to these podcasts. 

And so they're going to want to know, how can we do this? How can we do this? So you, I'm sure, are thinking about this. Your wheels are turning about developing a training module that you can train leaders of these new groups that are going to pop up. So that's part of your thinking, I'm sure, right? Oh, absolutely. 

That's what we want to do. We actually have to take a breath because sometimes it feels like, especially in ministry, you feel like you're underwater and you're treading and trying to get up above the water. Sandy Adams told a story one time about this guy in a wheelchair who, as he was crossing the street, the light churned and a semi-truck hit him and churned the wheelchair and barreled down the road at 70 miles an hour with the wheelchair in front. 

And this guy was just hanging on for dear life. And he said, that's what the ministry feels like sometimes, right? We feel like we're the pastors, the one in the wheelchair, this big semi pushing us down the road. But what we're doing is we want to develop. 

Obviously, we want help with the ministry. We're developing people to help us in the ministry. And then when we can do that, we're going to put these things together, these training materials together. 

And we are really looking forward to it. We have some people that are pretty excited and we're looking forward to getting that together and be able to, at the very least, people can go to our website, stage with the number four ministries.com, and you can go to Solace there and it explains what Solace is. And we would love to come alongside of anybody that wants to do it. 

They can contact us there and we would love to have a conversation and do whatever we can to help them. Yeah. And in the meantime, if they wanted to be part of the conference you're putting together at Santa Fe Springs, Calvary Chapel, on the 22nd of this month, they could register, they could fly into LAX, they could get a rental car and head over to Santa and spend the whole day and then fly back home and do Sunday service the next morning. 

A hundred percent. Yeah, absolutely. Anybody in this area, come on over, register. 

If you're a pastor and all of a sudden you're seeing five, six, seven, eight cancer patients in your church, and you're like, I don't know what to do. Obviously as pastors, we do hospital visits, we do things like that. That's part of pastoral care. 

But maybe you're like, wow, what do I do? How do I minister to these people? I want to, I've got a heart for it. Well, come on, come on down, spend eight hours with us and hear from cancer patients, hear from caregivers, and then be inspired and see what the Lord can do as you open your heart and your ministry to these people who are the least of these, right? I've said this before, it's not really a sexy ministry. It's a ministry where it's hard because you get to love these people. 

You know these people very, very well. You're intimately involved with them and then they go to be with Jesus. We were actually there in the room when one of our solace people went to be with Jesus, the flatlined right in front of us, and went to be with the Lord, and we were there with his widow. 

It's difficult. It's a difficult ministry, but you know it's rewarding because you get to see people go from life here to great life, abundant life in eternity. Yeah, and you get to experience the changes of attitude and behavior and strengthening in the inner man that they experience being part of a solace group. 

So, you know, I as a pastor, you as a pastor, Steve, anybody who's in ministry, we can do a lot of things as individuals and go a lot of places and we can get ourselves like that guy in the wheelchair going 70 miles an hour or we can do what God's called us to do and equip others for the ministry and we're expanding greatly what God is doing. And that's what this conference allows for is the beginning of getting the tools to be able to equip others to start their own solace groups and then the curricula that you'll create and the training programs you'll create. I see a great future for this and a really important future because this is needed everywhere. 

Yeah, and you know what's awesome is that primarily this is a ministry to the patients and the caregivers. So, what's the advantage then for a person? It's not a conference to say, hey, how do we minister to people? So, what it is, how you'll be trained, I guess, is by coming and watching because this is literally going to be like a solace group. It's just going to be bigger, that's all. 

And what we do in solace and what Stage 4 Ministries does is we listen, encourage, and pray. It's a very, very simple vision. We listen to the patient, we listen to the person, and we see what they need and then we encourage them in the word. 

We give them scripture, we give them encouragement as human beings. Obviously, we have a human touch, we have a spiritual, I mean, the Lord touches them as well. And then we pray for them and we bring those requests to the Lord and allow him to do this work inside of them. 

And that's what happens at solace and that's what happens at this or will happen at this conference. So, you're not bearing the burden of the cancer patient or of the caregiver, you're sharing the burden with Jesus and with others. Amen. 

Amen. Amen. That's right. 

That's great. Well, I'm so glad that we were able to talk and that you were able to share about solace and Stage 4 Ministries. So, pastors and leaders that are listening, please look into this. 

The website is Stage 4 Ministries spelled with the letter, with the number four, Stage4Ministries.com, and you'll be able to find out about solace and you'll be able to find out about this conference coming up on the 22nd. And what an opportunity. We've all got people in our churches that are cancer patients or are related to cancer patients or deep close friends of cancer patients. 

What a great opportunity to be equipped for this kind of ministry. And especially looking for those who have gifts of mercy, gifts of help, these kinds of people that love to pray. These are the folks that are perfect for a ministry like this and that love other human beings.

 So, those are your resources. Steve's book, Grace for the Battle, is a very interesting way of telling a testimony story. A faith journey is what it was and what it is ever since 2014. 

And you're now completely cancer free, which is a miracle from God. And I love that story, the charismatic guy that just rebukes the cancer in the name of Jesus, and it happened. Yeah, that's true. 

The cancer went away. That's a true story. Can I just tell you something real quick? So, I was in a brace because the neurosurgeon, what he did is the cancer was so full in my spine that when he touched my L2, L3 vertebrae, he said that it collapsed in his hands. 

So, it just dissolved. And so, they had to put a cage in my spine to kind of hold it together, right? And so, I had to wear, or actually, I had these metal rods and screws in there, but they broke. And so, I had to wear this big bulky brace and all that sort of thing to make sure that I didn't collapse and all that stuff. 

And when I went to a neurosurgeon here, and he did some scans, and I'm wearing this brace, and I'm not liking the brace at all, and he says to me, he goes, come here, I want to show you something. And I said, what do you mean? He goes, I'm not saying that osteoregeneration can't happen, but he said, I've never seen this extensive of regrowth. And he showed me the scan, and my L2, L3 vertebrae had grown completely back. 

And I said, do I have to wear this brace? And he said, well, no. And I took it off like I was in a tent revival, you know, pulled it off there on the ground, I'm dancing around going, yeah, praise God. So, it was great. 

It was awesome. And so, there's one more thing to give glory to God. Amen. 

A true, legitimate, bona fide, verifiable miracle of God. Praise the Lord. You said it, bona fide. 

Bona fide. Okay, well, thanks for joining us, you guys. It's so good to see you with this Zoom call interface we have, and also to hear the story, excited for what the Lord's going to do. 

Amen. All right. So, the announcer will give you ways to contact Poimen Ministries, and the show notes will have all of the pertinent information.

And again, thanks to Steve and Monica Marquez for joining us on this episode of Strength for Today's Pastor. God bless you. Strength for Today's Pastor is sponsored by Poimen Ministries. 

You can find us at poimenministries.com. That's spelled P-O-I-M-E-N ministries.com. If something in today's program prompts a question or comment, or if you have a topic idea for a future episode, just shoot us an email at strongerpastors@gmail.com. That's strongerpastors@gmail.com. 

May the Lord bless you as you serve Him, His pastors, and His church.