Together, Steve and Kim Hilfiker drive the “Highways of Hope” as a Christian couple with unique medical testimonies.
“We met at church after living parallel lives that prepared us for this meaningful journey,” Steve recalls.
“Like many biblical examples of faith, our story demonstrates the power of a second chance and the gift of new life.”
Before meeting, Steve and Kim each endured some of life’s greatest challenges, emerging victoriously through faith and perseverance. Steve, while raising four children as a single father, battled a rare disease leading to a heart transplant. Kim was a loving and loyal health advocate for her late husband, who battled many forms of cancer for 20 years. Now, together, Steve and Kim are inspired to bring messages of hope and faith to people struggling with similar challenges.
The couple believes their marriage was divinely orchestrated by a steering committee in Heaven, allowing them to start fresh in the direction of their mutual dream, which each had formed years before they met.
The mutual dream is this ministry. It is designed to fill the space between hospitals and churches with faith-based messages of hope and health.
Steve is adding a theological master’s degree to his environmental, cardiac, business, and foundation experiences to develop a speaking, writing, film, and teaching ministry. Kim is also pursuing theology certificates. She is adding cancer advocacy work to the scope of the foundation, along with her event-planning, writing, consulting, marketing, and speaking skills.
“We are united with divine purpose,” Steve declares. “Our lives, marriage, and ministry demonstrate the power of second chances. We hope our ‘forever covenant of love’ is a beacon of light and hope for all.”
"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace..."
This is a transcript of one of Steve’s presentations, where he traces the many threads that God wove together to create the tapestry of the couple’s marriage and ministry.
Kim and I have each endured many seasons of preparation for this ministry. After being led by the Holy Spirit to receive Christ in 1992, and discipleship training through pastors and mentors in the body of Christ since that time, I was prepared for the James 1:2-4 trials of life that shaped our ministry. Between the two of us, my wife and I have each, separately until we met, endured faithfully through the loss of loved ones, financial hardship, relationship and business conflicts, and extreme cardiac and cancer battles.
The temptations to give in and give up were faced by each of us for decades. After separate journeys, prepared by the Holy Spirit to carry out this mission, we met —and are now proceeding in this mission, two by two, to visit churches in various cites making disciples for hope in the face of health crises.
Knowing I would survive, through faith, I endured misdiagnosed cardiac sarcoidosis through heart failure. I was placed on life support through an intra-aortal balloon pump and received seven heart offers in three days. My life was resurrected through a heart transplant and Jesus was with me every step of the way, preparing me for this mission. On the night I learned I had a major heart condition, he spoke Ezekiel 36:26: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Cardiac sarcoidosis turns hearts to stone. I was being prepared.
The initial calling for an RV mission was placed on my heart in a discipleship training course called “Experiencing God” by Henry Blackaby in 2003. Through the years of heart failure and months of recovery from transplant, the seeds planted through the seasons of preparation yielded a harvest that has produced much fruit.
While we hope to impact all nations someday, our message of heart transformation is currently focused on the eastern United States. The power of second chances through heart transformation (Rom. 12:2) is evident in many ways. Finding love again for singles and people who find themselves single again was a dominant theme of our wedding and remains a theme of our ministry. My wife Kim was a caregiver for her late husband who battled eleven bouts with cancer for twenty years. In 1993 at a Christian conference, the Holy Spirit moved through prayer revealing she would have a traveling ministry someday. After her season of preparation, her heart was prepared for the orchestration of our marriage.
Only we know through special revelation how Christ manifested himself to each of us through life’s greatest trials. He has revealed his desire for us to carry out his work through the two leading causes of death, and a population that is growing more susceptible to cardiac and cancer diseases due to the stresses of life, environmental factors, and related conditions in our fallen, complicated world. It is evident in the preparation, the training, the trials, and the teaching that we have been prepared for this ministry. Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the body of Christ made our mission known to us.
Like Paul’s missionary journeys from Jerusalem throughout accessible regions of Asia and Europe, Kim and I journey using the foundation’s recreational vehicle to hospitals and churches in the eastern United States. We use media, films, books, and speaking events to share our testimonies of faith and endurance in Nights of Hope to disciple people who have, may have, or may know people with cardiac and cancer conditions. We share how we knew the trials were part of a larger purpose. We understood this by faith, knowing the same revelation was placed on our hearts separately by the Holy Spirit.
In closing, our seasons of preparation and discipleship training are now being used in a manner similar to the way Peter and the disciples advanced the early church. Our hope and health advocacy mission is expanding through personal engagement with those currently struggling with the trials we have endured and emerged victoriously through faith. The message is multiplied as we speak to individuals and groups, with teachings and sermons designed to advance the faith in the individual, church and region in which we travel. We are using our preparation and experiences to testify regarding the love and power of our Lord Jesus Christ as we advance the gospel in our nation. We pray for the development of our mission to speak throughout the country with a hope and health ministry.
