In 1997 Rev. Gary Jon Cooper was diagnosed with cancer and underwent surgery. A life-threatening complication kept him hospitalized for twenty days. During that stay, he never saw a hospital chaplain on his unit. Exploration on this subject indicated that this was the norm rather than the exception in more than twenty regional hospitals. This experience led Rev. Cooper to leave his parish and begin this new ministry.

Present Help, Inc. is a ministry of spiritual support for the cancer community, seeking to meet the spiritual needs of people whose lives are touched by cancer.

After his experience in the hospital, Rev. Cooper decided to leave his twenty-one years of parish ministry to start meeting the spiritual needs of people affected by this disease by establishing Present Help, Inc.

Present Help serves in three areas: (1) working one-on-one in the cancer community with prayer and counseling, usually combined with personal visits to the family members as well as the patients; (2) helping as many people as possible by offering training seminars to interested pastors, church caregiver teams, deacons, parish nurses, Stephen ministers, and members of support groups; (3) seeking to educate the medical and scientific community concerning the contribution spirituality has made to the quality of life and long-term survivability issues of their patients and how spirituality may assist medical professionals in dealing with their terminal patients.

For more information, please visit their website, which includes sermons, suggestions, answers, and ways to become more involved.

2756 Churchview Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15227
412-885-3447
presenthelp@comcast.net
www.presenthelp.net