He Will Walk Across the Country For Children

December 6, 2012

Phil Hlabse’s nearly 30-year-old mission to help children is about to take a new step — an approximately 3,200 mile one.

A survivor of Hodgkin’s disease, a cancer affecting the lymphatic system, Hlabse is planning to walk from California to Maine to raise awareness of the need to protect and care for children.

“They are our future, but today there are too many bad things in society that affect them — what they do and what they believe, and who they are,” said the former probation officer for Chardon Municipal Court.

Hlabse estimated his entire walk would take six or seven months.

His home away from home will be a volunteer-driven RV that will stop daily at various locations where he can rest and regenerate himself.

A Chardon resident, Hlabse plans to start his awareness-raising and fact-gathering cross-country trek from somewhere in California on March 25.

His exact starting point remains undetermined and will depend on which of three routes he chooses.

Regardless, his walk will be a triumph over a myriad of illnesses that would discourage most people from even thinking about making a long, tiring and grueling trek across the U.S.

In addition to his cancer, which is in remission, Hlabse has undergone heart surgery and lost part of his right leg and half his left foot from infections caused by a freak accident — all within the last five years.

Hlabse declined to discuss his amputations because of litigation involving the initial injuries.

Yet, he strides with confidence and determination thanks to prosthesis in his lower right leg.

“It doesn’t bother me anymore. It’s an incentive for me to overcome and push on, to do the work for kids that I believe has to be done,” Hlabse said.

A deeply religious man, Hlabse has been known throughout Chardon and Geauga County for the Warm-A-Child Ministry, a nonprofit organization he first created in 1983.

Prior to every Christmas, except when he has been ill, Hlabse has used his own money to purchase warm clothes for needy children in Geauga County, often playing Santa Claus.

The amputation of his lower right leg and half his left foot “did not take my heart and spirit,” he added.

His idea for the cross country walk was inspired by a vision Hlabse said he had of the Virgin Mary during one of his many stays in University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, where he underwent stem cell treatment for his cancer.

“It’s been my home away from home, my second home,” Hlabse said jokingly.

His mission, Salve Filiorum Dei — a Latin phrase meaning “highly blessed are God’s children” — is twofold: Orient and gather people into a collective and individual prayer for God’s children, and raise funds for necessities Hlabse will need on his walk, such as food, emergency items and gas for the accompanying RV.

He is hoping all religious denominations, civic groups and people who share his philosophy and concern for children will join in prayer for the future spiritual and emotional well being of children.

“This not a mission to raise all kinds of money,” Hlabse said. “I am not looking for that, just to complete this mission walk as a spiritual commitment to bring awareness about what God wants us to do for our children, bring them closer to Him.”

Too many children are not being told or educated about the importance God plays or can play in their lives, he said.

Instead, they are drawn or pushed to worldly “diversions,” such as material possessions, glamour, money, narcissism and other things rather than focusing on their spiritual welfare and their relationship with their Creator, Hlabse said.

“Do not wait for Washington, D.C. (lawmakers) to do anything for our children’s religious and spiritual well-being,” he wrote in an information brochure about his mission.

He also hopes to organize Salve Filiorum Dei committees that can organize and plan his speaking engagements throughout the country as well as help develop walks to communities throughout the county to promote his philosophy.

In his vision of the Virgin Mary, Hlabse said he was told he would not act alone and the “Father will provide.”

So far He has.

A local man has offered to drive the RV, although others are needed so that one person does not have to drive the entire 3,200 miles, Hlabse said.

He is also asking for other volunteers — one to serve as a public relations liaison and another as an activity director — both who would work with him in getting his message out to groups of people.

Hlabse hopes to organize Salve Filiorum Dei committees that can organize and plan his speaking engagements throughout the country and help develop walks in communities throughout the county to promote his philosophy.

On his trek across the county, he plans to stop at a 5.5-acre of land on Mayfield Road (state Route 322) between Princeton Road and Clay Street in Huntsburg Township.

There he plans to erect a religious shrine to children, emphasizing the need to raise them in a way they develop a spiritual relationship with God.

The land was chosen in mid-August 2008, five months after his vision with the Virgin Mary, he said.

The name of the shrine and its design will be announced when he reaches the land on his walk, Hlabse said.

It also will emphasize the importance of raising children to believe in God.

He cites Mark 10:14 in the Bible: “Let these children come to me. Do not hinder them. It is such as these that will enter into my Father’s Kingdom.”

Even as adults, all people are “children of God no matter what our biological clocks state,” Hlabse said.

He can be contacted at 5warmachild@windstream.net.