Blog #1: And So It Begins… Our Cancer Story
My prayer is that in reading our story you will run to the one place where unshakable hope and joy are found. Ultimately, our prayer together is that by sharing these stories, we will make the name of Jesus Christ great. Emily has been such a trooper through all of this, but she would be the first to tell you that we are not the heroes of this story, or any story. Jesus is! We are weak and flawed, yet He has been our strength and our hope through it all.
– Brady King, The Fighting With Hope Blog
Their story began at the University of Mobile. Emily Kolakoski and Brady King were student-athletes – she was an elementary education major on the tennis team while he majored in math and played third base for Rams baseball. They met through Campus Life’s student-athlete ministry and, shortly after graduating with bachelor’s degrees in 2014, they married.
Emily started her career as a first-grade teacher at Lee Elementary in Satsuma, Alabama. Brady went on to earn a chemical engineering degree and, with the help of Coach Mike Jacobs, to land a job in his field with Precision Engineering Inc.
“For the first four years of our marriage, everything was going incredibly well,” Brady said. “We had an incredible marriage, we loved one another, we were plugged in with an awesome church community and were hosting small groups in our home. We were even part of a core group that was planning to plant a church called Harbor Community Church, where I now serve as one of the pastors. Things were going really well.”
On April 7, 2019, their entireworld flipped upside down.
Emily had one minor symptom that caused some concern, so they went to the ER to get it checked out.
“When we did, that was the first time we had a doctor use the scary ‘C’ word. A few days later we had it officially confirmed that Emily was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer at age 27,” Brady recalled. “If you don’t know anything about colon cancer, it is mostly an old person’s disease – it’s not supposed to be something that anyone our age has. But that was the world we were thrust into. We went from this ideal, young married couple life to a world filled with doctor visits and second opinions and chemotherapy treatments.”
Along the way, they would learn that while colon cancer rates overall have been declining due to increased screening starting at the recommended age of 45, there is a growing trend of young onset colorectal cancer. By the year 2030, colon cancer is estimated to rise 90% and rectal cancer to rise by a staggering 124% in younger patients, according to a 2020 article “Addressing the Disturbing Rise of Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer” in the American Society of Clinical Oncology Daily News.
In the article, Dr. Kimmie Ng, Emily’s oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, said, “Each year, more than 16,000 people younger than age 50 are diagnosed with colorectal cancer in the U.S., and incidence rates among this population have risen 51% since 1994 with the sharpest increase among those age 20 to 29, upending young lives, families, and their hopes for the future. It’s imperative that we try to identify new ways to prevent, treat and catch these cancers earlier, at a curable stage – that’s our ultimate goal.”
Blog #4: Make My Name Great
A few nights ago, Emily made a profound statement that humbled and wrecked me. In a time of confusion and pain she brought everything clearly into perspective. She described how she was crying and praying to the Lord and asking God what to do. This has been my biggest dilemma as well, what do I do? Surgery, oncology appointments, cancer treatments, this is all new and uncharted territory for us. Do I cry out to God for allowing this to happen? Do I pray constantly for miraculous healing? Do I weep with friends that stop by? Do I skip work? Do I continue my daily routine as much as possible? Luckily, my wife is incredible, and the Lord helped show her the answer. As she cried and asked Him for answers, God laid a simple phrase on her heart, “Make My Name Great.”
The following years were a whirlwind.
Chemotherapies, immunotherapies, targeted therapies, clinical trials, surgeries, radiation. Learning the cancer is gone, learning the cancer is back. Three winters of clinical trials in Boston. An endless cycle of hope, fear, anger, peace, exhaustion – all intensified by navigating cancer care during a global pandemic.
Through it all, the Lord provided. Emily and Brady had parents and family who loved and supported them, along with a church family that stood by them. They had medical teams that kept fighting, researchers that kept finding new treatments, and access to care that kept opening new doors.
They had the kind of friends you make at a place like the University of Mobile – friends shaped by faith, loyalty and love – who helped care for their menagerie of farm animals, bring meals, share laughter, cry together, stand with them through dark times and rejoice in victories. Friends who would pray without ceasing and help them cling to faith when trusting God required everything they had.
Still, Emily never forgot that moment: Make My Name Great.
“We prayed about how to make God’s name great for around two years as we learned to navigate the cancer world,” Brady said.
It was a journey without a road map. Through her own experience and that of fellow patients in the chemotherapy infusion room, Emily learned tips that helped make side effects bearable – like chewing Starbursts to mask the taste of port flushes.
She learned that many well-meaning gifts, like coloring books to pass the time, weren’t really all that helpful when you are so fatigued and tired that even coloring can be too much work. An iTunes gift card and an iPad were more practical, providing hours of music and movies that can play in the background as you doze.
The more they experienced, the more their mission came into focus. What began as a simple desire to be faithful — to make God’s name great in the midst of suffering — quietly began to take shape.
“We didn’t want to be on the cancer road. But God had us there for a purpose, and our job was to be faithful in that,” said Brady.
“We finally realized that God had strategically placed us – and uniquely equipped us – to make His name great right where He had put us, in the cancer world. That’s when we started Fighting With Hope.”
Blog #8: Fighting With Hope – Official Launch!
They say when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. In our case, when life sends you cancer, you
use it to glorify God as best you can.
Because of our experiences with everything from multiple chemotherapy regimens to our countless hospitals stays, we have gained some valuable knowledge about navigating the cancer world. We started to realize Emily was becoming a pro at doing chemotherapy (not something you really want to be a pro at). So she started to share some of the tips and tricks she had picked up along the way. Over time, Emily slowly built up a pretty good list of helpful items. When we would meet a new friend starting chemo, she would send them a box full of helpful items. She would include a personal letter in each box as well. Around the same time, we began to feel like we weren’t “doing” much for the Lord because we were isolated and facing our own trials. We wanted to be useful for the kingdom of God, but we didn’t know how to do that as Emily went through chemo in the middle of a pandemic. As we were praying for God to show us how we could serve and honor Him during a season of suffering, close friends and family started telling us about new folks being diagnosed with cancer. Of course, we wanted to send a care package to everyone we heard of, so we did just that. Eventually, the ministry continued to grow, and outside individuals started asking how they could sponsor boxes to support what we were doing.
That’s when we really started praying and decided that we needed to make it official and go for it! So we started a non-profit – Fighting With Hope.
Our goal is to send a chemo box to every cancer patient who is referred to us. Each box is filled with items Emily has hand selected because they are legitimately helpful for cancer patients dealing with a diagnosis or going through treatment. She knows exactly what is needed because, as I write this, she is hooked up with a pump for her 34th round of chemo. Every item is made with natural and safe ingredients, and each one is something Emily has found helpful. We include items to serve not just the physical but the mental and spiritual as well. Cancer takes a toll on every aspect of your being, so we do our best to combat every angle of that with hope.
The first Fighting With Hope Chemo Box was sent to a 7-year-old boy in Louisiana fighting acute myeloid leukemia – now cancer-free after two bone marrow transplants.
Throughout her cancer journey, Emily packed boxes, coordinated volunteers and sourced supplies she found helpful. Friends volunteered to pack boxes that were ordered online and shipped to cancer patients. Women’s, men’s and children’s boxes included items ranging from lip balm, soothing salve and hand sanitizer made locally from natural ingredients to Fighting With Hope customized scripture and prayer cards from Hide and Seek Scriptures.
Along with Starbursts were lavender candles for calming, ginger drops for nausea, a blanket prayed over by Brady and volunteers, water bottle for hydration, a journal to record information at doctor’s appointments or write down thoughts and feelings, a tips and tricks paper for the road ahead and “Suffering,” a book by Paul David Tripp that Brady found meaningful (available at The University of Mobile Store, universityofmobilestore.com).
Word spread about Fighting With Hope and the young woman with colon cancer who started a ministry to give newly diagnosed cancer patients support, encouragement and practical tips for the journey ahead. CBS News sent a reporter to her home and featured Emily and her Chemo Boxes on the evening news.
Watch the Fighting with Hope story on CBS News here.
In January 2025, the treatments stopped working.
“We had to make the really, really, really hard choice to move back home and start hospice care for Emily,” Brady said.
After six years battling cancer, Emily passed away on Feb. 20, 2025, just 10 days after her 33rd birthday.
A year after Emily’s death, Brady is learning to grieve with hope. As he continues in his career, Brady also focuses on expanding the Fighting With Hope ministry. Currently, volunteers – many from their UM family – gather once a week at Mobile’s Innovation Portal to pack and mail Chemo Boxes to newly diagnosed cancer patients across the nation. The Colon Cancer Coalition has partnered with Fighting With Hope by providing a grant and some items to include in Chemo Boxes.
Brady hopes to build more partnerships with churches, hospital foundations, businesses and individuals. He envisions a Fighting With Hope ministry that offers resources for cancer patients, caregivers and grieving widows and widowers.
He continues to post about his journey as a widower on The Fighting With Hope Blog and welcomes opportunities to share their story of faith, hope and love.
“One thing we know – and I am living proof of – is you never know what life’s going to throw at you,” he told students recently at UM’s Make Much Bible study on Lamentations. “We all, at some point, are going to face some kind of suffering. What are you going to hold onto when that suffering comes?”
He says 1 Peter 1:3 has been his lifeline over the past few years: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
“My hope in everything I’ve been through is knowing that there’s a coming time when I will be reunited with Emily – with the Lord – in a place where there’s no more sin, there’s no more sickness, there’s no more cancer and there’s no more death. And that’s a hope that gives me peace and joy to walk through even the darkest valleys today. That’s a hope I cling to, and my prayer is that each one of you will cling to that same hope today,” he told UM students.
One of the beautiful things about Emily was that when she found something good, she wanted to share it with others.
“We used to talk about it all the time – I don’t know how anybody could possibly walk through this season of suffering without the hope of the gospel,” Brady said.“We want to bring a living hope to those in the cancer world. At the end of the day, you can help
with nausea, you can help with loneliness, but if you are going to make it through deep suffering, you need a rock-solid hope – an eternal hope that only comes with the resurrection of Christ.”
Help Make God’s Name Great
Fighting With Hope was born from a simple phrase God placed on Emily King’s heart at the beginning of her cancer journey: Make My Name Great. Although Emily’s journey is complete, the ministry she helped build continues to bring hope, comfort and the love of Christ to cancer patients across the country.
Each day, approximately 5,600 people in the United States are diagnosed with cancer – over 2 million each year. Roughly 1,700 people lose their lives to the disease each day.
So far, more than 1,500 customized Chemo Boxes – for women, men and children – have been delivered to patients in all 50 states. Each Chemo Box costs $250, which includes $200 in carefully selected contents and $50 for shipping and handling.
Brady King is working to expand the Fighting With Hope ministry by partnering with churches, hospital foundations, cancer centers, ministries and like-minded organizations to ensure more patients receive support when they need it most. To help:
• Partner with Fighting With Hope ministry
• Send a Chemo Box to someone you know who is battling cancer.
• Sponsor a Chemo Box for a cancer patient
“Moving forward, I have a vision that every cancer patient would have some kind of resource like this when they get diagnosed,” Brady said.
Learn more, partner or order a Chemo Box at fightingwithhope.com.
Kathy Dean uses her passion for storytelling and “playing with words” to share the stories of people, place and purpose that make the University of Mobile unique. As associate vice president for university communications, she manages media relations, edits the TorchLight alumni magazine, and oversees university communications. A former award-winning journalist, she is a two-time recipient of the Baptist Communicators Association grand prize for feature writing. Kathy and her husband, Chuck, live with three extremely loud miniature schnauzers.
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