It only takes one person....

This is just an amazing story of someone from Utah- and how 1 person's good deed tricked down to help 3 people :) Just a beautiful story! I hope you enjoy as much as I did!

Beckham Fershtut, one of the three kidney recipients

When Ted Bartling, a rocket scientist from Utah, decided to donate a kidney to a stranger, he knew he'd potentially be saving one person's life. What he didn't know was that he'd be saving three people's lives.

Bartling's incredible sacrifice, or "gift as he calls it, set in motion a chain of events at Salt Lake City's University Hospital and Primary Children's Medical Center that forever linked six people and allowed three, including a 2-year-old boy, to receive successful kidney transplants late last week. On Thursday, Dr. Jeffrey Campsen, who performed surgery on the donors, told Yahoo Shine that all three recipients and their donors are thriving and have headed home or will be discharged within the next couple of days.

"For at least 15 years, donating a kidney had been on my mind as something I could do to help somebody live a normal life like mine," Bartling, 51, told Yahoo Shine. "They'll only take a kidney up until you're about 60. I can do small things for people, but sometimes we have to do the bigger things if we are capable."

Ted BartlingApparently, he picked the perfect moment. There were three patients in need, but no matches. Juan Romero, 45, who has a rare B- blood type had been on a waiting list for three years and was on dialysis. Brandy Jess, 40, also on dialysis, had a donor — her friend Kristy Buffington — but at the 11th hour, a final test revealed they were incompatible. And then there was 2-year-old Beckham Fershtut, whose parents Ari and Hayley wanted to give him a kidney but weren't good matches.

 "The chain began with the child," said Campsen. "He was weeks away from starting dialysis. For a 2-year-old it's incredibly difficult and shortens his lifespan." Campsen says he could see that Beckham's kidneys were failing. The toddler was listless and irritable, and his skin looked ashy. "And then we had a gentleman come forward who wanted to be what we call an altruistic donor."

The boy's father, Ari Fershtut, also made clear that he was willing to donate a kidney to a stranger if someone else had an organ for his son. Suddenly the pieces fell into place. "We moved quickly, and there was an 'aha moment' when we came to the table with all this information," said Campsen. Ari Fershtut was a match for Romero, Bartling was a match for Jess, and Buffington was able to donate her kidney to little Beckham.

 The surgeries were completed over two days. Bartling says that while the hospital didn't formally introduce the donors and recipients, they sought one another out in the hallways after their surgeries. "The very first person that I met was the father of the child. It was very touching to meet the little boy. It's major surgery. There is not much room for an adult kidney in a child that young. You could tell he was very comforted by having anyone by his crib." According to Campsen, Beckham is now full of energy and his prognosis is excellent. "His parents look like they have had a 100-pound weight lifted from them."

Campsen stresses the importance of live kidney donations, which he says are safe and effective, get recipients off of dialysis sooner, and lengthen their lives. There are about 90,000 people on the waiting list for transplants. "Kidney transplantation is medicine," said Campsen, "but this was about a community coming together and helping each other." He says it was like a ripple effect across Salt Lake City, the state of Utah, and "perhaps even the nation itself." Because of Bartling's courage and generosity, Beckham waited only a month for a kidney. "If it had been years," said Campsen,"he might not have survived."

By Sarah B. Weir

Even at a Gas Station....

 

 

 

 Written by Nicole Marie Heintz

So I was just on my way to work and I had to stop for gas so I allowed myself some extra time to get to work. When I pulled up to the pump I shut my car off and saw this middle aged man crying looking at the gas pump. I began to wonder what happened with this man and as I got out of my car and looked at him my heart felt like it stopped.

In Apple Valley, Minnesota it is 10 degrees and freezing cold with the wind. This man was wearing flip flops with socks covered in holes. I look I his car and see his wife in the front seat covering her face in her hands and the 2 teenage girls both of cuddling under a blanket in the back seat.

I didn't even think and I went up to the man and said sir is something the matter? He looked at me and I could tell he was on the verge of giving up because he didn't even try to conceal his tears when he said I can't even provide for my family.

Without even thinking I put my card in his machine and tell him Jesus Christ the Son of God died to provide for you. Fill up. Something, something came alive in him. He was in shock and it was like he forgot how to pump gas.

In that same moment his wife got out of her car, she asked her husband what was going on and he told her I just payed for their gas she started to cry and came around the corner to shake my hand when I saw her pants dirty and torn. I asked her to come to my car.

The airport lost some of my luggage on my way to MInnesota from California and I had to clean out my closet to find stuff to wear and get rid of a lot of stuff all of that stuff that I had yet to give away was siting in the back seat of the car and in the trunk. I opened up my car and told the lady to take what she wanted.

This lady RAN back to her car. I was so afraid I had just embraced her but a moment later her and her two girls were digging through those clothes layering my sweatshirts and shirts and sweat pants over the worn out clothes they had been wearing.

Soon the father had finished pumping the gas and came over. This attracted a little crowd at the gas station. An some older man gave the family a cub gift card and another middle aged man gave away his jacket to the father. Never in my life did I think I would see this kind of thing happen at a gas station with a handful of complete strangers.

But it gives me hope. That the love of God can be so contagious. That we are not alone in being the change we want to see in the world. That God's love is greater than anything and we get to be a part of that love changing lives. And HE always provides!