By writer to www.arkansas-catholic.org
Probability encounter allowed Thomas Burchfield to satisfy organ recipient
Courtesy Thomas Burchfield
Thomas Burchfield (left) donated his kidney to a stranger, Travis Jackson, a minister in Texarkana, Texas.
HOT SPRINGS — Final 12 months Travis Jackson wasn’t positive the place his life was going. His kidneys had failed.
The 35-year-old father of three younger kids was staying alive by way of six years of each day remedies, together with dialysis. Jackson, government pastor of the Church on the Rock in Texarkana, Texas, had the help of his church members and his household whereas he waited for a substitute kidney. And he prayed.
Across the similar time Thomas Burchfield, 31, a member of Holy Cross Church in Sheridan, was making ready to turn into a kidney donor on the College of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Medical Heart in Little Rock. He was to be an nameless donor.
“We had been a match,” Jackson stated. “It was a solution to my prayers. Thomas stated, ‘God instructed me to do it.’ I’m so grateful to him,” he stated, noting he’s grateful to God and to Burchfield.
“I at all times wished to be an organ donor. I wished to do it as a result of Christ suffered for us,” Burchfield stated. “My struggling in surgical procedure was nothing in comparison with Christ’s struggling on the cross.”
Burchfield is a singular particular person as a result of he donated an organ to a stranger. Usually organ donors are kin or mates. April is Nationwide Donate Life Month to advertise organ donors and to honor folks, like Burchfield, who’re reside donors.
Burchfield has served as Holy Cross parish council chairman and vice chairman and oversees the parish cemetery. He’s married to Alexis Burchfield, a youth counselor, and they’re foster mother and father to a 1-year-old boy.
Burchfield stated he instructed solely his spouse about changing into a donor and the surgical procedure to take away his left kidney in Might 2019.
“I didn’t inform my household till the day earlier than the surgical procedure,” he stated.
Burchfield stated he met Jackson by accident when their paths crossed at UAMS. They’ve since turn into mates.
“I didn’t remorse doing it in any respect,” Burchfield stated. “I gave Travis a brand new life for him and his household. His high quality of life has improved. He may have died.”
Jackson stated that from his wheelchair he hugged Burchfield within the medical middle hallway when he realized that Burchfield donated his kidney.
“God will bless him for this,” Jackson stated. “God can inform if you do one thing from the center.”
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