Organ donor provides gift of life to fellow minister

Posted: 4/13/06

Organ donor provides
gift of life to fellow minister

By George Henson

Staff Writer

HOUSTON—When Jerry Wooley left Houston earlier this month to take a job in Nashville, he left more than his heart in Texas. He also left behind his kidney, but it went to a good home—within his ministerial colleague Jeff Waldo.

Waldo is associate pastor for discipleship at University Baptist Church in Houston. Wooley, until the end of last month, was education minister at Park Place Baptist Church in Houston. He now is leader of the Vacation Bible School division of Lifeway Christian Resources.

“We had worked on a few associational projects, so we ran into each other from time to time, and I had always thought of him as a likable guy, but we weren’t friends that hung out together or anything like that,” Wooley said.

“But I always had a tremendous respect for Jeff. He was such a futuristic thinker, working on these projects together, it seemed that the rest of us were focused on the nuts and bolts of things, while Jeff could see the long-range implications.”

Even months after the Sept. 7 surgery, they have met only once. But they have a standing engagement for Waldo to buy Wooley dinner on the anniversary of the surgery each year, even though now it will be a longer trip.

“At least I can make it,” Waldo said with obvious gratitude.

His ability to make such a trip was not always as certain. About 10 years ago, he began to feel something was not right, but it wasn’t until about five years ago that his ailment was diagnosed as FGS—focal glomerulosclerosis. The disease causes the kidneys to scar for some unknown reason, and as the scarring increases, the ability of the kidney to function decreases.

His disease progressed to the point that in January 2005 he applied for a kidney transplant and was approved as a candidate.

In mid-April of last year, the first donor was approved, and a June 6 surgery date was slated.

In May, however, Waldo’s condition deteriorated. Doctors told him May 13 he needed to start dialysis immediately.

“I had always dreaded the thought of dialysis and told them I was scheduled for transplant surgery June 6. They told me, ‘If we don’t start dialysis next week, you’ll probably be dead by then,’” he recalled.

Just a few days before the surgery, doctors determined the prospective donor might need his kidney in the future, and the surgery was cancelled.

On June 6, Wooley learned of Waldo’s plight. He was in the offices of Union Baptist Association when Karen Campbell, senior church consultant there, mentioned Waldo’s surgery was to have happened that day but had fallen through.

“That was the first I knew that he needed a kidney. I knew that he had medical problems but didn’t know what they were,” Wooley recalled.

He spent the next 24 hours researching kidney disease and the transplant process.

“It wasn’t a matter of finding out whether or not I wanted to do it—I knew almost as soon as she said it that not only that I going to go through the process, but that I was the one—but to find out exactly what I was in for,” he said.

He called the next day to begin the screening process.

While Wooley was certain he would be the donor, Waldo’s reaction was measured.

“I really didn’t think he would be selected. There were already several other people further along in the process, and I thought it would probably be one of them,” he recalled.

Also, Waldo said he didn’t want anyone to feel any responsibility to save his life.

“I didn’t want to put any pressure on anybody, because forking over a kidney is kind of a big deal,” he said.

Already two of Waldo’s close friends had gone through the screening process, only to be told in the end they wouldn’t qualify. Both men had sat in Waldo’s living room in tears apologizing for not being able to give him a kidney.

“I did not want that to happen again,” Waldo said.

To try to minimize the feelings of responsibility, Waldo requested future candidates be given numbers to give them a degree of anonymity.

So, Wooley had Waldo put on the Park Place prayer list June 6. In August, that was changed to “Jeff Waldo and Donor No. 9”—Wooley’s designation.

“For a month, they were praying for Jeff and Donor No. 9, never knowing that it was me,” he said.

As the process went on, Wooley began to feel that same driving compulsion to be the one to make the donation that Waldo had seen in his two friends.

“It’s a real difficult situation showing up in a transplant clinic, waiting in the waiting room and actually going through the door for the testing to begin, but it actually becomes a driving force in your life. You begin to feel, ‘I have to do this,’” Wooley explained.

And the testing came often.

“From June 10 until the day of the surgery, I was at the hospital every week for some sort of testing procedure,” he recalled.

Part of Wooley’s desire to be a donor traces back to sermons by his pastor, James Clark.

“He always preached to us about doing things for the kingdom. I even had a Post-it note stuck on my computer that asked, ‘What are you doing for the kingdom?’

“I really felt that being Jeff’s donor was part of my kingdom responsibility. That was the way I felt about this kidney. It wasn’t mine. It was God’s to allocate as he saw fit. And I believed he wanted me to give it to keep this futuristic thinker alive and working for his kingdom,” Wooley explained.

While the men still don’t get together socially, “there is definitely an attachment there,” Waldo admits, and they talk on the phone regularly.

“This man saved my life. There’s no other way to put it,” Waldo said.

Having received such a grand gift, he can’t help but think of more than 90,000 other people awaiting organs. He particularly wants to make people aware that April is Donate Life Month, an emphasis on organ donation.

“I think it is appropriate that Donate Life and Easter are in the same month,” he wrote on his blog at jeffwaldo.blogspot.com. “Transplant recipients know a little bit about substitutionary atonement. If Jerry had not donated, it would have been a much longer wait for me. Because of his donation, I am able to pursue an almost normal life.”