{"id":406339,"date":"2026-08-18T12:04:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T10:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/?p=406339"},"modified":"2026-08-18T12:09:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T10:09:34","slug":"a-friendship-is-truly-worth-a-kidney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/a-friendship-is-truly-worth-a-kidney\/","title":{"rendered":"A friendship is truly worth a kidney"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-734a27d9827e7a1dca623df4e41aab95 wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"color:#661717;font-size:18px\"><strong>Video in English. Turn on subtitles and select your preferred language <\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"A friendship is truly worth a kidney\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JaVqY4JcPt0?feature=oembed\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n<div style=\"height:37px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-black-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color wp-elements-44690a1f95e855f1ca795280d4918e78 is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\" style=\"background-color:#f7f7da;font-size:18px;letter-spacing:1px\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For this story, I have to introduce you to my friend Anthony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He was living in New Jersey at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He had chronic kidney failure. And so, three times a week he had to go on for dialysis, which, of course, made it kind of hard to go about his regular daily life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At one point in time, I was thinking, \u201cHey, you know, maybe I could be a kidney donor to him.\u201d But these were kind of like mere thoughts and nothing\u2014you know, I didn\u2019t follow up. I didn\u2019t talk to anybody about it.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A couple months go by, and at one point in time I find myself doing an Easter retreat. On the first day of the retreat, in order also to prepare myself a little bit, I went in for a visit to the chapel. Out of the blue, this question came back to my mind: \u201cHey, J.P., are you still willing to donate a kidney?\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was kind of surprised because I hadn\u2019t thought about it for months. But at that very moment there, I prayed about it, I thought about it, and I thought, \u201cYes, I want to follow up with it. And I want to see if that could eventually be a possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then, on the next day of the retreat, one of the young people sharing was Gidget, Anthony\u2019s daughter. First, she shared that during her teenage years, her mom went through a lot of suffering. She had lupus. She had kidney failure. And now, many years later, her dad kind of went through the same situation with the kidney failure. She said, \u201cEven though we suffered so much as a family, I wouldn\u2019t exchange this experience.\u201d   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because recognizing Jesus on the cross in that suffering, she felt that she had come closer to God. And also, it had brought the family a lot closer together as well.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She walks off the stage, she comes back, she grabs the mic again, and she says, \u201cBy the way, just in case anybody is interested in knowing, my dad is O-positive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That came to me as a shock because I\u2019m also O-positive. So I felt that the only reason she was sharing that was for me to hear that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then I understood also that God had allowed me, the day before, to make that decision in all peace and freedom, just between He and I at that moment in the chapel. So there was a gift. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then we went ahead. We talked about it with some others in the Focolare community. We did some tests for the blood and the tissue. Everything was matching.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A few months later, we actually had the kidney transplant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of course, you hear also the consequences are\u2014you know, you can live your life with one kidney. But it was, of course, not on my mind at all. I felt it was not just me wanting to do that, but I also felt kind of like that trigger from God, like, \u201cHey, if you want, this could be a possibility.\u201d So it was kind of like a subtle invitation on His part to make me make that step out of love for Him. So that was also in the background here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of course, Anthony and I stayed in the hospital for a few days. I really felt a tremendous joy in my heart, you know. And I felt there was not just\u2014not a joy because of, \u201cI did something.\u201d But I felt that joy came from God. That was very powerful and very tangible. It was a gift, you know, a special moment.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Jean Pierre Slee (Whashington \u2013 USA)<\/em><br\/><em>Photo: JP Slee\u2019s personal archive<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:34px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>This video is part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.focolaremedia.com\/tag\/point-guide-living-spirituality-unity\">On Point<\/a><\/em><em> series produced by Focolare Media. This web series explores the key aspects of the Focolare Movement\u2019s spirituality through reflections and real-life experiences. Visit   <\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.focolaremedia.com\/\">Focolare Media<\/a> or the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCs6iHwqJi75-MblzOt7DRSw\">YouTube channel<\/a> to access other resources of this kind, available with subtitles and dubbing in various languages.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<div style=\"height:160px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A thought that arose almost by chance, an invitation accepted in the silence of prayer, and a choice capable of changing two lives. The story of a friendship that became a gift of life. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":406338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2830,1,3286],"tags":[3349,3196,3301],"class_list":["post-406339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-focolari-nel-mondo-2","category-non-categorizzato","category-testimonianze-di-vita-en","tag-notifiche-en","tag-ppg-en","tag-testimonianze-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":406340,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406339\/revisions\/406340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}