CAMERON, Texas — A man in Texas who suffered with End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) is expressing thankfulness to God and his pastor, who says that he felt led of God to donate a kidney, not even knowing if he would be a match.
Jesse Cerecerez learned in 2015 that his kidneys had failed and was placed on dialysis. The experience, he says, has been difficult, as with ESRD one cannot survive without dialysis or a transplant.
“Dialysis is a rough lifestyle to live. I felt as is if all my freedoms were taken away from me,” he wrote on his GoFundMe Page. “These last two years have been really hard. I take dialysis three times a week. Every day I have been praying for a miracle in my life.”
However, last year, Cerecerez was surprised when his pastor, Basillio Montez Jr. of Holy Ground Baptist Church in Cameron, knocked on his door and advised that he believed God wanted him to help by donating a kidney.
“I was shocked and excited all at once,” he recalled.
Even more surprising was the fact that Montez was indeed a match for donorship. Cerecerez received a phone call in May from his transplant coordinator that everything was good to go.
Last month, the two underwent successful surgery, and both give glory to God for His hand in the journey.
“We praise God for everything that [He] has been doing [and] for the healing that He has been giving us—always for His honor and His glory,” Montez told KCEN-TV.
“I am forever greatful, first for God and His plan for me,” Cerecerez also wrote. “Then I’m grateful for my pastor, and his loving and kind heart. I am grateful for our friendship and his spiritual guidance. Basillio is truly the most selfless man I know.”
A week after the surgery, Montez returned to church to preach, delivering a message entitled “God Is Faithful to His Promise,” based on Joshua 21:43-45.
The GoFundMe page to help cover the medical expenses of the men has raised over $3,000 of the $5,000 goal as of press time.
“It’s exciting to know that for the past year I have been praying for a miracle in my life, and my God heard my prayers and delivered me!” Cerecerez wrote on Facebook after being released from the hospital. “God is real people! Pray! Cry out to Him! Fight and NEVER GIVE UP!”
In his 1896 book “The Holiest of All,” preacher Andrew Murray wrote in commenting on Hebrews 10:24, “Love and good works: these are to be the aim of the Church in the exercise of its fellowship. Everything that can hinder love is to be sacrificed and set aside. Everything that can promote, and prove, and provoke others to love is to be studied and performed. And with love, good works, too.”
“The Church has been redeemed by Christ to prove to the world what power He has to cleanse from sin, to conquer evil, to restore to holiness and to goodness. Let us consider one another, in every possible way, to provoke, to stir up, to help to love and good works.”
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