Matthew Hyde and Matt Joliff walked down two separate roads for most of their lives. When their paths crossed in a Sunday school class, their separate journeys intersected, and their lives were changed forever by a gift.
From left: Jo Dee Joliff, Matt Joliff, Matthew Hyde, and Carla Hyde with banner the class made them when they returned to Sunday school.Several weeks ago, Matthew gave Matt a kidney that was nearly a perfect match. Before Aug. 16, 2010, the two men didn’t even know each other. They were acquaintances in The Connection, a Sunday school class at Taylors First Baptist Church; however, with more than 180 classmates, the two knew each other’s faces, but that was all.
“We knew who Matthew and Carla were, but it’s not like we were close,” Joliff said. “He did this out of the goodness of his heart and because God told him to.”
After hearing Matt’s testimony in the class about his need for a kidney transplant, Matthew’s heart was stirred, and he knew he should be tested. When test after test over the course of the next few months came back with positive results, Matthew and his wife Carla knew there was a greater power at work.
The Joliffs
Matt and Jo Dee Joliff moved to Greer 12 years ago, but it was 14 years ago that he was diagnosed with kidney disease and a blood disease during a routine physical.
“I had lost about 60 pounds, and I expected the doctor to come back and tell me what a good job I was doing. Instead, he said he had found a few things,” Matt said. The blood disease was managed first. Then, six years ago, the kidney disease started progressing to the point that he was put on the kidney transplant list.
“It’s hard to see your husband deteriorate before your eyes,” Jo Dee said. “I certainly spent more time in my chair in my bedroom with the Bible.” She read Psalm 30:11 (“You have turned my mourning into dancing”) to strengthen her faith.
Every day, instead of prodding Matt with questions about how he felt, she asked him for a number from one to 10. “Even on his worst day, he would say he was doing great and feeling fine,” Jo Dee said.
“I didn’t realize – because it was so gradual – how bad I felt,” Matt said.
Once Joliff was on the transplant list, Dianne Lister, one of the leaders of The Connection class, asked Matt to share his testimony and story. That was in November 2009. Being a private person, Matt was content to let his situation stay in God’s hands. Whatever God wanted to do, he would live with that. After much prodding from Jo Dee, Matt finally gave his testimony Aug. 16, 2010.
The Hydes
Carla keeps a business card in her Bible. It might even mark Jeremiah 29:11, the scripture she held close during the past five months, which says, “I know the plans that I have for you; plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” She picked up the little card Aug. 16, 2010, in her Sunday school class, The Connection.
That was the day she heard from a man about how having kidney disease had given him a whole new relationship with his God, his wife and his church.
“It wasn’t like he said, ‘Anybody got a kidney I can have?’ ” Carla said. Matt didn’t even know that Lister was making the cards that told everyone how to contact Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte if they knew of anyone who could donate a kidney.
During the testimony, Carla kept thinking about her husband. Matthew is healthy; Matthew is O negative, she thought. Then she saw her husband’s face and the tears that wet his cheeks and she knew then that God was calling them to do something. On the way home, Matthew asked Carla what she thought about him getting tested. She told him he should, because that was what she was hearing from God, too. “It was like Jesus was sitting on my shoulder, saying, ‘Matthew should do this,’?” she said.
“I called that Monday and they sent the paperwork within a couple of days,” Matthew said. “It is a long, arduous process.” He gave gallons of urine samples, and vials and vials of blood, for tests and cross-matches.
“The exciting thing was when the representative had the paperwork in front of us, she said, ‘You are a match here and here and here.’ It was just amazing,” Carla said. Of seven cross-matches, six were a perfect match.
The Hydes did all the tests and kept it a secret until Oct. 27. Matthew did not want to tell the Joliffs until they knew that it was going to happen.
The dinner
Matt’s condition worsened following his testimony at church. Lister, who knew about Matthew’s testing process, felt like it was time to let the Joliffs know, to give them hope. She invited several couples from the class for dinner.
“We thought we were there for soup and salad,” Jo Dee said.
Carla sat next to Matt and started asking him how he was feeling. Then she shared how her sister had given her husband a kidney two years before.
“I was wondering why she was going into detail about this stuff,” Jo Dee said.
Matthew had told Carla 15 minutes before they got to Dianne’s house that she would have to do all the talking. Finally, she just blurted out, “If you don’t have anything to do on Dec. 8, we’ve scheduled a kidney transplant. I have to speak for my husband because he’s over there crying. He’s been crying since August.”
Shocked and overwhelmed, the Joliffs decided to put Dec. 8 on their calendar and start the transplant process.
The surgery
Up until the time they put Matthew under anesthesia, doctors gave him the option of changing his mind and not having the surgery. There were a few complications along the way, and Matthew could have bowed out, but he knew God had called him to do it. When tests found a spot on his liver and he had to tell the Joliffs they might have to wait a few months more, he still felt at peace.
“God was in charge, and he worked it out and strengthened our faith because of it,” Matthew said. God had stirred his heart beginning in November 2009, the same month Diane had asked Matt to share his story. Matthew didn’t know what God was planning, but he knew that he wanted to make his life count for something.
“It was an easy decision. I had people involved in my life growing up who took an interest in me, so I wanted to give back,” Matthew said.
The surgery was a success, although it took seven days for Matthew’s kidney to begin working in Matt’s body. “The seventh day,” Jo Dee said. “It’s God telling us he is in charge. It’s certainly changed our lives. We can actually plan our future, and we’re going to have some fun for a change, instead of staying home because we don’t feel good.”
In March, Matt will walk his daughter down the aisle, something he doesn’t take for granted. “The difference is life-changing,” Matt said. “I am so grateful.”
Providence
Believing in the providence of God means knowing that he governs the world. Jo Dee and Matt had to leave their hometown of Lewisburg, N.C., and move to Greer. Carla and Matt had to move back to the area from Texas. Matt was convinced to come here by his boss, Butch Reeves. Matthew’s boss, who asked him to come back, is Dallas Reeves, Butch’s son.
Matt had to tell his story in order for Matthew to hear it. Both men had to step out in faith to find out what leaving their lives in God’s hands meant for them. Their roads intersected at just the right time, and they are forever meshed into the other’s lives because of it.
– Gibson is a staff writer for the Greer Citizen. Reprinted with permission.