Justin Cude is well today because of a bone marrow transplant - a one in six million match found 5,784 miles away.The donor - Ina Sondershaus, 32, who has lived her whole life in Augsburg, Germany.I first learned of Justin, now 17, several years ago when hearing through his mother Barbara that he had an aggressive cancer - acute myelogenous leukemia. Justin was dying. The one constant voice I heard from this mother was hope - always having faith, always believing there would be a way to save her son’s life. Ina first registered to be a bone marrow transplant at 19 in Germany during a drive for someone in her neighborhood - it was not a match. Her father died of cancer when she was a child and hoped to help someone else live - and did with Justin!What a wonderful surprise this morning when Gary D. Kinnaman, Senior Minister, Word of Grace Church in Mesa, mentioned Justin and his family, members of Word of Grace, acknowledging them and Ina Sondershaus who was sitting next to them! Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center brought Ina and her mother out to Arizona to meet Justin and his family as part of a celebration of the hospital’s bone-marrow transplant program. What a wonderful gift for everyone as they met for the first time. Barbara Cude’s hope and faith were realized through Ina Sondershaus - seeing her son alive and well, as was Ina’s - to give another life.
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