Friendship and Faith Leading to a Life-Saving Gift
Photos by Sarah Swanson
Two years ago, Rev. Paul Robinson, executive minister of Serve Locally, learned that his compromised kidney function had reached a point where he needed an intervention. Specifically, he needed a transplant. Jelani Greenidge sat down with Paul and Covenant minister Greg Ellis to talk about what happened next. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Paul, can you take us back to that pivotal lunch at the Hi-Lo Diner when you first shared your diagnosis with Greg?
PAUL: In the spring of 2023, I learned that my compromised kidney function meant I was going to need a transplant. If I didn’t get one, I would have to go on dialysis until a kidney became available.
I already had lunch on the calendar with Greg, so when we met at the Hi-Lo Diner on Lake Street in Minneapolis, I came into the lunch thinking, Here’s this brother I’ve been doing life with for a long time. We’ve prayed for each other, and he’s preached at my church plenty of times. I’m gonna share this with him.
I’m a very private person, but I knew I was going to need someone to be praying for me. So we sat down, we ordered our food, and eventually I started telling him what was going on.
The next thing he said to me was, “What’s your blood type?”
I told him it’s B-positive. His eyes welled up with tears, and he said, “I’m B-positive.” Then he said, “I’d have to talk to my wife about it, but if she’s OK with it, I’d love to give you this gift.”
Of course, I was completely shocked. I mean, I didn’t come to the Hi-Lo looking for a kidney, but I certainly needed one. We had a very tearful, emotional lunch together.
Afterward, I shared with my wife, Kim, what was going on. I have to be honest—I think this was my self-protective side kicking in—but I started lowering my expectations. At first, Kim and I were like, “Wow, that’s amazing! He wants to give you a kidney—who does that?” But in the back of my mind, I was thinking, Well, that’s a lot. Greg’s wife, Kari, could say, “No way, what are you thinking?” Or Greg could say, “On second thought, this is just too much.”
Two or three months went by, and then Greg called me. He said, “Hey man, I just had all this testing done, and it’s confirmed: we’re a match. So whenever you wanna have this surgery, let’s do it.”
That’s when I really lost it. I was crying uncontrollably. It was probably good that I wasn’t actually in Greg’s presence, because… it was a lot.
We looked at both of our schedules and settled on July 2024. But a day before the surgery, during the pre-op, I was diagnosed with COVID.
I just felt awful. We had to push it back, and I had a lot more sadness to work through.
In the midst of that COVID delay, I decided to go golfing after work one day. I was feeling very winded and didn’t know why. The next day, I went to urgent care, and they told me I had developed blood clots that started in my leg and had traveled into my lungs, which is why I was feeling winded. Now I like to tell people that golfing saved my life!
So after those delays and complications, we finally had the surgery last February.
Greg, can you tell us how you came to the decision to give Paul your kidney?
GREG: I’ve been married to my wife, Kari, for twenty-seven years, and she is really selfless. She is someone who will give ’til it hurts and then keep on giving. I’ve always been the person with good boundaries. I’m usually the one challenging her to know when to stop giving, and she would challenge me to be a little more generous.
So when Paul and I were talking in that diner, the best way I can describe it is a deep, internal knowing. I think my primary spiritual gift is discernment, and I’ve practiced learning to hear from God. I felt very deeply that I knew that Paul’s blood type was the same as mine, and I knew as soon as he verified it that meant I was donating a kidney. When I offered it, I realized I’d really changed.
Those dots connected for me in such a strong way that it actually kind of got me in trouble a little bit with the folks at Mayo. They wanted to make sure that I wasn’t being coerced, that I was doing this of my own volition. When I told the social worker that I never actually made a conscious decision to do it, she kind of stopped and looked at me and said, “That’s interesting. Tell me more.” I think she wanted to make sure that Paul hadn’t kidnapped anyone in my family.
After that lunch, I explained everything to Kari, and she said, “Well, if it’s a God thing, then of course.” Once she was on board, she and I started talking through next steps.
There was another pastor a few years ago who needed a kidney. When I heard about that, I committed to pray for him. But it never crossed my mind to give him part of my body. Had you told me three years ago that I was going to donate a kidney, I would have been incredulous. This was not on my bucket list. This was not, “Oh, that’d be really cool, I should do that someday.”
Can you tell us about your relationship before that conversation in the diner?
PAUL: We had been friends for many years. I first became aware of Greg around the time the church he was shepherding made a decision to close, and he was navigating that. I was moving in the direction of church planting, and this guy’s church was ending. I thought, Here’s a brother who needs some encouragement. So I asked him if he could give me some coaching.
Over the years, our relationship continued, even after that formal connection ended. I’ve found his counsel, his prayerful approach mirroring and discerning what the Spirit is saying to me, to be very helpful.
And as an introvert, well, I don’t have thirty good friends. My circle is very small, so it’s become comforting and safe for me to share my heart with Greg.
GREG: Paul and I had already done so much life together, and we had so many overlapping connections. His wife was the associate principal at Spring Lake Park, where I graduated, and I taught his daughter at Minnehaha Academy. This all was just born from our friendship and the Spirit’s prompting.
Most of the people I talked to who had gone through something similar told me that I could expect to feel completely normal afterward, that I’d have a normal life expectancy. So in July, when the surgeon told us that we needed to postpone the surgery, at that point it felt like a punch in the gut.
Paul, I know this would be a big request for anyone to make. Are you someone who typically has trouble asking for what you need?
PAUL: Yes. As a caregiver and a server, I’m always asking other people what they need, and I’m quick to try to respond if I can. What made this so overwhelming was that I didn’t even have the opportunity to ask. When Kim and I first talked about my situation, we both decided that at that stage, we were not going to ask anybody for a kidney. I mean, maybe if I’d been on the transplant list for years, but not in that early stage.
I mean, if it had gotten to a critical point, maybe we would have asked someone in our immediate family. All of our kids were saying, “Yeah, I’ll go get tested.” But we didn’t necessarily feel at peace about that in the moment.
The surgery was rescheduled for February 4. And I was nervous. In the back of my head, I was thinking about all the things that could go wrong. I was wondering if I could die on the table.
Then, in my final pre-op appointment with the surgeon, he asked me what I do for work. I told him I was a Covenant pastor, and he said, “Oh, that’s really good work.” Then he said, “Can I pray for you?”
Wow.
PAUL: I’ll never forget it. He grabbed my hand and prayed out loud. That was such a boost for me, going into the surgery.
A couple of weeks later, at my post-op check-in, he told me that my numbers were looking good, that everything seemed trending in the right direction. Then he asked if he could pray for me again.
By that point, I was super emotional. I mean, this whole thing has been incredible. I still can’t get my mind around the fact that Greg gave me a kidney. And now this doctor is praying for me, and I just get this sense that, yeah, this is right.
It didn’t work out to have the surgery in July, but these things happen in God’s time. You hear people say that, and intellectually I know what they mean, but it didn’t help me feel better in the moment. But then, after the delay, Alexander Cortez became my surgeon. I don’t think he was even at Mayo back in July—he certainly wasn’t initially scheduled to do the surgery.
So here was this doctor praying for me, and it just felt right. Afterward, I asked him if I could give him a hug. He said, “Yeah, I love hugs.”
It helped me to remember how God goes before us. From those early outreach moments where Greg and I connected, to the realization that God had February 4 in mind all along. In the Psalms, David remarks that God knows us even before we are formed. “You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13, NIV). That part just destroys me. Thinking about God’s grace and his provision for my life. How could he do that for me?
I have this tangible second chance at life, and I’m trusting that the residual impact of this gift will also continue to come back to Greg in some way.
GREG: They told me afterward that after the surgeon had removed the kidney from my body and was flushing to prepare it for Paul, one of the surgeons commented, “That’s a beautiful kidney.” It’s like God knew that my kidney was functioning really well. I’m thinking about the verse where Jesus says if you have two cloaks, and your brother needs one, you give him a cloak (Luke 3:11).
I’m trusting that somehow in God’s economy, Paul and I will both have enough—not just enough, but exceedingly, abundantly, all that we could ask or imagine.
This article was first published in the Covenant Companion Summer 2025 issue, the official magazine of the Evangelical Covenant Church.
