Two surgeries took place on June 21, 2001, saving one woman's life, profoundly impacting another's and creating an enduring connection between the two.

The Rev. Janna Tull Steed, who had long battled liver disease, moved to Creston, Iowa, from Connecticut in 1995. She was drawn to a music program at a nearby college, a lower cost of living and the town’s proximity to a well-regarded transplant program at Nebraska Medical Center.

“My doctor at Yale had trained there, and he said, ‘I’ll send you to my mentor – you can’t do better than that place,’” says Steed, who holds graduate degrees in divinity from Yale University, served as a pastor and wrote a spiritual biography of Duke Ellington.

Though she was new to the town and without relatives nearby, Steed found community in the small congregation of an Episcopal church. She became particularly close with a retired couple, a former nurse and radiologist, Jean and Jed Paul.

In 1998, the couple’s daughter, Jean Anne Paul, moved from Texas to Creston. She began teaching math at the local community college and got to know Steed through church.

“I became aware that she had liver disease and was not doing very well,” Paul says. “For the next couple of years, Janna was back and forth to Omaha and on the transplant list, but things didn’t seem to be working out.”

The decision to donate

After one of Steed’s appointments, Paul called her for an update. Steed was in end-stage liver disease. Her doctor, Michael Sorrell, MD, suggested she find a living donor who was under 50 years old and had type O blood – criteria that Paul met.

“When she said her best chance would be to find a living donor, I just felt the Lord speak to me and say, ‘I think you're going to be it,’” Paul says. “I mean, not in words, but I felt enveloped by the Lord's presence – that it would be something I could do and should do.”

Paul began the evaluation process, undergoing blood work, scans and psychological assessments. Because she was so petite, her doctor worried her liver might not be sufficient. 

“After a hepatic angiogram, they determined that I had an unusually large liver for a person of my stature and that the left lobe that I would be retaining had an extra system of blood vessels that only 10% of people have,” Paul says.

With the support of her family, friends and hepatologist Daniel Schafer, M.D., Paul prepared for surgery. Having recently accepted a teaching position in Texas, she informed the district of the possibility of her delayed start.

The surgery 

Leading up to the surgery, Paul and Steed took long walks together, talking and deepening their growing bond.

“It was during the times that we discussed what was going to happen, what our fears were, that our friendship really formed,” Steed says. 

Their surgeries were among the first nonrelated living-donor transplants at Nebraska Medical Center. Steed’s brother, the Rev. Justin Tull, and his wife, Lynn, and Paul’s mother, Jean, played important roles in their recovery. 

Within a couple of months, Paul was well enough to move to her present-day home of San Antonio. Since then, she and Steed have kept in touch by talking on the phone often and meeting annually around their transplant anniversary.

No regrets

Reflecting on becoming a donor, Paul says, "It was like standing on the side of a pool and watching someone drown and not diving in to help them. Fear is always going to be a part of it, but if you can overcome the fear, the gratification you can get from truly helping someone in need outweighs being afraid."

Today, Paul is retired from teaching and active in her church and volunteering. Steed, now 82, lives in a senior community in Newton, Iowa. Despite health challenges, including breast cancer and dialysis, she remains positive and grateful for Paul's gift.

"With the kind of love she showed to risk her life to save mine, how can I not be grateful and try to live gratefully with whatever comes along?"