A year and a half after undergoing a stem cell transplant, 60-year old Yehudit met her donor: Ricardo, the Brazilian immigrant who saved her life.

When Ricardo Gonsalves (24), emigrated from Brazil to Israel six years ago, he never imagined that he would have the opportunity to save a Jewish life in his new country thanks to the generosity of his fellow Brazilians.

Yesterday, a year and a half after  joining Ezer Mizion's Bone Marrow Registry as an IDF soldier, Ricardo met Yehudit Polembo
(60), who is alive today thanks to him. "I stood there facing him and could not stop crying. My legs trembled with emotion," Polembo tearfully related yesterday in the course of the moving meeting.

Three months after his release from army service, Gonsalves was suddenly summoned to the military clinic on the base where he served. "When I got there, the doctor reminded me about the blood sample I had given as part of my induction process, and told me that I have the chance to save a life, since Ezer Mizion's Registry found me to be a perfect match for a patient. On the spot, I told the medical officer, yes - I would do it!"

A few days later, Gonsalves arrived at the hospital in order to donate his stem cells. But when he asked who the patient was that he was helping, he was told that this information could only be divulged after a year would elapse. "I was really curious to know to whom I donated bone marrow and how he is feeling," said Gonsalves. "All they could tell me was that the transplant was a success. Every few months I called, because I kept thinking, "Maybe now they will reveal the patient's  identity."

Two weeks ago, out of the blue, Gonsalves got a call from Ezer Mizion, the organization that runs the world's largest Jewish Bone Marrow Registry. The Registry staff reported to him that the patient to whom he donated his stem cells has recovered and is alive today thanks to him, and that she too wants to meet and personally thank him for his donation.

"I am not married yet, so I can say that the  meeting with Yehudit is the most moving moment that I have experienced so far in my lifetime.," Gonsalves said yesterday emotionally, in the course of the meeting with Polembo at Ezer Mizion's Oranit Guest Home for cancer patients.

Polembo, who was diagnosed with blood cancer about three and a half years ago, smiled: "We'll marry you off yet. Now, you are like my own son, because your blood flows in my body."

"The emotional meeting is the moment when you truly understand the tremendous value of the organization's donor drives and other activities. We can save many more lives by enlarging our Registry and that is our goal," said Dr. Bracha Zisser, director of Ezer Mizion's National Bone Marrow Registry.

The cost of initial lab testing the blood sample Ricardo gave when he joined the Registry was sponsored by a committed group of Brazilian philanthropists and became part of their personalized "Brazil Community Donor Pool" in Ezer Mizion's Registry.  So it was actually Ricardo's compatriots who enabled this transplant to take place.

This is one of the forty six transplants that have been sponsored by the Brazil Community Donor Pool thus far. All the people whose lives they have saved, together with their spouses, parents, siblings and children can fill an entire auditorium. The thought of the Brazil Community's enormous privilege to save so many lives is awesome!