VOLGA, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – A woman in Volga with a connection overseas through a stem cell transplant is hosting the beneficiary of her donation for the week.
This is the sixth time that Mary Bjerke and her husband Russell have been able to visit Steffi Duelz and her now-growing family. Both view their relationship as an extension of their families.
“I really feel like we were blessed beyond measure,” described Bjerke.
The Bjerkes signed up with Be The Match when she and her husband visited her brother and sister-in-law in Kansas City in 2002.
“I didn’t even really think about signing up as a way to help somebody,” Bjerke said.
In 2009, Bjerke got a call that she was a potential match with a 20-year-old woman battling leukemia. That was the extent of the information she was given at that time.
“Connecting medical technology and spanning oceans to save lives is something I never would have …