Twenty-seven years ago, Xenios Matjilla’s grandmother Christine donated a kidney to his father John Matjilla. It meant that he was able to live a healthy, active life and go on to raise three children.

Unfortunately, earlier this year, the kidney that had served John so well for such a long time, started to fail. John has been on dialysis twice a week for the last few months, meaning that he hasn’t been able to lead his normal, active lifestyle, which has no doubt been a difficult time for him and his family.

Back in January, John’s long time friend, George Ellinas, put himself up as a potential donor but the results came back as not a match. John will be forever grateful to him.

Unbeknown to John at the time, someone else was also making discreet enquiries as to the possibility of being a live donor. Xenios was speaking to the Live Donor Team at The Royal Free Hospital; he used John’s mum as an example and John’s aunty Andrea who had also donated her kidney to John’s sister Maria.

At the start of the year, Xenios decided that the right and only thing to do would be to get himself tested to see if he was a match for his dad so he could donate a kidney. Xenios is incredibly close with his dad so it was no surprise that the results found that he was a perfect match for him.

After a lengthy process and so much love and support from friends and family, Xenios announced: “I will have the honour of being a kidney donor for my dad. We will be undergoing a Kidney Transplant tomorrow at the Royal Free Hospital. God willing it goes well; it will give him the new lease of life that he deserves.”

John Matjilla is well known within the community and has been an Omonia Youth committee member for several years, also serving as a General Secretary.

20-year-old Xenios is also well known in the community, not just from his youth playing days at Omonia Youth, but as a member of NEPOMAK, is a global organisation dedicated to the needs of young Cypriots between the ages of 18 and 30 in the UK. Xenios is a student at Birmingham University.

Yesterday, Wednesday 12th July, following five months of testing, John and his wonderful son Xenios underwent a Kidney Transplant operation at The Royal Free Hospital.

Speaking before the op, John said, “I can’t even begin to tell you how I’m feeling right now – mixed emotions – thankful to Xenios for what he is doing but also not being able to get my head around the fact that this is not the right order; a father brings up and looks after his son, it shouldn’t be the son at such a young age doing this. Xenios has been an absolute rock throughout this process, determined to see it through to the end. I can’t love him more than I already do. Let’s hope tomorrow is the start of another new beginning.”