David Ensley of Stallings, North Carolina, is doing well after receiving a kidney from a woman who, until recently, he’d never met.
The donor, who is also doing well after the surgery, was a perfect match for him. It was as if she’s his sister, said doctors — even though they’re not related at all. The odds of finding such a perfect match are 20 million to one.
The donor, Amy Cunningham, says it’s no coincidence — that this is something she was meant to do. “This is completely God,” she told Charlotte TV station WBTV.
“We feel like God has had His hand on this from the beginning,” agreed Ensley’s sister, Jennifer Scoggins. “Amy said she was always convinced in her heart she would be a match — and she is.”
Cunningham lost her father five years ago and didn’t want Ensley’s two daughters, aged 16 and 20, to go through the same thing.
“They still need their dad,” she said. “They need to be walked down the aisle. He needs to be there when they have children.”
Ensley has suffered from polycystic kidney disease since 2001. Things took a turn for the worse in 2009 when he suffered kidney failure. He faced death, but finding a donor proved difficult. His siblings were not good enough matches.
Even though she knew it was a longshot, in March one of those sisters, Jennifer, set up a Facebook page to look for a donor.
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