Brad Bywater was sitting in a wheelchair while everyone around him stood up to applaud.
It was his daughter’s graduation in Arizona in May 2023. He had lived his whole life with polycystic kidney disease, and by then his kidneys were barely functioning. When he was placed on the transplant waiting list at Mayo Clinic, his family posted a simple message on Facebook asking for someone to get tested as a donor. Brad expected five or six responses.
Among those who saw the post was Chris Runkel, the family’s ministering brother, someone with whom he barely had a close relationship. Something inside him would not leave him alone, and his wife Candee felt the same certainty while waiting at a traffic light. Four months later, in an elevator where someone was playing the piano, Brad learned that he would have a new kidney. The person who gave it to him was barely his neighbor in faith.