Mother: God touched 6-year-old's teacher to donate kidney

NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas (Christian Examiner) – Lisa Parker felt she needed to let her 6-year-old son Matthew know God loved him so much He "put it in someone's heart" to be a donor of the kidney Matthew desperately needed.

That person is his first grade teacher Lindsey Painter.

"It's hard not to feel like this is the way things were meant to be," Lindsey Painter told KXAN in Austin, Texas. She had been a teacher in the Comal Independent School District for 13 years but decided to transfer to Hoffmann Lane in August to be closer to her family. "Everything has fallen into place and it's happened that way for a reason."

Matthew, who is a triplet, was only three weeks old when his kidneys began to fail. He had a transplant at age two that his body began rejecting two years later. He has been undergoing dialysis three times a week ever since, hoping for another transplant, but doctors only gave him a one percent chance of finding a second donor.

Painter was one of about 70 volunteers who agreed to be tested when University Transplant Center in San Antonio held a press conference pleading for donors.

"When it came back that I was a match, it was shocking," Painter said, KVUE in Austin reported. "It did take a while to wrap my head around it, to think that I can do this, I can still live a normal life...and I get to make this amazing difference in Matthew's life."

As for Matthew, he is looking forward to attending school every day, and also doing other things he has had to avoid because of his health.

"Once he found out that he's getting a transplant, he's been so giddy every day. He's been so excited," his mother shared with WOAI in San Antonio. "She was selfless and just a giving person. I think it's really a miracle."