Randal Lyle, the senior pastor at Meadowridge Community Baptist Church, gave Rudy Kebreau, a priceless gift when he donated a kidney to his friend and associate.

It was an unlikely match made this side of heaven that even astounded transplant doctors who rarely, if ever, see perfect matches between Anglo donors and Haitian-American recipients. Yet, after extensive testing, Lyle met all the markers for donating a kidney to Kebreau.

“God gave me good health and God brought us together,” said Lyle, 52. “We want the Lord to be glorified in this. He put it all together.”

The pastor  of the Fort Worth, Texas, church sees the transplant process as an object lesson for his congregation. “We are a multi-ethnic church,” Lyle said. “I think it was a testimony that, in a sense, we are all the same. The issue was never anyone’s background or skin color or anything.”

Kebreau, 48, never expected to leave his native Boston for Texas. But God called and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary beckoned, so he and his family moved to Fort Worth.

Kebreau, his wife, and two daughters started attending Meadowridge a decade ago, during his last semester in seminary. Lyle had been the pastor about nine years at that point and Meadowridge was blooming again following a revitalization effort started 10 years prior with the assistance of Wedgwood Baptist Church.

“Everyone [in the family] liked the different departments,” Kebreau recalled about the church. “We decided to make it a home. … We came for the church.”

Soon the church came calling for Kebreau, when Meadowridge’s children’s minister left. Kebreau, who by then had completed a master of arts in Christian school education at Southwestern, had to be persuaded to apply for the job.

“I put in my resume just so everybody would leave me alone,” Kebreau said with a chuckle. “The Lord just did what He was going to do.” Kebreau came on staff in March 2014 and was an immediate blessing, Lyle said.

“It was the Lord’s providential timing,” Lyle said. Little did he or Kebreau understand then just how providential the timing was.

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