Daughter is saving the life of her NC father 27 years after she was adopted
A North Carolina man’s search for a kidney donor has turned up a match: a “perfect” one.
That match was Billy Houze’s adopted daughter, according to his Facebook post. He said DeLauren McKnight came into his home 27 years ago after being in foster care.
“She is about to donate me a kidney in order to give me more years of life,” Houze wrote in the post. “Oh how I love this beautiful lady and the sacrifice she is willing to make.”
Houze, 64, is senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Lawndale, about 50 miles outside Charlotte.
He told The News & Observer he has traveled across the country as an evangelist and now spends hours each week on dialysis treatments. Houze wants to work on a book and sing in the future, according to the Shelby Star.
Houze needed a transplant after his kidneys shut down during a hospital visit in 2016, the newspaper wrote. Finding a donor from the transplant list might have taken years, and relatives began to see if they could help, according to WBTV.
“The pastor simply ran out of blood family members to test,” the station reported. “But there was one more.”
McKnight told WBTV she wanted to get screened and was a “perfect” match. Houze said the transplant could be in a few weeks.
“We saved her so she could save my life from kidney disease,” he wrote on Facebook.
This story was originally published February 27, 2019 at 3:20 PM.
