Shoes, Shoes, and more Shoes

About a week ago our church (PaulAnn Baptist Church) received a call about shoes that were in a warehouse here in San Angleo. The warehouse was damaged by a tornado in early April. Now the the construction company was removing the wreckage and was told to take all the shoes to the local landfill and bury them. Well the construction company foreman did not want to see such waste and began calling around to see where the shoes could be donated.
Because of our affiliation with an organization called Shoes for Orphan Souls, we responded by getting the shoe company, the construction company, and Shoes for Orpan Souls all connected. It was quite an ordeal and looked like it things were not going to work out at several points in the journey. It was exilerating to be involved and very frustrating at the same time. How could a company simply destroy perfectly good shoes? (some of the boxes were damaged and many of them got wet due to the sprinkler system going off in the warehouse when the tornado hit). But finally through a long series of phone calls and the Lord's intervention the deal was finally made. The shoes would be donated to Shoes for Orphans Souls. Promises had to be made, such as all shoes would leave the country, would not be sold, would not end up on the black market, and would go to countries where Shoes for Orphan Souls actually had their people on the ground to ensure the proper distribution of the shoes to orphans. Once all the legal, licensing, and insurance concerns were met the agreement was reached and Shoes for Orphan Souls could begin colleting the shoes.
How do you begin moving nearly 200,000 pairs of shoes? With lots of big trucks, that is how. We began organizing our church. Shoes for Orphan Souls had 3 people come down from Dallas. Wal Mart was contacted and agreed to provide the trucks needed to haul the shoes from San Angelo to Dallas. The plan swung into motion and on Thursday, May 1 over 40 volunteers showed up in the afternoon and loaded 2 semi-truck tailers full. On Friday several other volunteers came back and sorted through wet boxes to salvage good shoes. We are now planning on major loading days for May 8 & 9 as well as May 12-15. It is quite the process to move so many shoes, but it is such an exhilerating project because over 100,000 orphans across the globe will receive shoes from all of this. God does work, even in the midst of the storm!!!

It's Been A While

Sorry for the long delay in posting. Only one of us does the updating and we are not very successful at it. We will let you do the guessing as to who does the blog updates. In the past few weeks life has been in overdrive around the Todd household. Here's a run down of all that has been going on....

Both boys are in full swing with Baseball. on the typical week we will have between the two boys at least 3 games and 1-2 practices. They are having fun and both of their teams are winning (Blaine's A's are 4-1-1 and Bryce's White Sox are 6-0)

On top of baseball we have our normal routine of Sunday am & pm church as well as Wednesday pm church activities. Lori serves on the leadership team of a church ministry that meets every Thursday night. Phil constantly has meetings and has to work late because of church concerns. So, like everyone else, life is busy - often it is too busy.

Between retreats, special projects, and regular duties, Phil only had 2 days off in the month of April (5th &18). Luckily we were all able to slip away to SeaWorld!!! on the 18th. It was a much needed time away as a family as well as a lot of fun.

Blaine and Phil went with some of the men from the church on a Men's fishing retreat to Palacios, Tx. They had a lot of fun and some great father/son time. They got to go out on a shrimp boat with a few other men and sons. It was a great time of seeing life on the coast, catching a lot of different types of sea life and getting to ride around on a shrimp boat. While they were off on their trip, Bryce and Lori hung around home and had a lot of fun just the two of them

New Family Member!!

We added to the Toddtribe today! We got a brand new kitten. We have yet to name him since no one in the family can agree on a name. I am sure it will not be long before we come up with something. If you have any suggestions, please make a comment and tell us your thoughts on a name. We got this kitten from the Humane society. He is just what Lori has been looking for. It was a necessary thing to get the kitten since Lori and Blaine are both still a bit traumatized from finding our late cat "patches" dying in our garage.

Our new kitten is quite the bundle of energy - he is constantly doing that cat thing - you know, where they suddenly realize that they have to be in another room of the house at that very moment and then they take off running. Well our kitten is still heavily on the uncoordinated side so the probability of him running into a chair leg, a wall, a person, is a very high probability. He's really cute and a lot of fun to play with and to watch play.

March BASEBALL!!....and so it begins.

That's right, it's baseball season. This has been the favorite sport season for Phil and Lori for some time now. It's a bit more laid back, we get to sit togther and watch the games and the boys really enjoy the game. This season has been quite busy. For several weeks now we have been doing baseball practices 5-6 days during the week between both boys. That is about to ease up with the upcoming start of the regular season. Games will begin and practices will ease up. Bryce's team played in the annual Pre-season tournament called the Blue Northern. They had a great run. They won the tournament and did not lose a game the entire way through. (5-0). It was fun, but it was long. Opening day is April 5. The pic is Bryce in action.

Camping at Lake Bastrop

The Todd's invaded the great outdoors Sunday night at the LCRA campground on Lake Bastrop. We got to spend some time with some dear friends. It was great to be there, see our friends, but it was definately too short. However, we did get out of ther before the storms rolled through on Monday night. Check out some of the pics.

Getting Ready for Camping

Well, it's Friday night and I'm about to head to bed but thought I would post real quick. We are happy that it's the weekend and that Spring Break has officially begun!!! We will be heading to Bastrop Lake on Sunday to meet up with some friends to go camping. These were our best friends when we lived in Louisiana, so it will be fun to hang out and relax with them. The last time we saw them was last year camping over Spring Break. I can't wait. There is just something about being out in God's creation and getting away from the daily distractions of home. It's nice not to have to check email, answer the phone, or tell my boys to turn the TV off. I plan on spending some sweet time with the Lord. It will be good. The only downside to camping......it sure is a lot of work!!!!!!

Blogging for the First time

It does take the Todds a bit to catch up with the times, but we eventually get there. Now that we have our own blog, I am now quite sure what we will do with it. But we are going to give it a shot.
The latest on the Todd family is that we have made the transition from Basketball to Baseball. The schedule is just as hectic - Practices on M, T, Th, F; Church on W & Su. The only difference is that we are outside rather than in a gym. The outdoors can be very nice, very windy, and/ or very cold depending on the hour. The boys are having fun, so we enjoy letting them enjoy it. Basketball finished with a bang - Bryce's team won the YMCA tournament and Blaine's team got second in their respective divisions. The nice thing about the Baseball season is that there are no games on Saturdays!! Finally we get one day during the week without consistent obligations.