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