Run Brady Run!

So we have been away a bit- moving, getting adjusted, hangin out...  But we have been busy!  In our two weeks that we have been in San Antonio we have helped with two garage sales (third one this weekend), volunteered at CHF (head back next week), celebrated Taylor's Birthday!, celebrated Mother's Day, looked for jobs, unpacked, and unpacked some more, and even stepped in to teach a few homeschool lessons!

We have a lot of catching up to do...

And we are going to start by telling you how awesome Brady is!  Brady is Taylor's middle brother and the most musically-creative, self-motivated person we know.  Here is a little about him:

Brady Winder
Age:  19
Lives in:  Spokane, Washington
Occupation:  Walmart/Musician
Website: http://bradywinder.com/
About me: "I love making music, listening to music, playing music, recording music, dancing to music, discussing music, and thinking about music. I love running, especially long distances, dreaming about running, and reading about running. I love going new places, roadtripping places, visiting places, reading about places, and talking about places. I love growing, emotionally growing, physically growing, faithfully growing, mentally growing, spiritually growing, educationally growing, relationally growing. I love people, talking to people, growing with people, sharing with people, having fun with people, laughing with people, eating with people, learning from people, being with people.
The one thing that makes everything else so unimportant is my relationship with God. I try to base my beliefs, thoughts, emotions, relationships, and decisions on what God taught us when he walked the earth as a man. He is the only way I've found for a broken man, such as myself, to feel so whole... Through him I strive for life."

One more thing about Brady is that he sponsors a child through World Vision.  This is something we have always wanted to do but were beat out by our little brother.  Even when we were being supported by a full- time job we felt like we didn't have enough to consistently sponsor someone, but Brady doesn't let excuses stop him.  He thrives in the moments that others see as difficult.  Even when money gets tight, he finds enough to help, and he doesn't stop there.  On top of his monthly sponsorship Brady runs to raise awareness and money for World Vision.   

{World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. World Vision serves all people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender.}

Here is a note from Brady about what he is doing this time around-

Months of training, reading, eating, thinking, and breathing for running... and it all comes down to one month. I'll be training and racing for 145 miles in May. For those of you who don't know how this works, it's pretty simple. This month I will be running in 3 different races in my area. At each of these races, I'll be wearing a bright orange Team World Vision jersey. This helps in letting people know that I'm running for one of the best causes out there. During all of my training and racing, I'm collecting donations of any amount to help save lives around the world. This time around I'm setting a new goal of $1,000! This will be my second time running for World Vision. Last October I raised $300 for a half marathon that I placed 3rd in, for my age division. Please join with me and be a part of something life changing!


Three separate races on three separate weekends.  
First - was two weekends ago, Bloomsday 7.5 miles
Second - this weekend May 14th , Windermere Half Marathon 13.1 miles
Third - May 29th, Couer d'Alene Marathon 26.2 miles


He is truly inspiring to us :)  Brady we are proud of you and are behind you 100%!  
Run Brady Run!  

If you would like to help Brady reach his goal or just check in to see how he is doing go here!

The End of a Year and the end of a goal!

This year has been so great! We celebrated so many things- birthdays, anniversaries, banquets, benefits, we hung out with old friends and made some really good new ones, we said goodbye to some families, and hello to a few babies! We were so blessed in so many ways. Take a look at a few of the highlights!

We started last year in Chicago!!!

Since then our friend Falyn who we were visiting has moved back to Texas!!!

Taylor made it to an Extreme Makeover Home Edition reveal!!!

Teddi was "re-adopted"! We love our little sister!

We got to visit friends Tia and Joey in CT with a day trip to NYC!!

We ran the CHF 5K!!!

We attended to the 3rd annual Children's Hunger Fund Banquet!

We ate PB&J sandwiches almost every day as we let our original Food Pak Adventure change they way we ate all year!

And so much more! Thank you everyone for following along with us through this year, you have been a great blessing to us, hope to see you next year, too!

And because it was such a great year we have something big to end it with... At the beginning of the year we said that we wanted to raise enough money to build well. Now it is time for our final update and it starts back with Aunt Amy... She really had a heart for what we were doing, so much that she held a meeting this summer with the family. With everyone there she presented her plan to replace the gifts that they would normally receive from Papa with money. Cash for everyone! And Papa and his handyman self would build a well to represent what we wanted to share with the world. So this year for Christmas we all received money and as fast as we got it we put it all in! We dumped our pockets, including the money we had been saving up in Houston, in San Antonio, in Adrian, in Battle Creek, and in Tipton. Everyone pitched in and our water jars overflowed into the well! Everyone shared their stories, their memories, their accomplishments, their love for one another. We shared over Skype and over the phone. We are so thankful for the families that God has given us! Thankful that they believed that we could do this and thankful that they wanted to be a part of it in a big way! Thank you so much to everyone one who helped!

Here are some pictures from the night (via Skype)! All the family in Michigan was at Papa and Gma's house on the 29th for their big Christmas celebration! The little ones opened a few gifts along with their dollars and everyone ate lots of good food I hear! ;) The family here in Texas received cash as well and we had our own little photo of the well from Papa!

In go the money jars!

Inside the well!

Aunt Amy, Landon, and the well!

The Winder and Rodriguez well monies!

So you wanna know the grand total?!?!?!

At the end of the night all monies were counted from all families and all projects from the year. Cousins calculated on their phones and through the phone with my Mom, connected via Skype, we heard this number all the way from Michigan...

$6,947.50

And Papa pitched in out of pocket to bump it up to an even $7, 000!!! Way to go guys! What a beautiful Christmas gift to our King! What a beautiful way to end the year!

More Water Warriors

We have a big announcement to make but before we do we still have a lot of people to thank!
Along with Tina making bracelets, Amy making crafts, and Thayne sharing with his co-workers, we have many more great stories to share! So many in fact that we hope we mention them all... really we just keep hearing about more and more. It really is incredible!

Uncle Tad and his family gave up drinks for awhile and saved money by only drinking water. Yep, no coffee, Dr. Pepper, or energy drinks! They also put together a yard sale! Thanks guys you are so awesome!

Aunt Jodi donated early in the year when she heard what we were doing. But she and Uncle Fritz and their family set an amount that they would donate monthly and found ways to meet that goal. Not only that but Bo's girlfriend, Emily, used an assignment for school to spread the word. She put together a power point presentation about the need for clean water and she raised $70 that day! Amazing!

We would also like to say thank you to North Rome Baptist Church where Uncle Fritz pastors for the collection they took to donate to the well! What great hearts you all have.

Thank you to all who bought water bracelets and for all who gave donations above and beyond the "asking price" straight from the heart! It means so much to us and it means life for His children!

So many people came together to meet this need. So many hearts wanted this dream to come true. So many people prayed and so many people worked really hard to raise this money. We have the final count and we know God was behind all of this and that he made our final amount possible. But before we let you in on the total we have one more story to share, don't worry we will be posting it today!

Hope you enjoy the last day of 2010! It truly has been a blessed year! :)

Water Warriors

We are only nine days away from the end of our goal! And we are truly blessed by the ways that others have contributed. What is amazing to us is that when we set this goal we did not plan or expect any funding from other people. We didn't know how we were going to raise the money but we trusted God and knew that if he put it on our hearts to build a well, He would make it happen.
We did not recruit the aid of family members, other that taking items off their hands to sell at our yard sales. We did not post a link asking others to donate on our blog. We did not rely on anyone except for God. He is our motivator and He enlisted the hearts of the many people that have aided us in our journey.
As far as I know we did not ask Tina, Teddi, and Brogan to make bracelets (but we did ask if we could help after they started)! And we did not ask for an aunt and her family in Michigan along with 6 other families to give up all drinks except for water for two weeks to save money for the same well... Our next Water Warrior is Amy Asaro! She has been so wonderful! She organized an awesome water party to get her friends involved in spreading awareness about the water crisis and saving money for clean water. And she hand crafted gift bags to sell at a local craft fair to raise even more love for water. She is such an inspiration! Even her teenage son, Thayne took the word to his work to encourage his employees to take part in the water project! And they aren't done yet! But you will have to wait to find out how she inspired a whole family to change their Christmas this year!

So today we want to say thanks to Amy and Thayne Asaro! The Asaro family has raised over $600 so far and they rock our socks off! You guys are so great and such an inspiration to us! Thanks for all your hearts and all your hard work. We miss you guys and can't wait to hug your necks next time we see you!

Well...

As most of you know one of the goals that we set for this year was to build a well. :)

We have been very blessed in our fund raising efforts. We have had two very profitable garage sales, have accepted donations as birthday and anniversary gifts, and have even worked over time to put a little extra in the jar. So far our total is around $2,800.00! UNBELIEVABLE! God is so great at providing!

We aren't at our $5,000.00 goal yet... but we are not worried. Only two weeks to the day til the end of the year and we are not worried about the other $2,200.00 because we have some great partners helping us with this great mission. :) We would like to feature the people and show them our thanks in the next few posts.

So today we want to shine the spot light on The Winders! That's right! Taylor's family has taken part in the fun. Her mom, little brother, and sister have started making bracelets under the name clearly love. These beautiful bracelets were created by the three of them in many different colors and styles. Each one hosted a clear bead to represent clean water and what the bracelets stood for. After just a few weeks of announcing these gifts on Facebook and at church the Winder family has raised nearly $350.00!!! Wow! We are so grateful for their hard work and participating in building the well.

Speaking of clean water... We did do our giveaway (the video ate up most of our time) but we haven't shared who the winner was. So congrats to Sonia from his hands his feet! She won the $10 Living Water gift card. With this gift card you can chose where to spend your ten dollars... you pick what to fund. A few of the options are school children in Uganda, hospitals in Kenya, unreached tribes in the Amazon, and house churches in India. Have fun shopping! For more information on that go here.

Also to learn more information about clean water through charity:water watch ABC 20/20 tonight to see a well being drilled!

Thanks again for your help Winder Family, we can't do it without you!

Walk to Defeat ALS 2010

Campaign '10

Our latest adventure involved a full tank of gas, a vacation day, and two sneaky kids. We decided that the best place for us to be yesterday afternoon was home with our family waiting for the results... but that wasn't until 3:30 of course... So we packed up and headed out of town and surprised everyone! Most importantly my Dad! We were happy to be there to support him in his adventure. Now, the election is over and it's not good news for our write in campaign, but we gave it our all and that's all we could do. Thanks everyone for your support! Dad we are so proud of you!!!

A few pictures from the results party...

It surely was a fun night with family despite the results of the campaign!

Now I am back to work and Taylor got dropped off in San Antonio for the rest of the week! We'll meet up again for the weekend and for some more adventures!

Thankful Thursday

Thankful for a little sister, Teddi, who is thankful for towels. :)

Just gotta share some sweetness that my mom posted on her blog today. To read the sweetness in it's entirity, and for even more cute pictures, visit her at oneblessednest.blogspot.com. Be careful though, this is a call to action! ;)

(A montage of snippets from her post...)

A conversation between my mom and Teddi, age 5 (and 1/2):

Teddi: "I love my towel, 'cause God gave me a family."

Me: (Sounding slightly puzzled) "What does your towel have to do with your family?"

Teddi: "It's soft."

Me: (Sadly putting two and two together) "You didn't have soft towels before you had a family?"

Teddi: "No, just little (towels) . . . and we had to share . . . and I got cold (as she "shivered") . . . and we didn't have jammies . . . we had to sleep in our clothes."

Me: (With a lump the size of Texas in my throat) "I'm so happy you have a family, and soft towels, and jammies."

Teddi has soft towels now, but so very many don't.

Millions.

Millions of orphans have no idea what it feels like to be bathed in a warm bath. They have no idea what it feels like to be wrapped up in the love of a soft towel, or dressed in their very own pajamas.

Millions.

As Christians we are called, no, we are commanded to care for the widows and orphans...

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

If it is our passion to live Jesus' way of life -- then it is our responsibility to look after orphans. Period.

It's overwhelming, but we must do something. We are not all called to adopt, but we are called to care in some way for the orphans of this world. (Read the post for some good ideas!)

~~~

Want to care for orphans and share Teddi's love of towels with some kiddos in your life? Visit this friend's blog to find out how you can do both with these awesome gifts!

How many kids does it take to wash a [small] dog?...

Children's Hunger Fund Banquet

Last Saturday was the Children's Hunger Fund Banquet in San Antonio! It was so much fun to see everyone that we have been blessed to meet through this blog- CHF staff from California, staff here in the Southwest office, new friends, and even an old friend from high school! The venue looked great and the food looked delicious! We say that it looked delicious because we were so nervous that we could hardly eat a thing. And we were nervous because a few months ago Fred Martin, Communications Director of CHF, called to ask if we would accept the nomination for the Widow's Mite Award! This award is given each year to a young person or persons who do a lot with a little, like the widow in Mark 12:41-43. What an honor!

If you were there to hear our speech, we were actually speechless... we fumbled with note cards, and tried to look out at people with lights in our eyes, and nervously recited some of what we had written a few hours ago. And half way through it hit me- the last time we were in the same room as David Robinson, he was on stage being recognized and congratulated on behalf of Oak Hills Church for being inducted to the NBA hall of fame, and were we just beginning to learn about CHF. This time we were on stage right before he was (actually David Robinson couldn't make it but he was still being recognized as a Children's Champion Award Recipient and accepted via video) along with a group of other really incredible people doing the work of God and showing his love so beautifully. And it wasn't us- it was God that did that, He is the only one that could do something so big from something so little, and all I could say was "I don't know why we are here". Because in my mind we are just Taylor and Frankie, we live in Houston, we enjoy spending time with family, we like to take pictures and blog, and we just aren't people that can do big things. (And this is also why we stick to blogging, because when we lose our words we can always come back to it later. ;)

So even though we felt really good about Saturday night, and we made people laugh, (and we were told that we did an awesome job!), we would like to share with you what we really had prepared to say in acceptance of the Widow's Mite Award!

*roll introduction video...



*cue Chris Sue (thanks for the great intro, new friend!)

*walk toward beacon, Charif Martin :)

*take place behind podium, facing 650 people...

We would like to thank Children's Hunger Fund for the great work they do for children in need around the world, and their wonderful staff- they make it so easy and so much fun to serve! We also want to say how great it is to see so many people here supporting CHF. Our families are also here and we want to thank them for supporting us through all of our adventures and for teaching us how important it is to love others. We want to also thank Oak Hills Church for sharing their vision with us of loving our neighbors.

We first heard about CHF at the Oak Hills Church Bigger than You service. We saw the video and we were moved but we weren't really sure what we could do. We decided that if CHF was giving these boxes to families in need we were going to see if they really worked. We switched our food budget for theirs and began to eat from the Food Pak. We started to blog about our experience and the need really became real to us. We knew that the need was big and we had to do more.

Tonight, we want to encourage you to do something. If you feel moved to try what we did then go for it! If you want to do something else then find something that your are passionate about and that you can share with your family and do it. Don't be afraid to do something. Set a goal, make a plan, put it to action, fill your heart with dedication, and God will take it from there. God will make it big. No matter how small it may seem to you, it will change someone else's life and yours! To God be the Glory! Thank you!

After comparing pre-speech notes and reflecting on our actual speech, we really didn't stray too far from what we had planned to say. And we share this with you because we don't just want to encourage the people in that room, but we want to encourage you readers, too. You come here and read about what we are doing, and it would bless us so much to know that what we do moves you to do something too. We can't do great things on our own, but with God we can do so much!

We were in the company of truly incredible people that night...

~David Robinson, founder of the Carver Academy. He has a big heart for children and is a great role model and example of how to love God and to show love in your community.

~Michael and Carol Hart, founders of Zoe International, and our new heroes. These are two of the most beautiful people we have ever met. They spoke with such passion for their ministry and love for God.

~Carlos Pimentel, Executive VP of Esperanza International. Carlos also did a great job sharing his dedication to helping others. We were honored to be recognized with him.

~Donnie Laurence, First VP of Investment Officer of Nebens/Laurence Wealth Management Group. He and his wife are great supporters of CHF as he promotes them throughout his organization.

Great people were recognized, but God was the one who was really honored that night. Here are a few pictures from the evening.

Amy was there!

Frankie's special guests, Chita and Juan!

Frankie's mom, Olga and sister, Kathy

Kathy, and Frankie's step-mom, Rose and dad, Gilbert

Taylor's dad, Bryan and mom, Tina

Jesse Reyes, of CHF Southwest. He took care of us that night, told us when we were going on, and showed us around. He was a big help and also goes to Journey Fellowship! Thanks, Jesse!

Mike Richards, Regional Director of CHF Southwest

Charleen! Of CHF Southwest

Francis Chan!!! (host of the evening)

Antonio Giuliano

Don't know why but I like this photo!

That's better... Fred Martin (CHF Headquarters.), Dave Philips (CHF President and Founder!)

The whole group!

And the award!

(View all honorees introduction videos at chfus.org to learn more! You'll be inspired, no doubt!)

ALS Benefit Update!

We made it to the ALS benefit a few weeks ago, but we had misplaced the photos during the game of musical laptops we've been playing at home. So here's our exciting update!!

Everyone really came together on this one! It was held in a new venue, but that didn't matter a bit! We still filled the space with people and had a blast! Someone from the ALS Association came out to speak and there was food, music, live auctions, 5 tables of silent auctions items, carnival games, a bake sale, and two separate raffles! After the night was over we raised a grand total of $7,635.00!!! Woohoo!!! Here's some pictures from the night:

1 of the game baskets we donated to the silent auction

the crowd!

the carnival!

Taylor the clown!

Sisters!

Family fun!

Bernice, Chita, and MeMe dancin the night away!

Chita's son, Xavier and his wife, Mel

Frankie and Chita's daughter, Tina

Tina and Taylor hanging out at the Silent Auction

Our mini-carnival turned out really great, too! We had about ten games and raised almost $80! Even though we only had about 10 kids, we had a lot of fun, and every penny counts! This was a great first run and we look forward to more carnival fun in the future!

And our efforts aren't through yet. Our second event of the year is a 5K walk put on by the ALS South West Chapter. We are setting our sights high again- mine and Taylor's personal goal is to raise $1000. We have set up a site and are trying to get 50 people to donate in the order that they come. (Ex. 1st person would donate $1, 2nd would donate $2, 3rd would donate $3, etc.) We realized that we could not donate an amount as $1, but our great friend Ann Ray fixed that problem by claiming spots 1 through 9! Thanks Ann!!! We took spot number 10. So we are waiting for number 11 now...

If you want to help us reach our goal just go here. All proceeds go to the ALS Association. All support is very appreciated!!! And if you want to join the team as a walker or a virtual walker there is still time for that too! :)