Running Toward

South TX Alliance for Orphans
  • 5.0 (12)
  • Christianity
  • Updated Weekly

Running Toward tells the stories of ordinary people who couldn’t look away once they saw the hidden crisis in foster care and family. Each episode features honest, unfiltered stories from ordinary people who couldn’t look away once they saw the hidden crisis impacting children and families in their own communities. People living normal lives who took imperfect, often reluctant steps toward brokenness — and were changed by it. This is not a podcast about quick fixes or heroic solutions. It’s about the long, costly, deeply human work of preventing family fracture and supporting families.

  1. 6d ago

    Raising 5 Grandkids in Retirement | Mercedes

    Welcome to the Running Toward Podcast! Today we sit down with Mercedes Bristol — founder and Executive Director of Texas Grandparents Raising Grandchildren — a woman who went from planning a vacation to Alaska to raising five grandkids in under a year, with no beds, no benefits, and no roadmap. At 57, she got the first phone call. Three months later she had her grandson back from foster care. Six months after that, four more grandchildren arrived. CPS put them in her lap and left. No one told her about the McKinney-Vento Act, no one mentioned the resources that existed, and when she went to her church for help, they prayed for her — and nobody showed up. So she built something. She went to the Texas Legislature and helped change state law for kinship families. And she did all of it while raising kids who carried wounds she was still learning to name. This week, one of her grandsons held a dying kitten in his lap and said, "Everything I love leaves me." She's still walking through that one. Hope you enjoy. Thanks for watching! Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans:📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans 🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OW7JlcWOlbs9Ms4BQcdeI?si=0416b37dd53540c8 🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org Find Texas Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: 🌐 www.texasgrg.com 📲 Facebook & Instagram: @TexasGRG If today's story moved you — share it with a grandparent who's doing this alone. And if you've ever thought about fostering or kinship, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍

  2. Aug 12

    Came with 4, Left with 8. | Kizzie

    Welcome to the Running Toward Podcast! Today we sit down with Kizzie — a kinship caregiver who said yes before she even thought about the logistics. She'd spent time on the supervised visits side of foster care, sneaking snacks into a little bag because the rules said she couldn't help, and staying past the cutoff for parents who never showed. Then her pastor called all the women together after Sunday service and asked if anyone could take four kids from a family in their church. Kizzie talked to her husband. He said yeah. They drove home with four boys in a car that didn't fit all of them — no beds, no plan, no idea they'd just signed up for a six-month kinship placement that would include a "Truth Hour" family meeting, a neighborhood trash collection business, a secret adoption countdown, and a goodbye nobody was ready for. She still calls them her kids. Thanks for watching! Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans: 📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans 🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org If today's story moved you — share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've ever thought about fostering, even just once, let that thought be the start of something.

  3. Aug 5

    We Said Two Nights | Josh

    Welcome to the Running Toward Podcast! Today we sit down with Josh Arrington — nearly 30-year career pastor, STAO board member, and a man who got thrown into kinship care in the last way he ever expected. His oldest son — the prodigal — had been living in a storage shed on a girl's parents' property. Late on a Friday night, Josh gets the call: I've got nowhere to go, can I come? And then: she can't stay either. And then: oh by the way, Dad. She's pregnant. But we already have an abortion scheduled. Josh went upstairs and laid on the floor and wept. By Sunday morning, they were asking if they could keep the baby and stay. He said yes before he even talked to his wife. That "yes" set off a chain that included a girl who said no one had ever had a real conversation with her, a doctor's appointment where she "couldn't find her keys" (they were in her pocket the whole time), a wife's brain tumor surgery with a five-year recovery, COVID, a career shift out of vocational ministry, an accidentally planted church, and a five-year-old grandson named Dylan who calls him Papa. No regrets. But God.

  4. Jul 29

    Three Car Seats and a Long Yes | Melody

    Welcome to the Running Toward Podcast! Today we sit down with Melody — a board member of the South Texas Alliance for Orphans who has been in the foster care world longer than most, and not by choice. When Melody was 14, her mom asked what she thought about bringing home a baby with serious medical needs — a little girl who had nowhere to go. When she was 21, her mom was killed in a car accident, and Melody moved back home and became mom to her seven-year-old sister. When her stepsister came back to San Antonio struggling, Melody took her and her two-year-old nephew in. Then she went on vacation, came back to an empty house, and found out her sister was in jail and her nephew was at the children's shelter. What followed was a year of kinship care, a safety plan, a farewell party, and a goodbye she didn't fully expect to feel as hard as it did. And after all of that — she still wasn't done. Thirty years of saying yes. Hope you enjoy. Thanks for watching!Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans:📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans🎙️ Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org

  5. Jul 22

    The Yes We Could Actually Carry | Lisette

    Welcome to the Running Toward Podcast! Today we sit down with Lisette — a NICU nurse, school employee, wife to Nino, and mom of three. Lisette's story didn't start with a calling to foster care. It started with postpartum depression, a chronic illness diagnosis, and a quiet grief over the big biological family she always imagined. But God kept planting seeds — through a coworker, a single woman fostering alone, a virtual adoption in a school conference room, and eventually a three-day-old baby who became forever theirs. She opens up about the fears she and her husband had going in, the moment she realized NICU trauma was real, why they switched churches before getting licensed, and what she sees now when she looks at a homeless person on a street corner. Hope you enjoy! Thanks for watching!Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans:📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.orgIf today's story moved you — share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've ever thought about fostering, even just once, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍

  6. Jul 15

    Opposite Sides, Same Heart | Jocelyn and Klarissa

    Welcome to the Running Toward Podcast! Today we sit down with Jocelyn and Klarissa — two women on opposite ends of the same foster care story, sharing it together for the first time. Jocelyn and her husband took baby Mikey home from the hospital as their very first foster placement. Clarissa was dating Jay, who got a phone call at his job one day telling him he might have a son. What followed was nine months of visits, a wedding invitation slipped into a gift bag, a first birthday party where both grandmothers ended up talking on a park bench, and a reunion day where a seven-year-old in the backseat made it simple: "I'm doing great because we're taking Mikey to his family." They still do Easter together. Hope you enjoy! Thanks for watching! Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans: 📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/ 📘 Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans 🎙️ 🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org If today's story moved you share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've ever thought about fostering, even just once, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍 Running Toward Podcast is brought to you by the South Texas Alliance for Orphans Real stories from real families walking the road ahead of you.

  7. Jul 8

    My Professional Training Wasn’t Enough | Kendall

    Welcome to the Running Toward Podcast! Today we sit down with Kendall — an occupational therapist, business owner, mom of two teenagers, and foster mom to five kids who came through her home over the years. Kendall thought her background in child development would give her a leg up going into foster care. It gave her a little. Then a two-year-old and a three-year-old showed up, the tooth fairy nearly caused a crisis, and she learned pretty quickly that book smarts and street smarts are two very different things — in parenting, in faith, and in dealing with a system that can make your kids feel like a last name on a manila folder. She opens up about respite care as the on-ramp, what the fishbowl of foster care really feels like, the night she walked out of her own house, and what lament in the Psalms taught her that the church never did. Hope you enjoy! Thanks for Listening! Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans: 📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans 🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OW7JlcWOlbs9Ms4BQcdeI?si=0416b37dd53540c8 🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org If today's story moved you — share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've ever thought about fostering, even just once, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍 — Running Toward Podcast is brought to you by the South Texas Alliance for Orphans — real stories from real families walking the road ahead of you. Be sure to like, subscribe, and share this episode! We'll see you next week. 🤍

  8. Jul 1

    I Thought I Understood | Natalee

    Welcome to the Running Toward Podcast! Today we get a perspective we haven't heard before — a woman who's lived this story from three different angles. Natalee was adopted as a baby, grew up knowing she was loved and chosen, and always knew she'd adopt someday. Then in her twenties, her parents opened their home to a 15-year-old boy from the foster system. And then she and her husband walked their own road through private adoption — rejections, heartbreak, and finally a moment in a hospital room during COVID that neither of them will ever forget. Jennifer sits down with Natalee to hear all of it: what it was like to receive her bio mom's photos at a Bucky's and completely fall apart, what her dad's four-word sentence did to her, how her view of biological families completely changed, and what foster care has taught her about following Jesus into the mess. Hope you enjoy! 📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans 🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org If today's story moved you — share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've ever thought about fostering, even just once, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
12 Ratings

About

Running Toward tells the stories of ordinary people who couldn’t look away once they saw the hidden crisis in foster care and family. Each episode features honest, unfiltered stories from ordinary people who couldn’t look away once they saw the hidden crisis impacting children and families in their own communities. People living normal lives who took imperfect, often reluctant steps toward brokenness — and were changed by it. This is not a podcast about quick fixes or heroic solutions. It’s about the long, costly, deeply human work of preventing family fracture and supporting families.

Information

  • Creator
    South TX Alliance for Orphans
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    32
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © South TX Alliance for Orphans
  • Show Website
    Running Toward