Listen to my radio show interview http://scotthelmer.com/radioshow/shows/2017/04/19
Friday, May 12, 2017
daily devotions with the Big Book and Bible combined!
Sunday, March 26, 2017
Furniture Bank has been busy since the beginning of 2017! We have been blessed with donations of furniture, furnishings and finances to help us continually meet the needs of our clients. Our wait list is constant and the applications for assistance arrive daily. We are averaging 20 requests a week for assistance.
While we receive a wide variety of requests from people in all types of situations and challenges, our average client is a single mother with 3 children usually all under the age of 10. We are also helping veterans, elderly, and people overcoming physical and mental challenges to regain independence, employment, and their own places to live. Working in partnership with the various helping agencies and social service organizations in our greater Phoenix area is allowing us to give those working to achieve self-sustainability a hand up as they move back into jobs and affordable and safe housing.
Please read about the following situations where Furniture Bank was able to assist families and individuals with a hand UP as they worked their way out of homelessness and helplessness. To protect their privacy, the names are changed but the situations are real.
Emma is a hardworking mom with 3 active children, all in grade school. She was a victim of domestic violence and was able to get help to break the cycle of abuse and gain her independence. Our partner agency contacted us to assist Emma. She had gained a great job and a home to rent that was in a safe neighborhood for her and her children. Furniture Bank was able to provide living room, dining room, and bedroom furniture. Along with the furniture, we had furnishings, kitchen supplies and even a student desk for her child in middle school to use.
Curtis is a 54 year old single male who received a special surgery to restore his eyesight. His agency contacted us to assist Curtis in a special way. Not only was Curtis needing help to furnish his new apartment for himself but also he was gaining guardianship of his special needs nephew who was coming to live with him. He wanted to support his nephew and get him out of the group home he was living in. We were honored to be able to help with furniture and furnishings and humbled to see Curtis not only achieving independence for himself but also wanting to care for his nephew.
It’s stories like this that inspire us to keep on trying to grow and help more folks with a hand up as they achieve their independence. We are blessed to be able to do this, but your support, donations, kindness, and prayers make it possible.
Furniture Bank would like to thank our hardworking volunteer Jim Lane for his never ending willingness to assist with needed local donation pick-ups. Jim, like the rest of us, works a full time job, is active with his own family, and yet still finds the time to help us help others! Thank you Jim!
Please help us welcome Ron Thompkins of Keller Williams Realty has joined our volunteer force to help find local donations for furniture, furnishings, and funds. I warned Ron when he inquired about helping that the pay is nonexistent but the benefits are eternal!
Did you know that THERE IS STILL TIME to get your 2016 AZ Tax Credit! YES for 2016! Come on now….MAKE A DIFFERENCE! $400 provides furniture to make a house into a home for our clients and families escaping homelessness and hopelessness. Furniture Bank is a 501c3 public charity and every penny donated goes toward helping our families, veterans, and individuals in need. We are in the hand-UP business and not the HANDOUT GAME! You can donate any amount for a tax deduction and tax receipt, BUT…. a gift of either $400 as an individual or $800 as a couple to Furniture Bank, Inc. a 501c3 public charity, can also reduce your tax bill to the State of Arizona by that amount dollar for dollar! Visit our website www.FurnitureBank.us and click on the PayPal button for a secure transaction and tax receipt that will follow within 48 hours. Any amount is welcome and all will receive a tax receipt. Please help us help others! We are in the hand-UP business and not the HANDOUT GAME! Please help us help others! http://www.furniturebank.us/arizona-tax-credit.html
Let the blessings roll!
Friday, March 17, 2017
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
Daily devotions with the Big Book and Bible combined! The paperback and Kindle versions of my first book is now available!! Every penny goes to support Faith Through Works Fellowship ministries including our beloved Furniture Bank! Please order yours today and help us help others!
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Pastor+Mark+Farley
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Saturday, February 11, 2017
It's been a long, long time since we have had this much fun. Coming soon to your city: whether it's a church plant, a new way to develop leaders, or how you transform your business into ministry - it's a lifestyle, a conspiracy and a revolution. I will keep you posted: live and lead by the Spirit! We spend a lot of our time doing good things for others but are not focused on the real personal ministry that it truly is. We become focused on the task or outcome and lose sight of the soul the Lord has put in front of us to help. Advocate is church through our own personal ministry! More info coming soon!!! Got Questions? email me! PastorMarksMail@gmail.comFriday, December 16, 2016
25 years ago I was a broken man, hopelessly alcoholic and addicted to methamphetamines. In jail.. again… for my 10th DUI I was to be sent to prison. I was 30 years old and had estranged everyone from me in my life. As I stared into the piece of tin that serves as a jail house mirror I suddenly realized that I no longer knew this person staring back at me. I got on my knees, and said the only prayer I could at the time, “God help me.”
Things began to change almost immediately. My cellmate kept inviting me to the AA meetings and until that day I never wanted to attend. The H & I sponsored AA meeting started with a very short man who was not in jail jumping up on a table and shouting, “If you guys keep on doing what you are doing, you will keep getting what you are getting!” It was the shortest AA meeting I have ever attended because that was all I heard. He offered a Big Book to those of us “man enough to ask”, so I asked. I began reading the AA Big Book, and attending the meetings.
After a few weeks, I went for my prison sentencing, but my Public Defender did not show up. 2 weeks later I went again to be sentenced and the Prosecutor did not show up. It would be 6 more weeks in the jail before I would be sentenced to prison. I stayed active in AA and in the Christian fellowship Overcomers Outreach. My heart began to change. I finally owned my alcoholism, took responsibility for the wreckage it had caused me and others and became willing to accept the consequences of prison time I had coming.
When I finally went to court to be sentenced, there was a different judge on the bench and he shared a letter that was written on my behalf by an anonymous member of AA telling him I was changing and asking him to give me a chance at a rehab program instead of prison. The judge stopped the sentencing and asked me if I would like to spend 6 months at the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center in Sacramento. I knew that God had heard my cry for help and that I needed to keep following Him!
I willingly went to the Salvation Army. They loved me until I could learn to love myself. I threw myself into learning about God and became active in AA and in serving the homeless and addicted. I entered their Adjutant Program and earned my Pastoral certificate. I was awarded a scholarship to go back to college and got my Human Services as well as my CADC counseling certificates for drugs and alcohol. I began running the Phase 1 recovery programs for Salvation Army and helped to manage the homeless shelter.
Through my quest for lasting sobriety in AA I met my beautiful angel Tami, who allowed this strange man with a pony tail who worked at the homeless shelter and rode a bicycle to fall in love with her and eventually marry her.
For the past 25 years I have lived one day at a time looking to serve and help. God saved me from alcoholism and addiction and taught me how to be free through serving others. I believe in and truly try to live what the Bible promises that it is through giving to others that we receive. God has given me more than I ever deserved.
The Big Book has taught me that Faith without works is dead. The least I can do is to try daily to pay Him back through serving others.
Because of AA, today I am a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a family member, and a friend to many. I have a home, a job, a ministry, and a founding partner of a nonprofit that helps others. AA taught me to be of humble service to others. From this suggestion I have become an ordained Pastor and a college graduate with and MBA in Business and Marketing.
Thank you Jesus for saving me! Thank God for the Salvation Army and Alcoholics Anonymous!
Got Hope, need HOPE? www.FaithThroughWorksFellowship.org
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