La Famille Armstrong

Our site is up!!

God has been doing such a work in our lives. After lots of powerful messages, reading and studying scripture and sharing with other brothers and sisters in Christ, we felt called to create a website where we can facilitate the giving of finances to help those in need. We have categories covering missionaries, those in biblical training, people suffering financially (for many reasons), a general fund for emergency needs that may arise, organizations that are spreading the gospel while meeting the needs of the impoverished and hopefully many more to come.

When you donate, 100% (minus paypal fees) goes directly toward the person listed. When logged in, you'll be able to view your entire history of giving, making it easy to track payments and such. As of right now, we are in the process of applying for 501(c)3 status so we cannot guarantee your donations to be tax deductible. We will let you know once we are approved!

If you know of someone in need, don't hesitate to let us know! The goal of this website is to promote God's love by meeting the needs of many while showing the world that His children give of themselves to benefit others - to mimic what Christ did for us. Pray for us as we start this adventure - we do not know what this will require of us long term and we'll be trusting Him to guide us as The Giving Portal develops.

We hope to be adding many people to our website over the coming months and year. We also hope to add an online store selling t-shirts, books and other merchandise. Thanks so much for all of you who have helped us in this process... we genuinely hope that the love of God will be shown through this site.

Anyone know what kind of plant this is??

Surprisingly, I can actually believe that Asher is already 2. He eats by himself at every meal - no assistance needed - without making much of a mess. He is starting to say two-syllable words with ease, such as "helper", "snuggle" and "soccer." He is starting to count as well!! I didn't realize he actually knew the order of #'s until I was counting stripes on his shirt yesterday. I said one, he said two, I said three... and so on all the way until 10! I was really surprised and it was really cute :)

His birthday party was super fun! I thought it was just a small thing since we only invited a couple families besides our immediate family... if forget that our immediate family is pretty large even when not everyone shows up! I am really bad at baking, and since Mark's baking expert sister lives in Cali I decided to make a dirt cake with gummy worms. It was a success!! Many of my friends has only seen one and not actually eaten one! It's an instant mix with oreo pieces, vanilla pudding and oreo crumbs as the "dirt" with gummy worms poked in throughout. Mark had the idea to put his "cake" in his dump truck so it was separate and we put everyone else's in little clear cups. Asher LOVED it! Now when he sees his truck he keeps saying "cake, cake" until we tell him it's all gone. I'll have to get even more creative next year... or become good at baking!

Asher got some great gifts and we were so blessed by how all his friends loved playing with him and helping him open them. Bella loved pushing Asher around in his block-bucket in the garage, which we turned into a big, decorated play area for all the kiddos. I felt like it was the perfect party - not too fancy, but just enough effort and decor to make it really enjoyable and memorable. I'll have to post again soon about all the cute things Asher and Cole have been doing lately... if I can remember them all... there are so many!! Enjoy the photos...

Hey everyone... our friends Jeff and Chelsi who are in MN are giving away books again!! Just a short contest :) Check out their blog and enter to win one of four titles... one by their pastor John Piper!

Also, The Giving Portal is almost up and running... we have just 2 or 3 kinks to work out. Please check it out soon as we'll be giving you the chance to support Jeff and Chelsi (and family) in their endeavor to learn more about Christ and how to be effective in ministry here in the US. We love them dearly and are in constant prayer for their provision... we hope this site will help them earn the support they need!

Tonight was awesome. This week has been awesome. It didn't start out that way but seriously, God has been actively teaching Mark and I some things that we think are going to change our world and hopefully others' too!

Tonight I went to The View Christian Church to view a presentation by Shelley Clay. Her husband Corrigan grew up in the same church my sisters and I did... they are the one's living in Haiti that I think I've blogged a little about before. She goes back to Haiti on the 23rd and tonight she had set up all the jewelry the people involved in their ministry have made. It's amazing!!!!!!! I wish I had more money so I could give more and buy more and just get more people to buy more!!! I bought a few bracelets that are simply beautiful! On each piece of jewelry they put a tag with information about the person who made the item and their photo... so neat to see how we can actively help people who are literally starving and need to see God's love.

The Clay's ministry is so in line with Mark and my giftings... I think I may actually be running their etsy site soon. They don't sell online yet and I've set up several etsy shops and I would be SO BLESSED to help out in that way! I'm seeing more and more how much of my time is spent on my personal pursuits and I'm seeing more clearly just how full of sin that is! God calls us to be filled with Him and to die to ourselves yet in America, it is completely fine to spend your time on things that benefit you. It's as if Christians here no longer believe that God's Spirit renews you when you spend your efforts on loving and serving His people. We seem to have forgotten that Jesus said it was better for Him to go so that we could have His Spirit and do great works in His name. How is this possible???

Anyway, I'm saving that subject for a different blog and a different day :) What I really want to do is spread the word about what Corrigan and Shelley are doing!! Here's their blog and you can see their official website from there. Once I get my hands on more of that jewelry I will let you know. I am really excited to see what God will do with us. Our debts are a burden right now... we can't just pick up and leave unless God takes care of those or something... not that we are going to head anywhere right now, but we just realize what a selfish thing all our debts are. After hearing about Haiti (even pre-earthquake) I desire to be more grateful and to use my resources in a way that enables others to feel God's love, even if it causes me to sacrifice things that seem like "normal" things to have. Haiti's EMPLOYMENT rate was only 11% BEFORE the earthquake!!!! The average person makes $400 a year!!! I am just baffled more and more by how many of us in America are so spoiled and don't even know it! How can so many of us only see our own problems and never care to help out somewhere else? I never want to be that kind of American ever again.

Wow, what a weekend! I had a lot of fun and God opened my eyes to so many things. I won't have time today to post them all here but I hope to continue posting a lot of it on my smallmustardseed blog. One quick comment though...

We did a video series by Beth Moore and in part of it she spoke about spending our love on others. I got to thinking about this concept and what I am spending every day. I realize that I save so much of my time and energy for other reasons... I'm not even sure why! What is the point of living if you aren't spending your time? Time doesn't roll over like my minutes do :) Sure, we can try to conserve energy or sanity, but isn't the more faithful and trusting thing to do is spend all of ourselves on whatever God desires, truly believing that He is the one who replenishes us? I want to believe that! I cannot on my own, especially with 2 small, needy, draining boys!!

But honestly, I know in my head that my life will be of little worth by saving it for myself or for other selfish reasons. The only way my life will amount to anything significant is if I spend all of myself, time, energy and resources on furthering God's kingdom. Otherwise, I'll get to Heaven and everything I've done will burn away. I don't want to barely be saved... I want God to be excited that I am finally with Him in person.