Bob and Maureen Hoffman 4Q 2016 Newsletter - Missionaries to Cyberspace

"When you go on the internet, please pray for the Hoffman Family – your missionaries to Cyberspace."

Volume 29 Issue 04 (November/2016)

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

The Latest News:

We took a two week road trip during August. Maureen and I visited many of our supporting churches (and several other churches). We had an opportunity to present the ministry at 6 churches in 5 states in two weeks. A couple of additional churches picked us up for support over the summer. The most common comment I get after I present our ministry is "I never realized how much your ministry does!"
In September Bob attended a camp meeting at New Beginning Baptist Church in Edgewood Texas, but had to cut the meeting short for emergency surgery due to a detached retina. Surgery was successful, retina is 100% reattached, gas bubble in eye is expected to be gone shortly after Thanksgiving.

Church Website Ministry:

We received a request to update information in the Baptist ministries database (Baptist-ministries.org) for Canaan Baptist Church in Monroe North Carolina. The church had no web page, so I asked if they would like a website. I offered some potential domain names for the church they decided that canaanmonroe.com would be a good domain name.I registered the domain and installed a basic WordPress Website for them.
I received an email from the De Hart Family (Missionaries to Mexico). Scottie De Hart ran across one of our web pages and decided to contact us.Scottie had been playing with WIX trying to set up a website, but apparently felt a little overwhelmed. I asked Brother Scottie if the De Hart Family Missionaries website needed to be complicated and flashy. He said he wanted to keep it simple, a place for pastors to go to find the information they would normally find in his information packet. I asked brother De Hart if he had looked at WordPress and he had not. We went to my WordPress Demo website (churchdemo.us) and I gave him a tutorial on WordPress for about an hour. After the tutorial brother Scottie decided that WordPress would probably be very easy to use, and would fill his needs nicely. I registered dehartmissions.com for them, and set up WordPress for him. It is a blessing for us to help missionaries to be able to focus on their mission and raising support while we worry about the maintenance and security of their websites for them.
I registered the domain guyanabaptistministries.com for Missionary Ray Boltz (missionary to Guyana), We met in person to discuss the direction he wanted to take his website. We had a brainstorming session at a local Burger King in Dallas Texas. It was a fruitful time together. I was able to provide some valuable hands on training to brother Ray and we were able to set up a Facebook interface (API) with his website so he could publish to his website and the website would update his Facebook page for him. I was also able to get a better understanding of how Brother Ray wanted to use the website, and we were able to configure the website to help accomplish his goals. We were able to install a WordPress app on his smartphone that would allow Brother Boltz to take pictures, and then publish a picture with a post to his web page. The web page would then automatically update his social media pages for him.
A comment from a Pastor we host several website for: I was going to just fire off an email to you to ask for your help, but thought I would check out your cyber-missions website again, just to catch up with your ministry. All I can say is, “Wow!” You have a ton of value available there. I think your ministry is one of the best kept secrets in the independent Baptist world. Personally, I just want to say thank you, especially as we draw closer to my favorite holiday of the year: Thanksgiving. (Christmas is a little too commercialized for it to be my favorite.) Please allow me to say: Thank You for All You Do! I really appreciate what you do for the sake of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Bible Correspondence Courses: We want to thank Katherine Feguer, Lydia Henrici, J.L. & Florence Smith for helping on the Bible Correspondence courses over the last quarter.

3rd Quarter Stats: Praise the Lord, we had 4 salvation decisions, 2 in the USA and 2 in Nigeria. We sent out 1,221 lessons to 231 students (9 prisoners and 75 international). We issued 26 certificates. Lessons were sent to 8 countries: Canada, France, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and USA.

Here are some comments we received from people that are taking the correspondence courses:

From a 70 year old Bible student in AR – Oh how I wish I could have taken these lessons years ago! My life could have been so different!
From Nigeria: The grace and peace of Christ be with your precious Ministries. One of your biblical leaflets that were shared in our school has touched and changed the lives of 90 Brothers and Sisters. Some Evangelist came to our school last year and distributed different types of tract, leaflet and booklets to student. After memorizing the content in the leaflet been gave to us. We realized that we all are lost sinners and only Jesus can save. So today only 90 of us decided to give our live to Christ Jesus is now our Lord and Saviour. We have now started going to church departing from sins.
Prayer Request from Nigeria: We were attacked by some group of Muslims on our way for evangelism we were distributing a gospel tract from chick publication called allah hard no son and this group of Muslims attacked us with cutlass and rod we all have to run we thanked GOD THAT NO BODY DIED only 3 people were wounded they will not stop us from spreading the gospel we need your prayers
From a student in Nigeria… I am so glad for the courses you enrolled me. The teachings are so comprehensive and that is what I needed. The lectures has seen me to more greater height, everything about typology are quite clear, open, thrilling and so profounding to me. Thank you for the exposition of facts and truths of the scriptures to me in this booklet. Please, five of our Pastors need your help for them. Please add the next course. These courses are so relevant in my training programmes. The training programmes for church leaders in various locations/local government areas, which I am planning to be doing it monthly. I am very grateful. God bless you.
From a Student in India: I have completed and filled in the blanks spaces in the booklet (lesson) text material and searched for the answers from the Gospel of John. To know about Jesus and His Life we must study the Gospels. John was the Beloved Disciple of Jesus and the study of this gospel is indeed very important. To grow in Christ we need to memorize, understand and apply the verses from this Gospel. These are available in this Booklet. Thanks to the author of this study.
From Kenya – Praise God dear mom Maureen and Bob, we hope you are both doing well in the lord, Im very sorry for late reply of this email. Im normally so busy and I do take long before reading emails at the cyber since my desktop is not working. otherwise we are very grateful for the lessons you sent to the children most of the them are through with them both the lessons 1 and 2! I would be grateful if we can get the answer key to help grade the children. they are eagerly waiting to know how they have performed in the lessons. we have 15 children who has given their lives to Christ after going through the study. they are very excited to be born again. kindly we would be grateful to get the next two lessons for all the children. we have now more children interested in the lessons. We need about 30 books of the gospel of John lesson 1 for the new older children. And for the next lesson in the series this is the new list, we are praying for bob and you for this powerful ministry…

Tract Ministry: We have "given out" 80,000 Bible Tracts online.

Social Networking Outreach: I get new requests on my evangelistic Facebook account regularly. I now have 2672 "friends" in my evangelistic Facebook account. This is a valuable tool to reach the unsaved masses.

Support: We are currently at 70% of support for our ministry expenses.

Prayer Needs:

Our vehicles are old – we have spent almost $3,000 keeping both vehicles running over the last two months, Bob's truck has to go in to have it's transmission checked out. Please pray for the vehicles to keep running and that the problem is minor.
Ongoing minor health issues. (Bob is scheduled for some minor surgery the Wednesday before Thanksgiving).
Would you consider praying for us when special needs arise? If so, please subscribe to our prayer warrior's mailing list. : http://eepurl.com/SYbI9.

Specific Financial Needs:
As the year draws to an end – we are at about 70% of our support for ministry (not personal) expenses). At least two churches that said they were going to pick us up for support this year have yet to provide any support. If you would like to help with a specific missions project for next year for your church the following are projected expenses based on current spend rates this year:

Server Costs $565 Dollars
Security Costs $250
Bible Lessons $1000
Postage to Nigeria $925 (90 salvation decisions)
Postage to Kenya (increasing) $250 (15 Salvation)
Postage to India $40
Misc Office Expense $2000

Please consider a donation. FamilyNet is a 501 (C)(3) charity. Donations are tax deductible in the US – You can donate via PayPal (Donate button is on http://www.cyber-missions.com) or mail a check:
FamilyNet International Inc
P.O. Box 451951
Garland, TX 75045
(214) 257-0229

In Jesus' Service,

Bob and Maureen

Phil 2:4

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