Missionaries to Cyberspace Jan/Feb 2016 Newsletter

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

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

The Latest News: Please continue to pray for us.

Bob went back into full time ministry on November 23, 2015
Maureen tripped over a curb in the beginning of December 2015, and broke her nose and foot. The nose is still tender and she cannot put weight on her foot yet.
In January 2016, Bob went to the emergency room with an infection. The infection had spread to the blood, and Bob spent a day in the ICU, and three more days in the hospital. Bob is recovering well, but not quite back to where he was before the incident.

Church Website Ministry:

I was contacted by a member of Fellowship Baptist Church in Panama City Florida. He told me he was taking over the website for their church and wanted to know how he could update it. The current website was one of the unofficial websites and as such had a second level domain assignment (panama-city.fellowship-baptist.us). I have been holding on to two Fellowship Baptist Church domains, and asked if he wanted a regular WordPress website, and whether he wanted to use one of the old domains I have been holding to reassign. He said yes and chose fellowship-baptist-church.org. I have installed a WordPress website on the domain.
I lost contact with many of the ministries I put up websites for years ago. I spent three days (off and on) tracking down a church I put up one of the first websites for 8 years ago. I finally found out after three hours of calls and research tonight that the church disbanded 6-7 years ago. I have other international websites that are in the same situation – no contact in years. Trying to get back up to speed is taking a lot of time and effort!
SEO – Since we are back in the ministry full time, I have some time for training. I took four webinars on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The class was geared towards WordPress.
We have been hosting the websites for Tool Kit Ministries for many years now (toolkit-ministries.org ). The main website had been up on the old Website Baker Templates, the blog was a WordPress website. Nancy and I talked and she agreed to consolidate the two websites into one, but she wanted to try and keep the look and feel of the old Website Baker website, while keeping the feel the WordPress blog had for her blogs. The easiest way to do it was to create a brand new WordPress website, but doing that without causing a major outage for her two websites was a problem. I registered a new domain name (toolkit-ministries.com) and built the website from scratch with the content from her two old websites. Both domains now go to the new website.
I received a call from a member of Central Baptist Temple in Sanford North Carolina. We have been hosting their website (cbtsanford.com) since 2008. The last Pastor has moved on as did the person that was maintaining their website. One of the benefits we provide is a continuity when webmasters and/or church staff moves on. In this case the new admin looked us up on the Whois for the website and came up with our phone number and and contact information. I created a new login ID for them and he is now able to Login to the website and update the content.
I was contacted by Rick Beauchamp to set up a web site (he and his wife are missionaries to Romania). We had put up a website for their church back in 2008, and were invited to present the ministry back then. Rick and his family were a blessing. I registered a domain for them (rick4romania.com) and set up a basic WordPress website for them using content that Rick had provided. The Beauchamps are on deputation at this time. Rick requested a guestbook, and I think I have found an acceptable Guestbook plugin that will work for them. I provided Rick a basic walk through of the website, but since his internet access was not reliable, we were not able to go into great detail. I suggested that Rick install a WordPress app on his smart phone so he could effortlessly update his blog several times a week. Please pray for Rick and Karie, missionaries to Romania as they try and raise support and to get to the mission field!
I am desperately trying to clean up the Baptist Ministries Database. About 35% of the almost 7000 ministries in the database have broken links, changed domains, or have closed their doors! I "rescued" three domains.

Web Hosting Client Comments: Note from a Pastor in IL… Brother Hoffman, Enclosed is a check to use for your ministry. Thanks for your hard work, help to us, and your heart for the Lord. Have a good day and Merry Christmas!

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

4th Quarter Stats: Praise the Lord, we had 3 salvations, sent out 966 lessons and issued 19 certificates to 209 students (8 are incarcerated and 142 were international. We had students in Cameroon, Canada, France, Malawi, Nigeria and Tanzania and USA. We also sent out a Bible to France.

2015 FamilyNet Stats

Lessons = 2,658
Certificates = 78
Salvations = 7
Students = 209 of which 16 are prisoners
Countries = 12 Cameroon, Canada, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Ghana, India, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, USA and Zambia

Here are some comments we received from people that are taking the correspondence courses:
From a student in Alabama -Thank you for sending the next Bible lesson to me. I can honestly say that I am really enjoying them and appreciate getting them.
From a student in Virginia -We had a call from a student in VA. He received the Bible lessons and wanted us to know that he got saved last night. He knows he is a child of God and he is going to heaven. He said he wanted to call to put a smile on our faces and to keep him in our prayers.
Portion of a letter from Nigeria… Your materials for me and the members of ministry has been joyfully received. The tracts arrived about two weeks ago and my people are so happy. It came at the time about three of our churches were preparing for their 14 days evangelism open air out-reach and streets evangelism. I am most grateful to God, for this wonderful opportunity and privilege having received the lecture that I needed most at this time of revival meetings and lectures in our ministries. The entire lists of lessons are exactly written for me and my member church leaders and ministers. The course Practical Christian Living, is profounding, stimulating, reviving, insightful and highly transforming. Thank you for this wonder wealth of spiritual information. May God continually strengthen you in His grace and replenish you a double fold. I give God glory for your passion in the advancement of the lives of people in this part of the world most especially myself and my ministries. Please I want to identify with you in your passion to effect the life of church leaders and ministers here in Nigeria. Every Pastor/Minister in rural areas needed the courses, seriously because that is the only opportunity for them to be trained without leaving their homes and with their meager finance which can not afford them seminary studies at the cities.The courses are quite understandable and rich spiritually. Thank you very much for your wonderful helps. God bless you immensely, Amen.

Tract Ministry: We have "given out" over 76,000 Bible Tracts online.

Social Networking Outreach: I get new requests on my evangelistic Facebook account regularly. I now have over 2800 "friends" in my evangelistic Facebook account. This is a valuable tool to reach the unsaved masses.We currently have a presence on the following social media:

Facebook – friend Bob on Facebook.
Linked In – Linked in email address: linkedin (at) familynet-international.org.
Twitter – Follow us on Twitter.

You can visit Cyber-missions.com – to read the full blog with archives on our home page.

Support: We are currently at 67% of support for our ministry expenses. 100% of money designated to "ministry expense" goes to support the ministry.

Prayer Needs:

The Lord's will regarding secular work and health benefits.
Help in raising support for the ministry.
Please keep us in prayer for our personal financial needs in addition to the ministry's financial needs.
A self propelled RV to us to visit churches.
We will be setting up our display at our home church's (Lavon Drive Baptist Church in Garland Texas) "Global Impact Celebration" on Feb 24-28. Please pray we can clearly present the ministry, and meet needs, especially those of the visiting missionaries that may not have a web presence.

If you would you consider praying for us when special needs arise, please subscribe to our prayer warrior's mailing list. : http://eepurl.com/SYbI9.

Specific Financial Needs: Praise the Lord – all our server costs for the year have been met by generous donations.

$100 for a digital picture frame to use in the display.

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

Thanks to Harvester Baptist Church in Ellicott City Maryland, Lavon Drive Baptist Church in Garland Texas, Calvary Baptist Church in Mesquite Texas, Cornerstone Baptist Church in Roanoke Virginia, Marion Baptist Church in Marion Texas, Jim and Carol Cahill, Toolkit Ministries Columbia, MD ongoing regular support. We received individual donations from Carol Maulding, Calvary Baptist Church in Belleville, IL, First Baptist of Princess Anne, MD, Larry Martin, Lisa Wheeler, Maranatha Baptist in Rantoul, IL, Mr. & Mrs. Cecil Gibbons, Mr. & Mrs. Tod Rossell, Mr. & Mrs. Ken Woo, Nancy Shields, Northview Baptist Church, Irving TX and Patricia Johnson.

In Jesus' Service,

Bob and Maureen

Phil 2:4

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