May/June 2010 Volume 23 Issue 5

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

The Latest News: If you have been following the news updates - our medical benefits ran out at the end of March. After much prayer and pastoral counsel, it was decided I needed to get into some sort of tent making ministry to restore benefits (particularly since Maureen is a cancer survivor). I have been putting out job applications for a year and a half, and did not get a single interview. I was finally rehired by Greyhound as a driver. I drove for them back in 2001-2004. I attended their class in Atlanta back in April, and after training I started working for them as a driver again effective May 25, 2010. Unfortunately this is the busiest time of the year - they are constantly out of drivers and I am now getting called into work every 9-12 hours. This has kept me from expanding the ministry as I have over the last year and a half, although the Bible Courses and existing websites and support are unaffected (with the possible exception that I cannot answer calls and respond as quickly as I could before). We need continued prayer, this is the ONLY door that the Lord has opened, I still do not have the peace I should have about doing this, but there are no other doors open at this time. This has prompted create a prayer reminder - to help the Lord bring our ministry to you for prayer: "When you see the DOG (on a Greyhound bus or ad) go to GOD in prayer for the Hoffman Family - missionaries to Cyberspace." The Lord IS using this to deal with some issues in my spiritual walk. The fatigue is taking its toll though, my judgment is sometimes off. We thank you for your continued prayers!

Bible Correspondence Courses:   We want to thank Katherine Feguer and Lydia Henrici for helping on the Bible Correspondence courses over the last several months.

 Church Website Ministry:   

• Baptist church "Revival" Ukraine,Vizhnitsyahad - I spent some additional time with Pastor Paul Dudka working on their Ukraine language website - showing him how he could add Bible lessons (he teaches at a Baptist College and provides numerous Bible Studies around the Ukraine. Their english website is at http://www.rbcukraine.com, we created a Ukraine language website at http://ua.rbcukraine.com. He has added bible lessons to the website. Their church is running 94, and serves 15 villages up to 60 km away. Please pray for their ministry as the Lord moves.

• Evangelist Johnny Campbell AKA "Johnny the Baptist" - I continued working with Johnny Campbell on updating his website for him. Mostly little changes so far, we are looking at options, and will be updating the sermons online. His web page is at http://www.johnnythebaptist.com.

• Lighthouse Baptist Church Eustis Florida - I had rescued their website and was contacted by a church member indicating they wanted to make it official and update the website (http://www.eustislighthouse.org). We are working on getting them up on a service that will work going forward (they want to publish sermons and the limited account may not meet their need - but we have an option for unlimited disk space and bandwidth for < $7 per month).

• Friendship Baptist Church Tioga Texas - I set up a domain and website for Friendship Baptist Church in Tioga Texas (http://www.friendshipbaptistintioga.com). They are a great little church - we will have to visit them in the near future.

• Missionary John Joseph Papua New Guinea - I was approached by Missionary John Joseph, missionary to Papua New Guinea to set up a website. I registered domain: http://www.png4Christ.com and set up the initial website for them on templates. They have a ministry of setting up Christian Schools for Baptist Churches. Brother Joseph has already added a lot of good content. I want to share a note from Brother Joseph:

  Brother Bob, 
  Thank you so much. I went to the web site today. I am so happy, I am lost for words. I don't know what to say. 
  I just want to praise God and glorify His Name for He is good. 
  I never dreamed that we would have a web page. 
  Bro Bob do not know almost anything about web pages and internet language but I will try my best to provide the required information. I need to  figure it out and send it to you. 
  Right now I am so excited.. I going to run down to my wife in the garden to tell her about it. Including my children.

  God Bless Bro Joseph

Tract Ministry: In April our online Bible Tract ministry took over 1100 hits, in May that dropped to 860 (not sure why, need some prayer on this one). We have "given out" 37,000 online tracts (including Spanish and Chinese).

Social Networking: Please continue praying for our Facebook outreach. On Monday, April 5, my account was disabled. I never heard back from them and have recreated two accounts now: One is for evangelism - I am rebuilding that from scratch and have about 700 friends (lost) on that account. I have created a new account called "Missionary Bob Hoffman" if you search Facebook for our Independent Baptist Ministry to connect to all of you. This will help since sometimes the lost post some pretty racy pictures, and I was really wrestling with how to balance the evangelism of the lost with the potential stumbling blocks for the saved.

Support (redefined): We have been reporting total support needed to be in the ministry full time. We were running about 10% - however we picked up to new individual supporters (special thanks to Jim and Carol Cahill - a new supporter) over the last several months. Also - since I now have secular employment, I will  be indicating our needs based on the ministry expenses for the time being. We are currently at 67% of support for our ministry expenses.

 Prayer Needs: The Lord's will regarding secular work and health benefits. Help in raising support for the ministry.

Specific Financial Needs:  We still have several needs

• Projector for the ministry presentation $500-$700
• Vonage phone service for a year - we can get two months of phone service free if we purchase a year at a cost of $320 (includes taxes and fees). If you are going to sign up for Vonage - give us your email address - if we "invite" you  we can get a free month. Vonage allows us to call FREE to 60 countries and discounted to others - invaluable for our ministry!

Please consider a donation. FamilyNet is a 501 (C)(3) charity. Donations are tax deductable in the US - You can donate via PayPal (Donate button is on http://www.cyber-missions.com) or mail a check:

FamilyNet International

P.O. Box 451951

Garland, TX 75045

214-257-0229

Special thanks to Harvester Baptist Church in Ellicott City Maryland, Lavon Drive Baptist Church in Garland Texas, Cornerstone Baptist Church in Roanoke Virginia and Marion Baptist Church in Marion Texas. Thanks to Robert Hoffman II, Lee Eckhoff, and Joshua Norton for their generous gifts in April. We appreciate them helping us make our commitments. Thanks to Whitley Memorial Baptist Church in Nashville Tennessee for a love offering covering ALL our servers for 2010! They are a small church with a BIG heart! (Nashville was hit very hard by flooding last month, please pray for the city and this church).

We thank you and pray the Lord will bless you in Jesus (and apologize for any errors since I had to get this together pretty quickly),