Wednesday's Woman: Jody Hoffman

Jody Hoffman understands what it’s like to feel alone.

Growing up in a small Wisconsin farm town, she spent a lot of time by herself while her parents put in long hours at their jobs.

Some of the very people expected to be helpful and warm to a young girl in her situation were just the opposite. She remembers the hurt she felt when the pastor’s wife, reacting to her husband’s hospitality, asked him, “What’d you bring her home for?”

Hoffman was only about eight years old at the time.

“I just wanted to melt and fade away,” Hoffman, 57, recalled.

As first lady of in Snellville, she’s spent much of her efforts over the years letting people know how much they are valued and appreciated.

“I think everybody longs to have a place to belong, for people to bless you instead of curse you,” she said.

Her outreach runs the gamut from mission trips abroad, including Central and South America, Europe and the Middle East, to painting the murals in the children’s area at Grace Fellowship, which was established in 1983.

Noticing that lighter colors stood out against a dark background, Hoffman found parallels between her art and her life. Crediting “the fresh brush strokes of God,” she’s been able to move on, using her past as a springboard to positively touch the lives of others.

“I feel like my childhood was really my darkness,” Hoffman said. “I’m at peace with it.”

As it turns out, the stinging comment from the first lady of her childhood church actually helped Hoffman find her calling.

“Oddly enough, it was such a great lesson for me,” Hoffman said. “It became my passion to make people feel welcome.”

From two-week classes Hoffman started in the 1980s called “Encounter Grace,” specific courses have been created to help and support people dealing with a range of issues, including grief and overcoming addictions. Another idea that came from “Encounter Grace” was a Sunday school class tailored to children with special needs, run by experienced educators.

Hoffman has also seen how the act of giving can have a profound effect on people. On a trip to the Middle East several years ago, the church gave Ipods -- new on the market at the time -- to Christian workers. Her son had uploaded the devices with enough teaching and music that the recipients could listen to them for eight hours a day for a year and still not hear everything on it, Hoffman said.

The workers had never seen Ipods before. When they discovered what the technology could do, “they would hang their heads and weep,” she remembered.

Hoffman was born in Chicago, grew up in Wisconsin, and attended a small Bible college in Indiana. Along with her future husband, Buddy Hoffman, she conducted Bible studies with inner city youth and gang members in Chicago.

“I think that’s a recurring theme in my life: wanting to help people connect with God and to find solutions to problems you feel inside,” she said.

The Hoffmans, who have three grown children and five grandchildren, also spent seven years in Boise, Idaho where they started a church before coming to Georgia.

“Buddy had a dream that God was telling him to go to Atlanta,” Hoffman said. The church started with 15 people and now has between 4,000 and 5,000 attendees. There are Grace Fellowship locations in Midtown Atlanta and Monroe, as well as a live stream online on Sundays.

Hoffman said she never wanted to be put on a pedestal just because she's the church first lady: “I willingly jump off [the pedestal]," she said.

Church life isn’t the only thing keeping the Hoffmans busy, especially as the weather gets warmer. May brings their son-in-law's commencement ceremony from Harvard graduate school; in June, they will celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary; in July, a trip to the Middle East is on the calendar; and in August, the Hoffmans will welcome a new grandchild.