THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR PARTNERSHIP IN THE GOSPEL!!!

As we shared in May’s letter + video, we are taking a huge step of faith from one support-funded ministry to another on July 1. After 12 years with Cru, we are taking a role with International Students Incorporated to reach the often lonely non-Christian international students with the love of Christ through hospitality and explicit gospel proclamation. We hope you all seriously/prayerfully consider following us as we follow Christ. 

If all partners follow, we’ll be at 100% of our ISI funding. All the instructions for moving your giving over are on our blog, SforzaGrams.com. So far about 50% have either pledged or made the jump!! Praise God! We will give a clearer update about this next month after we hear from everyone.

Why international ministry? You may remember the personal story I shared last month about a former Hindu student named Roman (see video on our blog). Relational and hospitality evangelism is HUGE when it comes to international students! For this month’s prayer letter, though, I wanted to merely share some statistics with you about why international student ministry is so strategic. 

• The top 5 countries of origin are China, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia + Canada
• Top 5 fields of study for International Students are: 1. Engineering 2. Math/Computer Science 3. Business/Management 4. Social Sciences 5. Physical/Life Sciences

• 914,095 international students are studying in the United States* 
• Nearly 60% of students come from countries with restricted access to the gospel.** 
• 75% of international students ​will never enter an American home.** ​ 
• 80% of international students will never enter an American church.**

Source: https://www.isivolunteers.org/statistics.html

Just think for a moment about the incredible opportunities that can arise from dedicating and focusing our campus ministry efforts on these almost 1 million international students in the USA. Every year we send missionaries to the “10/40 Window,” which seminarians refer to as one of the most difficult to reach places on the planet. Countries where Islam, Hinduism or Atheism reign and where it’s not uncommon for people to have NEVER heard about Jesus. And yet most international students are coming from THESE very places! If we could reach them with the gospel while they’re here, they then can take the gospel with them back to their home countries!  

As you can tell we are so excited. ISI’s focus on hospitality through on-campus weekly dinners, in-home visits with us or volunteers and even just lifestyle help as students assimilate…all of this is right up our alley of giftings. We also get to explicitly share the gospel again and again. Picture it: 20-30 non-Christian internationals at Stevens Institute of Technology (our main campus) enjoying a free meal and hearing the word taught in super simple terms again and again! WOOT! 

FYI, some changes are that we cannot post students’ faces on social media or in prayer letters (we will need to censor them), AND we cannot write up students’ legal names (we will need to write pseudonyms). ISI has all staff do this for security and liability purposes. Many students’ families back home would disown them if they found out our students were even associating with Christians! 

Thank you and thank you again ! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us !