FAMILY UPDATES //

Every July, we make sure to share a personal update. We exclude these from our regular letters because we want to focus on the ministry. One of the most exciting ones for me, Joey, was that I was able to oversee my church’s operations during our pastor’s sabbatical from February-to-June! This was super faith-stretching to manage ministry leaders and make decisions that would affect the church. By God’s grace, our pastor returned to an intact church..haha! Moving onto Jenn, an exciting update is that she was able to get a Masters in Information (with a library concentration).  It was years of late nights and long weekends but we knew God was asking her to pursue this. After an unpaid internship at the Hoboken library, she will hopefully be hired in September. Don’t worry; she will still be heavily involved in International Students Incorporated, but we will also have the blessing of her health insurance (a huge monthly cost in Cru and ISI). If it works out, she’ll be right near Stevens Institute of Technology – our main ISI campus! This was in the pipeline and it is happening sooner than we expected. Lots of changes in the Sforza world! Pray for all our transitions!

As for our three little ones, Gianluca just finished a block of grades for his autism from 3-5 and he will be moving to his 6-8th block. He will have the same teacher in a self-contained class until 8th grade. Mostly our boy is a typical happy, playful 11-year-old; with certain peculiar behaviors because of his autism. He can “talk” but mostly in basic phrases and not complex conversation. He can “learn” but it’s not always the easiest to gauge how much he understands. As for Gabriel, this last year feels like he became a teenager even though he is only 9 years old! He is super smart and mature, loves little league and even began playing drums through a Christian after school program he goes to. He also enjoys his gaming and a new app called “My Singing Monsters,” the most complicated silly game we still don’t quite understand. Finally our princess Lana got her first haircut about 6 months ago. Jenn and I really disagreed about this. I wanted it long, but Jenn won out because she’s the one who styles it most. She’s turning 5 this summer which means she starts kindergarten in the fall, thankfully in the same school as Gabriel. The kids have been in three different schools! Now it’ll be two, which Lana of course is excited for because she gets to take the bus with Gabriel. Like most girls, she loves dresses, dolls and princess movies! 

PRAYER REQUESTS //

(1) Please pray for the family, our marriage, our parenting, our kids and all of us individually to glorify Jesus in every way.

(2) We are still working on support raising for our new monthly goal with International Students Inc. It is higher than Cru’s for several reasons. Although we lost about $980/month in the transition so far, we also saw about $770 in new support and increases! This puts us at 71% of our new ISI goal. If Jenn is able to get her librarian position in September, that will reduce our overall goal and push us higher since we would get her healthcare coverage, which is a charge of $2500/month – not including out of pocket expenses.

(3) Upcoming ISI events! Although we are still in support raising mode, ISI has released us to do some student ministry ! July 22nd we will be on a fishing trip in the Atlantic Highlands with students! We expect a couple dozen. This will be our first formal ministry activity. Pray it goes well! And remember, the vast majority of students are not-yet believers. Every hospitable experience is an opportunity to show them the love of Christ alongside explicitly sharing the gospel! Also August 1 – September 9, we are organizing 40 days of prayer! More details to come.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR PARTNERSHIP IN THE GOSPEL!