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My spiritual journey...
If you have a few moments, I'd like to share my testimony and spiritual walk with you. I don't have any
extraordinary stories about my life, except for a simple story of a person who discovered the love and grace of God.
A little background and family history...
As a child, I grew up in the catholic church and catholic school system in Hoboken, NJ, which is where I learned about faith in God.
At nine years old, I started taking piano lessons as my brother Chris took guitar lessons. Chris later took up the drums
and I started on the guitar as a second instrument. In 1980, my mom got remarried. We then moved to nearby Clifton
where we continued our schooling at Pope Paul VI high school.
During high school I played in rock bands and took classical piano lessons at the nearby church on Emerson St. street in Clifton.
During my high school senior year, I became more interested in playing jazz and blues on the piano. At this point I also became
interested in playing guitar with the church folk group; we would play during the high school church services.
After graduating high school in 1985 I went straight to college where I played as much music as possible; I also
put the Lord aside for a couple of years. My love of playing caused me to to take all the wrong classes
during my first couple of years, until I finally decided to buckle down and take my computer science degree seriously.
A devastating blow...
In the late 1908s my friend and I used to attend these catholic healing services in the NJ/NY area. We were on sort of a "signs and wonders"
type of mission to find out if God really did heal people. My friend was dealing with some health issues
at the time so we used to see a lot of handicapped people coming for healing. I never saw any amazing physical
healing at these services, but this spiritual mission did in fact prepare me to a certain degree to what was coming next.
In Decmeber of 1988, while I was studying at Rutgers University in Newark, my fifty-year-old dad died of a massive heart attack.
He had been a Hoboken fireman for a little more than twenty years and died on the job during a small yet smoky house fire.
It was a devastating blow to my brother and I. He was nineteen and I was twenty one. Although my parents had already
been divorced for quite some time, my mom was also devasted. They had remained good friends and were always looking out for us kids.
Thankfully, over time and with God's grace, we were all able to accept the loss of dad and move on with our lives.
A spiritual awakening...
In the fall of 1989, less than a year after the loss of my dad, Robert James Mazzo, Sr. it was a crucial time where I a began deep
search for God in my life. Having grown up in the catholic church, I always had a basic faith
in God and an understanding that Jesus was the Savior. But then, at
a catholic charismatic church in Newark, NJ, I discovered was it means to be "born again" (see John Chapter 3 for a good reference).
During that fall season I was deeply touched by the love of so many wonderful people. It was then that I received Christ
into my heart and declared Him as Lord and savior of my life.
Wonderful things began to happen in my life, and I was even
able to bring my mom to church with me to hear the Word of God for many years after. My brother, extended family and friends
also came for a visit from time to time.
Diving deep into music ministry...
Soon after, in 1991 and at the same church (St. Antoninus in Newark), I shared with someone about my piano talents. The music ministry team quickly
invited me to play - and for the next eight years I would be found playing piano and singing for God every Sunday morning.
Over those years I bonded with some very special people
in the music ministry team and even co-founded a short-lived band, with friend Kenwyn Julien, called "Godsent".
We performed mostly original music and did some performances in the Newark, NJ area including Seaton Hall University in So. Orange and
St. Antoninus Church in Newark. Then in 1998/1999 I played, sang and co-produced the Godsent CD called
"Lord, Do They Know You". It featured the original music of Kenwyn Julien. We recorded it at my cousin Al Silvestri's studio
in Brooklyn. Kenwyn (who's from Trinidad) had a lot of great, fun music filled with piano ballads, R&B tunes and rhythms from Trinidad and Jamaica.
During this same time period (late 90s), I became deeply engrossed in my own songwriting. Then in 1999 I went back to cousin Al's
studio and started recording my debut CD, "My Life Is In Your Hands". It was really a reflection of my own personal journey in coming to know Jesus.
God sends me an angel from heaven...
Naturally, it was time to ask the Lord to send me the right woman in my life. You know how hard that can be these days - but I always
believed there was someone out there looking for the same thing. Then on a hot summer day in July of 1997, I met a young Brazilian
woman by the name of Rhode. She was more beautiful than I imagined. The only minor problem was that she lived in Brazil.
I thought "oh well, I guess you'll just have to move to New Jersey!".
After returning back to Brazil, Rhode made a very courageous decision to move to the USA. With no previous intentions nor dreams to come to America,
she left a great banking job in Belo Horizonte, sold her car and said goodbye to her huge family in Brazil - all to be with me. I knew I had a big resposibility,
but I was willing to go by faith and know that she was sent by God.
To be continued...
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