GREG'S FEBRUARY 2011 NEWSLETTER: LA LLAMA, VOL 6

Blessings from Chile as we finish up an amazing first summer of ministry in La Serena! Below you’ll find some highlights of what we’ve been doing this Feb, as well as some ministry plans for the next 9 months. I hope you enjoy reading about how your prayers, encouragement, and financial support are impacting the lives of so many young people through Fuego Urbano!!

First: ‘Mas Que Vencedores’ (MQV) was our summer sports program we held each Mon, Wed, & Fri this summer, where kids could learn & participate in Basketball, Soccer, and Volleyball with us at absolutely no cost to them or to the city. It is only because we receive our financial support from YOU, that we are able to offer these programs totally free as a service to the community and to the city, which blows them all away because no one ever does anything down here for free!! But we’re able to (THANKS TO YOU ALL!!), and our MQV program was an amazing success. We had about 110 kids in all, with around 50-65 present on any given day. MQV is designed not only to teach sports, but Biblical values and principles which will help them in sports, life, and their relationship with God. Through MQV we’ve been able to reach out to so many young people, exposing them to Biblical love and truth, as well as apply it to their actual lives and sports. Many of them also want to come to Fuego Urbano because we develop deep relationships with them, and as they know and trust us more, they open up more as well.

'Mas Que Vencedores' time of reflection & prayer

Second: We’ve had around 20-40 people over the past few weeks at our weekly Fuego Urbano meetings. We’ve been slightly hampered due to the skatepark closing for 5 weeks for repairs, and all the skaters leaving to skate in other places, but all in all things are going very well and with the re-opening of the skatepark all the skaters are back as well. And thanks to your giving we now have a projector and sound system for worship lyrics, power-points, videos, worship music, etc. so we’ve been developing more of that and using more dynamic media as it’s been available to us. We’ve been going through a series called ‘Images of Jesus’ where we take the Biblical truth that Jesus is the ‘image of the invisible God’ to allow Jesus to overturn some our misconceived ideas and assumptions about God, and replace them with the images of God revealed in Jesus himself.

Third: Our Ministry Plans for Upcoming School Year from Mar-Dec will include continuing the MQV program on afternoons after kids get out of school, as well as a Skateboarding ministry we’re proposing that would allow us to take a portable half-pipe (skateboard ramp) to local schools in the community and teach the kids how to skate it while they get PE credits for doing so. This would allow us to meet and skate with those who already skate, as well as give us the opportunity to teach those who have never done it. Either way, it gives us great exposure to the young people in their very own schools and we could then share with them and invite them to Fuego Urbano. We’re currently talking with a new director about this program, so please pray God would open the doors for it! Pepe and I are really excited about the outreach potential this could have, and in order to make it happen we’ve purchased a mini half-pipe at a very low cost of $300 (see photo below); we would also need to buy lots of helmets & pads too.

Fourth: We have 3 Special Needs (please read my ‘Mid-February Update’ on my blog) I’d like to ask you to pray about helping us with. First, is a trailer to haul the sound equipment we’ve bought to and from our Fuego Urbano meetings. The trailer will cost around $700-$1000. Second, we’ve bought in faith a mini half-pipe for $300 from a skater and businessman we’ve gotten to know well, and we hope to use this ramp for the Skateboarding ministry I discussed above in the local schools. Third, we need bed frames for Pepe & Gislaine, as well as for their son Gabriel. They’ve been sleeping on mattresses on the floor since November and a couple times we thought we had the beds taken care of but something has always happened to get in the way. The beds would cost about $300 in all. In total, these 3 needs value about $1300-$1600 so please pray about helping us purchase them and if you’d like to read more about them, please read my previous blog post entitled: ‘Greg’s Mid-February 2011 Update: 3 Special Needs’. Below is a picture of the half-pipe we’re buying to use for the skateboard ministry we want to have:

The mini half-pipe we're buying

Fifth: As always there are 2 ways you can give financially to Fuego Urbano: 1) Online Payments here on my Blog; or 2) Checks made out to ‘Fishers of Men Fellowship’ & sent to:

                  Fishers of Men Fellowship

                  PO Box 9284

                  Newport Beach, CA 92658

Thanks so much for all your continued love, prayers, & support!! We simply could not do this without YOU, our prayer warriors and financial supporters!!

 Greg Haugh & Jose, Gislaine, and Gabriel Eyzaguirre

Fuego Urbano

Greg’s Mid-February 2011 Update: 3 Special Needs

Greetings from Chile! 

We are doing well here as our first summer of ministry is coming to a close, however there are 3 special needs I would like to share with you. Many of you frequently tell me to let you know of our needs so you can help, and so in that spirit I’d like to share with you the following 3 needs and ask you all to pray about how you might be able to help us, or at least pray that God would open the doors for us regarding these:

Need #1: Trailer 

With your generous giving we have bought a sound system for Fuego Urbano complete with speakers, microphones, etc. The problem is that due to our car always being full the speakers don’t fit inside, so we need to purchase a trailer to haul the sounds system and worship instruments to and from our Fuego Urbano meetings. Until we have the trailer, we can’t use the speakers or amplify any of our worship, which we really need to do now that more people are coming to Fuego Urbano. The trailer costs around $700-$1000.

Need #2: Mini Half-Pipe

As many of you know skateboarding is incredibly popular here and our main outreach has been to the young skaters of La Serena. This summer a guy built a small mini half-pipe (see the picture below) right across from the beach and started charging people to skate it. Tons of kids skate it each day but he has to get rid of it next week because summer here is ending. I’ve gotten to know him from skating there and he loves the vision of Fuego Urbano, and told me he’d like to sell it to us to use for ministry rather than sell it to someone else. He told us to give him a price, but after talking with him I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be able to buy it for less than $200 US dollars, with $300 being the high end. After talking about it we realized we could use the ramp for ministry in so many different ways to reach kids, invite them to the house, take it around to schools for demos and classes, etc. that we decided we’re going to buy it in faith that God will provide the money for it through you all, our wonderful supporters. The ramp would open up so many incredible doors for us outside the skatepark itself, as we are already designing a program that would entail us taking the ramp to all the local schools and teaching the kids to skate right there in their own schools as part of their own P.E. classes. Talk about amazing outreach opportunities!! Therefore, I ask that you please pray and see if you might be part of God’s provision for this amazing ministry tool. Here’s a picture of the ramp from this summer:

Need #3: Beds

We all bought mattresses to sleep on a few months ago when we moved into this new house but Pepe & Gislaine, along with their son Gabriel, have not been able to get bed frames due to a few different circumstances. A few times we thought we had them ready to go but things have fallen through each time. As a result, they continue to sleep on mattresses laid down on the floor. We hope to buy them bed frames as soon as we can so they don’t have to lay down mattresses on the floor any longer and can sleep better at night. The beds will cost about $300.

The grand total for these 3 Needs is roughly $1200-$1600 US dollars, and I hope you will pray about how you might be able to help towards them. I know so many of you give and continue to give and I’m so grateful, but I also ask that you pray to see if you might be able to give above and beyond normal giving for these items, which would allow us to do the ministry we really want to be able to do here in La Serena. If not, thanks so much for your constant support and encouragement, and I ask that you pray God would open the doors for us regarding these items.

As always there are 2 ways you can give financially to Fuego Urbano: 1) Online payments here on my Blog; or  2) Checks made out to ‘Fishers of Men Fellowship’ and sent to:

Fishers of Men Fellowship

PO Box 9284

Newport Beach, CA 92658

Thanks so much and I pray God’s blessings for you this February!

Greg Haugh

Jose, Gislaine, Gabriel Eyzaguirre