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Sunday, April 22, 2012

GREG'S APRIL 2012 NEWSLETTER: LA LLAMA


Blessings from Chile! As all of you in the USA enjoy the warmth of spring and the coming summer, winter’s chill has already started to cool things off quite a bit down here; but we keep on truckin’ so please read below to find out what we’ve been up to in April, and about my trip home this July-Sep.

FIRST: God has guided us to an amazing facility at the ‘Hotel Costa Real’ to have our future Fuego Urbano service(s) in the downtown/beach community of La Serena. It was pretty amazing how it all worked out and totally evident of God’s guidance. In our own (human) planning, we wanted to find a place right in front of the beach in order to be as close as possible to the surfers and beach community, but none of those hotels and places with large event rooms wanted to rent to a church. After having all those doors closed we began to get worried and went by one more place on a whim, the Hotel Costa Real, which is a super nice hotel but a bit further from the beach then we originally wanted (it’s about 1/2 mile from the beach). So we went and asked and they said they had a room that goes up to about 100 people if we liked, and then as we thought and prayed about it God began to show us how much better this place is than what we originally wanted at the beach. The beach would’ve been about a 15 min walk for the thousands of college students who don’t have cars, whereas the hotel is literally within a few hundred yards of 5 universities and the thousands of university students who attend them. Not only that, but the fact that it is still super close to the beach means we can easily get the surfers to head on over because almost all of them arrive at the beach in cars or transportation anyway; and the skaters who skate all around the downtown area, including those who will skate in the new skatepark on the beach, will also still be really close by. As if that weren’t enough, the hotel is about 100 yards from essentially the biggest traffic intersection in the city, where just about every bus, taxi, etc. either comes from or goes through, making it easy for anyone to get there from literally any part of the city.  Below is a picture of the front of the hotel and the room we’d use is just over on the left:
The only downside is that because it’s such a nice hotel, it’s a bit more expensive then we were hoping. They’ll charge us $320 per week, which works out to $1280 per month, of increased monthly support that we’ll need to come up with before we begin. But the good thing is that we can have anywhere from 1-4 services back-to-back in our time-slot without having to pay any additional fees, and we’ll also be taking offerings each week to help cover the costs. The really exciting thing is that this situation could sustain our growth all the way up to about 400 people or so, and we’re really excited about the thousands of young people who will literally be at our doorsteps because we know it has the potential to blow up very quickly. Because of the increased costs and the additional support we’ll need to raise to help cover those costs, and in order to launch in summer with lots of momentum and energy, we’ve decided to begin all this in January 2013. We’ll do the main service(s) at the hotel Sunday nights and then the service in Las Compañías will change to a mid-week gathering. That way we’ll be able to fulfill our commitments and grow our ministries in both places. Please pray God will keep guiding us and putting all this together, and that He’ll provide the additional finances we’ll need to launch this exciting new phase of ministry!!

SECOND: After 1.5 years we’ve FINALLY found a worship leader to develop the worship and music ministry of Fuego Urbano! Her name is Erika and she’s an incredibly gifted musician, singer, and worship leader. I was amazed the first time I heard her sing because she sounded like the woman from Hillsong, except in Spanish. Erika is 21 years old and really excited about coming on-board with Fuego Urbano. She’ll be leading worship at all our services and joining our leadership team as well, so please pray God gives her grace and favor as she begins to put together that whole ministry. It’s such a relief to finally have someone who is gifted and passionate about developing the worship ministry of Fuego Urbano, and with the new services starting in January we’re hoping the worship will be a powerful part of it.

THIRD: The International Sports Coalition (ISC) hosted another workshop in sports-evangelism & outreach here last week and about 75 people came for 3 days to get trained on how to reach their communities for Jesus through various sports and activities. It went really well and as one of ISC’s leaders in Chile, they’re now flying Pepe to Ecuador for a huge ISC conference at the end of April to discuss implementation of continental goals and strategies for all of America. Go Pepe!

FOURTH: I’ll be in CA from July 20th to early/mid September and would love to meet with you and share personally about Fuego Urbano. I’ll be around to share with whatever churches, groups, organizations, small-groups, church-groups, families, ministries, student ministries, etc. you would like. Or if you’d like to meet up personally I’d love to do that too. If you’d like to schedule something just email me at greg@fuegourbano.org and we’ll schedule it right away. Otherwise I’ll be continually giving more info as I get closer to the dates and schedule sharing events for people to come to as well.

LASTLY: As always there are 3 ways you may give financially to Fuego Urbano. For Automatic Monthly Online Donations you may sign up for amounts of $25, $50, $100, or $200 per month. Just go to the right side of my Blog (http://greghaugh.blogspot.com) where it says ‘Recurring Donation’ and adjust drop-down menu to the amount you’d like to give each month; then click ‘Subscribe’ and it will take you through the process. One-Time Online Donations are available as well: click the ‘Donate’ button on my Blog just below where it says ‘1-Time Donation’ and it will take you through the process. Or if you prefer Personal Checks you can make them out to ‘Fishers of Men Fellowship’ and mail them to: Fishers of Men Fellowship, PO Box 9284, Newport Beach, CA 92658.  And all donations are fully tax-deductible.

Thank so much for your continual prayers and support, and I look forward to seeing you all soon!
Greg Haugh & Jose, Gislaine, Gabriel, and Gean-Felipe Eyzaguirre