Greg's June 2012 Newsletter: La Llama

I hope you’re all enjoying summer up in the Northern Hemisphere! Winter down here has been pretty nice and sunny so far but I’m looking forward to being back in California in about 4 weeks and getting some real warm weather! I hope to see you all while I’m there, so please read below to find out about what’s been going on here and about my coming trip home July 20^th-Sep 10^th or so.

FIRST: I’ll be home from July 20^th until early/mid September and can’t wait to see as many of you as I can!! My goal will be to see and share with as many of our Fuego Urbano family, friends, and supporters as I can about all God is doing through Fuego Ubano, as well as with any people, churches, groups, organizations, or ministries who are new to Fuego Urbano and would like to know more about us, so if you know of any then please let me know so we can try to set something up. And if you’d like to meet individually to catch up or hear more on a more personal level, then just email me  greg@fuegourbano.org  and we’ll schedule it. I’ll be hosting a couple larger sharing events like last summer and let you know about the dates once I have them, but until now nothing is set. That also reminds me: my travel expenses for this trip home will be around $1,800 which we currently don’t have, so if you would like to pray about helping me cover that cost, that would be a HUGE blessing too (see giving instructions below).

SECOND: God has been doing amazing things in the Surfers Bible Study in my apartment! It’s been awesome to see how God has opened the hearts and minds of so many of the surfers here recently. We’ve been meeting now for about 6 weeks with some of the best and most influential surfers around, who also happen to be super hungry and motivated to know God. In fact, one of the most motivated of all also happens to be among the top 2-3 surfers in Chile for his age! Anyway, the group already has all kinds of ideas about planning surf competitions for the local surfers where we share about Jesus and invite them to Fuego Urbano, as well as wanting to do some surf-trips where we surf but also use it as a spiritual retreat. Love it!! Please pray God continues to nurture the faith of these surfers and call all the surfers of La Serena to come to know Him! Here are couple recent pictures:

THIRD: Gislaine started a women’s prayer and bible-study group at their house because God keeps bringing us all these people from the downtown and beach areas of La Serena; so even though we won’t launch our services in the hotel until January, we’re using this time to develop leaders among the surfers, women, and the group in Las Compañías, so that we’re all ready to launch big in January.

FOURTH: The new skate-park on the beach is done and simply awaiting it’s official opening. It should clear all the legalities and open in the next week or two, and will be a huge focal point for all the skaters of La Serena who live closer to the downtown and beach areas. Once it opens we’ll be skating there lots to mark a presence with the skaters, share with them, and eventually invite them to the Fuego Urbano services we’re going to launch in the hotel in January. Please pray for us and them!

FIFTH: I was recently asked to write and contribute to the Christian discipleship website ‘Trochia,’ which seeks to encourage & equip followers of Jesus Christ. My writings post a few times per month and there are other contributors too, so check out the website at:   http://www.trochia.org/   and the Trochia Facebook page:  http://www.facebook.com/Trochia  to get encouraged in your faith.

FINALLY: 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 all your prayers and support, and I look forward to seeing you soon!

Greg Haugh & Jose, Gislaine, Gabriel, and Gean-Felipe Eyzaguirre

GREG'S MAY 2012 NEWSLETTER: LA LLAMA

Reflections on the Lakers: Watching Lakers games is one of the simple things in life that I truly love, and when the playoffs roll around everything is magnified: the highs and lows, successes and defeats…the very future of the team is held in the balance. That’s how I’ve felt the past couple of months: significant challenges mixed with new & exciting opportunities. Keep reading to find out more!!

FIRST:  Our greatest current challenge has to do with where we’re having our Fuego Urbano meetings in Las Compañías. For a couple months now we’ve been meeting in the house of a family who goes to Fuego Urbano because the multi-purpose room we were meeting in wasn’t conducive to discussing things at a deeper more personal level like we wanted. The acoustics were terrible and made it almost impossible to understand one-another while discussing things. The problem with the house we’re in now is that it only fits about 15 people, and in an effort to protect the house and family from a potential break-in that would be almost certain if we were to give out their address, we haven’t been able to invite new people to Fuego Urbano for a couple months now. That’s a bummer because we have about 40-60 people Tuesdays at our soccer programs and another 20 on Fridays for basketball, and a large percentage of those groups are pretty new to our programs. We did recently find out about 2 community Cede’s that we might be able to use, which would be awesome, but we’re not sure what will happen. We’d love it if you could pray that God would bring us a bigger place so we’re no longer hindered and limited like we are now.

SECOND: God is doing amazing things among the surfers here, so much so that we’ve just started a weekly surfers’ bible-study in my apartment. Its been so crazy to watch God move among some of the best surfers in the area, as well as the surf-shop owners and surf-school directors, to the point where after talking lots with a number of them I decided to start a surfers bible-study in my apartment and invite them all. We’ve only been going for 2 weeks now but both weeks have been awesome and led to lots of really good reflection & discussion. God is really opening up the doors for us into the community of surfers here and we believe He has really big things in store for both us and them and over the next year or so; so please pray for us as we move forward in faith and follow God’s lead on this one. Here’s a picture of me surfing a couple weeks ago (on my Almond) with some friends on a small but fun day:

THIRD: A brand new Christian school called ‘Amazing Grace English School’ is being built a few hundred yards from where we live and will launch the Fuego Urbano worship services in the hotel in January. It will focus heavily on English and sports, and their goal is to have a thousand or so students so we’re talking with the directors about possibly working together in some way in the future. It opens in 2013 and once again gives us tons of doors and opportunities than we weren’t even expecting.

FOURTH: We just met with the directors at the Hotel Costa Real again and its official that we have reserved Sunday nights starting in January for our Fuego Urbano service(s). The best thing is we can use the room anytime from 4pm-11pm and they won’t charge us extra. That means we can have up to 4 services or so but like I mentioned before, the rent is about $1280 per month so we’ll need to raise more support to help cover the cost. This location however will put us at literally the front steps of thousands of university students, young people, skaters, surfers, etc. and is easily accessible from anywhere in the city. It will enable us to focus on and draw from the entire city, which is what we’ve always wanted; and we actually just found out that the manager of the entire hotel is a Christian! She called us out of the blue when she found out about what we want to do there with Fuego Urbano, and told us she’s excited we're going to be there and wants to help us out in any way she can. Praise God!!

FIFTH: I’ve been asked to write and contribute to a Christian discipleship website called Trochia. The website  http://www.trochia.org/   is dedicated to encouraging and equipping followers of Jesus Christ. I’ll be writing a few times per month and there are 6 other contributors too, so check out both the website and Facebook page, and sign up on both if you'd like for updates or ‘like’ it to get updated about new posts, devotionals, and daily reflections. My first post just got posted yesterday so go check it out if you can and try to make a habit of visiting the sight to help build up your faith on a weekly or even daily basis.

SIXTH: I’ll be home in CA from July 20^th to early/mid September and would love to see or meet with you. I’ll be around to share with any churches, groups, organizations, small-groups, church-groups, families, ministries, student ministries, etc. that would like to hear about Fuego Urbano and what God is doing in Chile. Or if you’d like to meet up personally I’d love to do that too: just email me at greg@fuegourbano.org and we’ll schedule it. I’ll also give more info as I get closer to the dates and schedule some sharing events for people to come to.

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 friendship, love, prayers and support, and I hope to see you real soon!

Greg Haugh & Jose, Gislaine, Gabriel, and Gean-Felipe Eyzaguirre

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 20^th 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

GREG'S MARCH 2012 NEWSLETTER: LA LLAMA

¡¡Bendiciones desde Chile (‘Blessings from Chile’)!! I hope you’re doing well wherever this finds you and that you’re able take a few minutes to read about what we’ve been up to this March with Fuego Urbano, and the super exciting plans we’re shooting for this coming year.

FIRST: I’ve been surfing tons since my wrist got strong enough, since we got a 2^nd car, and since I finally got a board that surfs well in the waves here (thanks to my good friend Dave Allee who is owner of ‘Almond Surfboards & Designs’ and makes sick boards, so go check them out and buy one). I’ve been trying to take advantage of the end of summer with its warm air and water temps to connect as much as possible with the surfers of La Serena, a group we’ve always wanted to reach but haven’t been able to until now (due to not having a 2^nd car, not having a surfboard that rides good here, and the fact that we’ve been focused on the skaters and young people of Las Compañías and not La Serena’s beach community). Well the time has come to begin to really make a push in to the surfers here, as well as the skaters of La Serena’s beach community and downtown areas, and the thousands of university students who live within 15 minutes walk from the beach. So please read below for more details about how we’re going to do this, and please pray pray pray that God continues to open more and more doors with the surfers as I continue to surf with them, get to know them, and share with them.

SECOND: After 15 months straight of intense sports programs and ministry we finally got some time to rest and reflect a bit this March, and we all agreed that while we’ve been blessed in our first 15 months of ministry, its also time to make some changes in order to reach the broader goals we’ve always had with Fuego Urbano: to reach the skaters, surfers, university students, and young people across the entire city, and not just one part of it. Without going into too much detail: we’ve realized there are some real limitations on our ministry in Las Compañías, and specifically 3 huge demographics we simply can’t reach as long as we’re focused exclusively there. Those 3 demographics are: 1) La Serena’s surfers   2) the skaters of La Serena’s entire beach community and downtown area, as well as Coquimbo (the neighboring city)  3) the thousands of university students who attend the 6 or 7 universities all within a 15 minute walk from the beach. Las Compañías is simply too far away for these people to come to Fuego Urbano and this has always been both a frustration and a limitation of ours, but we’ve prayed lots and have decided to prepare to move the main service of Fuego Urbano right into the heart of La Serena’s beach community and therefore enable us to now reach out to literally thousands of young people all over the city who live so close by.  The reason we’re doing this now is to take advantage of a few new developments which have recently opened up as well: 1) As I mentioned above, I’ve been able to start surfing and reaching out to the surfers, which until very recently was basically impossible due to limitations we had of only having 1 vehicle which we all had to share, of not having a surfboard adequate for the waves here, and of my broken wrist; and 2) A brand new skate-park is opening soon right on the beach in La Serena and will be a massive gathering place for all the skaters of La Serena’s beach community and downtown area, as well as neighboring Coquimbo. Until now the only skatepark in the whole area has been in Las Compañías where we work, which is why we decided to focus there in the first place, but this new skatepark will draw skaters from all over La Serena and even neighboring Coquimbo, allowing us to target it just as we have the skatepark and skaters of Las Compañías. And it will be located about 1.5 miles down the beach from where all the surfers surf and hang out, so that stretch of the city will offer huge ministry opportunities for us which we simply did not have a couple months ago. Here’s a picture of Pepe in front of the skatepark. As you can see its under construction but its right on the beach and will be a huge gathering place for all the skaters of both La Serena and Coquimbo. 

Pepe in front of the new skatepark in construction right on the beach in La Serena

I also want you to know that we will not be abandoning Las Compañías or the people there. We’ll continue to do a weekly mid-week gathering there, after-school sports twice a week during the whole school year, and skate in the skatepark a couple times per week. We’ll even be doing our summer sports programs there next summer like we’ve done the past 2 summers, only scaled down a bit. The difference will be that we won’t be exclusively focused there like we have been until now. We’ve also spoken with our leaders and they’re all on-board and excited for the changes and new opportunities as well. So please pray God would pave the way in providing a large salon, event room, or meeting place at a cheap price so we can launch all this in November.

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 you so much for all your prayers and support…you make all this possible!

Greg Haugh & Jose, Gislaine, Gabriel, and Gean-Felipe Eyzaguirre

GREG'S FEBRUARY 2012 NEWSLETTER: LA LLAMA

Greetings from the sun and warmth of the Chilean summer in La Serena! As summer here draws to a close over the next 2 weeks, let me fill you in on what we’ve been up to this February.

FIRST: As mentioned in my previous newsletter, we received a YWAM team from LA that was with us from Jan 19^th to Feb 8^th and was a huge blessing. They were 14 young people who helped in our summer sports programs and ministries in tons of different ways. Two of the guys on the team, Shaun & Michael, are incredibly gifted skaters and were able to use their talents to open lots of new doors for us among the skaters of La Serena. They also helped us organize a huge skate-competition and brought really good prizes for the winners so we could do a really awesome event (read more below).  Shaun’s dream is to disciple, train, and send skateboarding missionaries all over the world so we’re already talking about them coming back next Jan-Feb with a team of lots of skaters to hit the skate community even harder next summer; and Shaun’s wife Jessica is a trained dancer so she’ll bring a few girls to help her reach out to the young women by teaching more dance classes. We’re all super excited about how God has brought us together and about continuing to work together in the future.

SECOND: Fuego Urbano organized an awesome regional skate competition where we shared the love of Jesus with everyone there and became much more known among the skaters of La Serena. Most skate competitions here are organized in such a way that the average local skaters never have a fair shot at winning any prizes, so we organized our competition so the local skaters had a fair shot at a bunch of prizes. We had 7 skateboard decks that Shaun’s YWAM team brought from the USA for all the 1^st place winners, and then lots of other clothing items for 2^nd and 3^rd place. Never in any competition around here have there been so many prizes to hand out so all the skaters were super stoked. The competition lasted about 7 hours and there were about 400 people during the day at some point.  As we gathered together at the end to hand out all the prizes for the winners, Shaun shared about how the prizes had all been given as a gift from skaters in the USA who love Jesus and wanted to share that love and gift with the skaters of Chile, and then Michael shared his testimony with the whole skate-park full of people listening to his every word. He then finished up talking about the gospel and inviting people to Fuego Urbano; then we handed out the prizes. It was off the hook and thanks so much to everyone who gave or donated boards, equipment, and clothing to Shaun's YWAM team so they could provide us with awesome prizes for the winners! Here’s a couple pictures below:

A bunch of the local skaters a the Skate Competition Fuego Urbano organized

Local skater William picking out a prize for his 3rd place finish

THIRD: We finished our Summer Sports Programs last week and ended up averaging about 45-75 people per day from 10am-2pm. They went really well all summer but we’re also extremely tired so it’s nice to be able to rest after 15 months straight of sports programs 3-4 days per week.

FOURTH: I’ve been surfing lots and connecting with the surfers as much as possible before summer ends. I’ve already been able to make some key connections so please pray God continues to open the doors among the surfers and beach community. I also got Henry out of the skate-park and taught him how to surf this past week and he loved it. Thanks to all of you who donated or sent boards and wetsuits, and who helped get our 2^nd car because none of this would be possible without all those things.

FIFTH: We have some new and very real financial needs (Do they ever end?) I'd like to share in case you’re able and willing to help. Just after purchasing our 2nd vehicle we had to fix a number of things on it which ended up costing about $400; then just today we had to spend $600 on a new radiator for our 1st car. This comes at a very hard time because we just got a recent and unexpected increase of about $400-$500 in our monthly expenses due to two things: 1^st, Guillerme (the Brazilian soccer player who was trying out for Chilean pro teams and living with us) went back to Brazil suddenly and with almost no prior warning. He decided and 2 days later was back in Brazil. That has means we now have to pay the rent, food, and utilities he was paying. And the 2^nd reason is the monthly cost of gas for the 2^nd car. If you’re able to help with these, there are directions on how to give in the paragraph below, and we would be incredibly grateful as we are once again forced to simply pray and trust in God's provision for us in these matters. 

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 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.

Thanks as always for all your prayers and support…we couldn’t do any of this without you!

Greg Haugh & Jose, Gislaine, Gabriel, and Gean-Felipe Eyzaguirre

GREG'S JANUARY 2012 NEWSLETTER: LA LLAMA

“Today I met new people and a new world…the strangest thing is that I liked it…” These are the exact translated words from the Facebook status of one of the local skaters (Francisco) who came to his first Fuego Urbano meeting last Saturday after a year of us skating and spending time with him in the skatepark. Francisco’s favorite shirt has a huge marijuana leaf on it that says ‘Addicted’ and the first time I saw him I knew I’d like him but also knew he’d be tough to break through to; but after a year of spending time with him skating and talking, and after meeting and skating with some of the skaters from our visiting YWAM missions team, he came to our Fuego Urbano service last Saturday and left those thoughts on his Facebook status that night. Please join us in prayer for Francisco and the other skaters and young people like him who we’re constantly reaching out to, and read below to hear more about all God is doing through Fuego Urbano this January.

FIRST: Our summer sports, arts, and music programs are cranking along and we have about 45-75 people who participate on any given day. The programs run Tues., Thurs., Fri., from 10am-2pm and include basketball, futsal, soccer, volleyball, guitar, singing, and dance/drama classes, all of which we offer to the community free of charge in order to serve them and share our faith with all who come. We also began our skateboarding workshops/classes on Saturdays from 10am-noon and lots of people have started coming to that too. Here’s a picture of Henry and I closing the skateboard classes in one of the bowls, where we always end with a short biblical reflection, apply it to our lives, pray, and then invite all the people to Fuego Urbano. Henry is one of the most committed young people we have and is the best local skater in the bowls of the skatepark, and he and I are partnered to grow and develop the skating ministry of Fuego Urbano and reach the skaters of La Serena, so please pray for us as we move forward.

SECOND: We’ve received 2 missions teams this summer who’ve both been HUGE blessing to us. The first was a team of 12 Brazilians who came for 3 weeks in Dec-Jan, and the second from a YWAM base in LA that is here now and has been an incredible blessing among the skaters and young people. They’ll be with us until Feb 8^th and we’re trying to take advantage of the incredible skaters in their group to really reach the skaters here in force over the next couple weeks. We’ll also be hosting a big skate competition with their help, so please pray all goes well and that through this competition tons of the skaters and young people find out about Fuego Urbano. And thanks so much to all of you who offered your own resources and prayers to this team in order to get them much of the boards and equipment they’ve brought down to us…we’re so thankful for all you’ve done.

THIRD: We bought a 2^nd car and are SO grateful to all who gave and made that possible! Having it has already made such a huge difference that I don’t know how we ever made it so long with only one!! We still owe, however, between $600-$700 to pay for it completely so if you feel led to help with that, that would be a huge blessing and directions for how to give can be found in the final paragraph below.

FOURTH: CIMA is a Christian missions and evangelism conference held in different countries of South America each year, and this year it’s in the neighboring city of Coquimbo. Our ministry partners in Sinergia are in charge of organizing the event and asked Pepe and I to each teach different workshops, so Pepe is teaching ‘Sports-Evangelism’ and I taught ‘Surf Culture’…anyway, there are over 600 young Latin Americans here for the whole week to be challenged in their faith, and learn how to reach the world around us for Jesus. Its been a great experience being linked with the conference, and it will serve as the basic model for an annual Sinergia event we want to host here in La Serena each year. Here’s a picture of some of the people from the first night of the event:

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.

Thanks so much for all your prayers, love, and support…we couldn’t do any of this without you,

Greg Haugh & Jose, Gislaine, Gabriel, and Gean-Felipe Eyzaguirre

GREG'S DECEMBER 2011 NEWSLETTER: LA LLAMA

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years from Chile!! Writing monthly newsletters are like writing sermons: for me, the key is not trying to find something to say but figuring out what not to say, because I always have million things I want to say but only a few things I have time or space to say. Newsletters are like that…and this one more than most because it’s the end of the year; but please read on and look at the pictures at my feeble attempt to capture all God is doing among us.

FIRST: Our Summer Community Sports Programs launched Dec 13^th and will go until the end of Feb. We have more programs planned then last summer and the city has once again asked us to basically run as many community programs, classes, and workshops as we can; and as always they allow us to share the gospel and invite all who participate in these programs to Fuego Urbano, because we run them at no charge to the city or to the community. They are a free gift of service to the community from Fuego Urbano, and our attempt to show them a picture of God’s love and grace in action. They are also our primary way of not only serving the community but evangelizing it, so please pray God will bless our efforts and bring loads and of people to Him through them. We’ll be offering basketball, futsal, soccer, sand-volleyball, skateboarding, music/guitar, singing, dance, and drama classes at different times, so it’ll be a busy but exciting summer for sure!

SECOND: We’ve just received a mission team of 12 Brazilians who are serving in our sports, dance, and music classes until Jan 7^th. The team was organized by a couple long-time Brazilian friends of Pepe from when they lived in Brazil as missionaries developing sports-evangelism programs there, so they’re well-prepared and already a huge blessing. Another team from a YWAM base in LA will be coming from late-January to mid-February, and they’ll be helping as well to serve in our sports, dance, and skateboarding ministries. We couldn’t do this without the help from teams like these and all who pray for them, encourage them, and give to them, so thanks so much from us! Here are a couple pictures from the Brazilians first few days with us this week in our sports and dance workshops:

The Brazilian mission-team leader Roberto giving reflection after basketball

Brazilian mission team leading dance workshops

THIRD: Gean Felipe and Gislaine are doing great and they’re all adjusting to a new member of the family, but all in all they are strong and healthy.

FOURTH: After 5 months my fractured wrist is (finally) almost all-better. I fractured my right wrist back in July while skating in the skate-park here and have not been able to skate or surf since. I should be ok to start next week but please pray for God’s protection as it’s not fully healed.  

Fifth: We now have a real need, as well as an unexpected opportunity, to buy a second vehicle. Because Pepe & Gislaine are now living with their family and I am now living with Guillerme in a nearby apartment, it is extremely difficult for us to take care of all our personal as well as ministry needs with just one vehicle. We’re constantly dropping it off and picking it up as we need it, and it really limits what we can do as far as ministry goes because it makes it really hard for us to be in more than one place at a time. With 2 vehicles we could accomplish much more and focus on our unique areas of ministry, instead of having to always be at one place at the same time, because we only have one car. I bring this up because we have a friend whose father in-law is selling the same vehicle we have now for a really good price, and to buy it we would need to come up with about $1500-$2000 more. So if you would like to help towards that then that would be a huge blessing and open up even more doors for ministry for us!

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.

Thanks so much for all your prayers, love, and support during 2011 and I wish you and yours the absolute best in 2012!

Greg Haugh & Jose, Gislaine, Gabriel, and Gean-Felipe Eyzaguirre