Duggins Family eUp-date Jan.-Feb. 2019

It is amazing how fast this year is moving.  That may seem an amazing statement thinking that we are just in February, but it's been an amazing year even for just two months.   

On January 9, Eric flew to Santiago de Chile to visit with one of the New International affiliate families of the Americas Region.  He had the privilege to preach at the Metropolitan Church of Christ and also had a couple of visits with Pastor Sergio.  We had a good and productive time with Habacuc & Liz Diaz, New International's family participating with the ministries at the Metropolitan church and in a Christian School serving both missionaries and Christian families in Santiago.   The Metropolitan church has been through some difficult times in the last couple of years but it is exciting to see that the congregation is recovering and beginning to grow again.  

In this visit, Eric saw several major urban areas that need new dynamic churches.  Haitians have migrated to Santiago in significant numbers and a Haitian outreach could have a major impact.   One concerning note however, the Church generally in Santiago seemed discouraged with reaching this and other fast growing communities in the urban areas of Chile.  Several Christian leaders seemed to feel that the "evangelistic zeal" has  become less intense in Chile and the culture is moving away from Christ at a significant pace.

The Residency Program of the IMPACTOnetwork began again about the same time Eric left for Chile.  Upon return to Mexico, he had to finish preparations for two days (4 hours) of teaching with the Residents and the students from the Christian University of Mexico.  All four of our missionary men of IMPACTOLatino are teaching in the Residency Program and we are excited see how the residents and the students are expressing life changing insights in church planting and living in Christian community.

On January 9, New Mission Systems International launched their new branding.  NMSI is now New International and has a new updated logo and a new webpage.     The new branding has been in the works for about a year.  There are several reasons the new branding was launched and one important reason was to make the name less problematic in sensitive areas of the world where New International has workers.

New International has the same heart and vision, Transforming Lives Globally.   We wanted you to also be aware that donations can be accepted in both names presently, but eventually the "New International" name will need to be used for checks.  The webpage donation page has been simplified and donations can be done through debit cards, credit carts  or electronic checks.

The last week of January we headed to Fort Myers for the annual meeting of the Regional Directors of New International.   We were blessed by the meetings with the other directors and were especially blessed by the teachings of David Aderholt on Professional and Personal Development strategies.   Jeff Metzger, Director of New International, also joined us and updated the directors on advances within the mission generally. 

We returned to Mexico on February 2 from Fort Myers and worked with the IMPACTO team to prepare for a seminar that the network was offering to the students, leaders of the La Viña church and other congregations in the Queretaro area.  The seminar was on the discipling program, ROOTED and was lead by three staff members of the Compass Christian Church from Colleyville, Texas.   We had close to 30 participates in the two night introduction and teaching about the ROOTED program with five different congregations participating in the four hours of teaching.

It was a great blessing to have CM Habermelh (new director of International Missions at Compass), Heidi, who is a staff member in the missions area and Rowy who is the director over the Rooted program at Compass share this life changing discipling program.  Our team hosted these good friends and we were able to share quite a bit about the vision of the network.

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Eric & Dee Duggins teaching at the Valentine Dinner

On February 14th the La Viña church hosted a couples dinner.  Over half of those that attended were first time visitors..  We were asked to give a short teaching as part of the programs so we did a teaching about the LOVE BANK and making deposits through the FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES.    We were given about 20 minutes, so the teaching was short but seemed to be well received by all the participants. 

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​On February 21 begins one of the network's major annual events, AVANZA.   AVANZA is the IMPACTOnetwork's assessment of potential new church planters.  Three couples are confirmed to participate in the four days of teaching, group activities, interviews and evaluations concentrated on these three couples that are considering planting a church with the network.   Eric will be one of the observers evaluating these couples.  Dee is on Grandkid duty, since Holly is the director of the four days of AVANZA. 

We are excited that Pastores Gerardo and Nati Dominguez have arrived in Queretaro just after Christmas and  they are now taking on the role of the Church Planting pastor of La Viña church.  Just before Christmas the La Viña church moved from the offices of the IMPACTOnetwork to a rented facility in a local sports club.  The club is owned by a Christian family and has been very open to the church even giving us wall space on the outside of the club for promotional signs.  On Sunday, February 10, we had 102 people present for the Sunday celebration, a record since the Launch Sunday last May.  

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COMING EVENTS:

February 24 / Eric is preaching at La Viña.
February 26 / Eric is joining the Management Team for La Viña.  Dee continues to direct the Sunday School program at La Viña.
March 27-30 / Mexico Missionary Reunion
April 2 to 9 / We will be doing a field visit to Haiti.  Two New International affiliates are in Haiti.  One in Port-au-Prince and other in norther Haiti, Pigon.   We would ask you be praying about this trip.  There has been major unrest in Haiti with anti-government riots.  We are hopeful that things will return to normal by the time of our visit.  We have had to cancel two previous trips because of challenges in-country. 
April 22-24 / Houston Pastors' Visit in Queretaro.  Two congregations in the Houston area are coming to Queretaro to talk about partnership with the next church plant in Queretaro this year.  They are indicating that they are wanting to bring leaders from other congregations that could potentially partner with the network.

PRAYER REQUESTS:

1. PRAISE, we both have been working to get more healthy.  Eric has lost 50 pounds and Dee over 22 and we are walking almost everyday.  We are excited about the progress we are seeing!
2. Be praying for the visit of the Houston Pastors to Queretaro.  We are praying that these congregations will catch the vision for reaching the cities of Mexico and partner with us on the next church plant.   
3. Be praying for Andrew (our son) as he looks at an opportunity for ministry in the next couple of months.  He has been invited to participate in a new church plant.  He will need to work while serving and he is also looking at raising support that will cover a portion of his living needs.  We are exited for him but there are still a lot of details to work through and will involve a move to a new city. 
​4. A PRAISE: We have had two major donations to the IMPACTOLatino ministry.  We are very thankful for a generous gift from SouthEast Christian Church in Louisville, KY and the Compass Christian Church in the Dallas area.  We also welcome the Woodland Hill Christian Church of Abingdon, VA as a partner with the Duggins Family and IMPACTOLatino.  And we are thankful for the individuals and families that participate with us and have for many years!   THANK-YOU!