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News and Notes about Brigada, Your Gateway to Missions Networking!
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Compiled by Doug Lucas, Louisville, KY
[Pass this issue to a friend! To subscribe, see instructions at end.]

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In this issue….

* SOMEBODY’S PRAYING!
* SHORT-LIVED GRAPHIC SLITHERS INTO THE PAST
* HOW DO YOU SPELL RELIEF… IN GETTING VISAS
* SPANISH BIOGRAPHIES READY FOR PICKING
* JULY ADVANCE SUMMARY
* NO FREE LUNCH IN CHICAGO
* NAME THAT TUNE
* IF YOU HAD TROUBLE GETTING PGP INTERNATIONALLY …
* NEW STUDY BIBLE FOCUSES ON “KNOWING JESUS AND MAKING HIM KNOWN”
* GLOBAL GLIMPSE AT A GLOBAL CONSULTATION
* WEB WATCH
* NEW INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER TAPS INTO GLOBAL MARKET
* SERVANT-WATCH
* TO SUBSCRIBE TO BRIGADA TODAY

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SOMEBODY’S PRAYING!
In fact, more than 10 cell groups or churches are praying — for each of the groups on the Joshua Project List of Unreached Peoples! What started as a dream has now become reality! Dick Gaffney RGaff13817@aol.com The Manna Church of Fayetteville, NC, has now documented 10 churches for each of the 1790 people groups on the list and now they’re going around again in an effort to record 20 different churches or groups praying for each of the peoples! They’re already up to 19,300!!! Way to go, Manna! I’m finally going to meet these people at Pit-Stop Raleigh (a conference on how to adopt and reach a frontier people group), Sept. 19-20, Raleigh, NC) and I’m looking forward to it! (For more information about Pit-Stop Raleigh, write psraleigh@aol.co. If you were looking for a good excuse to go, now you’ve got one! Dick Gaffney from Manna Church is going to be there with a live session, along with Eric Derry of Beavercreek Christian Church, and others!!)

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SHORT-LIVED GRAPHIC SLITHERS INTO THE PAST
So, someday years from now, those four Brigada Today issues with the graphic logo will have become, I’m sure, collectors’ items. You’ll be able to recount to your grandkids, “I remember when Brigada Today tried that logo in ’97 — you remember, the one that would never format correctly ’til you switched the font to Courier New!” :-) Sorry for the four-week experiment. We’ve learned that we don’t live in a Courier New world any longer! It’s history. :-) Thanks to those who spoke out on the survey, asking for its release into posterity.

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HOW DO YOU SPELL RELIEF… IN GETTING VISAS
Dennis Shelly DennisShelly@maf.org is perplexed. He’s trying to figure out how to talk the Nigerian government into giving his organization, the Christian Witness Team, Inc., a fair visa quota for entry into Nigeria. Dennis writes, “Over the past months our CWT leaders have spent much time and money by making many trips to Abuja to solve this matter, but no approval has been given yet. We believe the real reason relates to Muslim leaders not wanting Christian missionaries to come into the country. We will not give them a bribe.” Have you faced similar situations — in Nigeria or other countries? If so, how in the world did you resolve it? Dennis is looking for feedback — and Dennis, if you get some input, please knit together a compilation for us to make available here on Brigada, okay? Thanks . . . and Godspeed.

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SPANISH BIOGRAPHIES READY FOR PICKING
Jon Ekblad, Cuenca, Ecuador ekblad@uio.uio.satnet.net has finished the list of Spanish missionary biographies he’s been compiling. You can retrieve the list by sending this line of text in an email to hub@xc.org
get brigada spanbios

Thanks Jon!

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JULY ADVANCE SUMMARY
Thanks to Mark Kelly for his July Advance. You can retrieve it by sending
get brigada advance.9707
to hub@xc.org .

While you’re at it, you can also get the June issue, which was only made available to us this past week, by sending
get brigada advance.9706
Here’s the July summary!

Summary of “ADVANCE!” for July 1997

THE GOSPEL FOR EVERY PEOPLE–Intercede for believers in Hong Kong; first seeker from an unreached people group in Indonesia; Buddhists in Sri Lanka coming to Christ; Algeria’s Tuaregs; China’s Hui; new leaders for China’s registered churches.

THE PERSECUTED CHURCH–14-year-old Pakistani Christian girl abducted, forced to convert; leaders of Bogota, Colombia, church attacked; Ethiopian believers seriously by mob; members of Mexico church told to revert or leave town; Russian law restricts believers’ rights

SPIRITUAL FORCES OF DARKNESS–Christian Dayaks in Borneo revert to head-hunting ways; homeless man burned alive in Brazil; children to be dedicated to pagan Parsee gods; Nepalis oppressed by Hinduism.

REJOICE!–cable TV station in Guatemala airs “Jesus” film; breakthrough among Muslim Susu of Sierra Leone; gospel advance in northwest India; church in China’s Sichuan province repairs potholed road.

NETWORKING–To register protest over new Russian law; pamphlets profile more than 700 of the world’s 1,739 unreached people groups; International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.

FRONT LINES–By minding our own business and neglecting the Kingdom, we betray our brothers and sisters who suffer each day for their commitment to Christ — as well as those enslaved by the Oppressor.

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NO FREE LUNCH IN CHICAGO
One of those (Jonathan Marsden) evaluating the “free internet access” (“freeaccess.net”) in Chicago pointed out that they could go “belly up” at any time. Since by then they will have grabbed your thirty bucks sign-up fee, maybe there’s no free lunch. :-( And as Jonathan put it, the web page says it will be “operational after Apr. 21st — and it’s still not operational. Not a good sign.” Still, if you’d like to take the risk, send email to info@freeaccess.net. Caveat emptor… [Just what exactly does that mean, anyway? Mrs. Judd (my 9th grade Latin teacher), where are you when I need you! :-) ]

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NAME THAT TUNE
Give Grace your best shot. Grace is compiling an ongoing list of resources and networks of Christian music and the arts throughout the nations so that the nations can worship Jesus with their own expressions of worship to His glory. If you’ve got a favorite resource or CD or whatever, email Gewiebe@aol.com or Grace.Wiebe@CCMAIl.LFA.COM or both, for that matter :-) In a couple of weeks, Grace, don’t forget to send us the compilation so we can make it available to all. Thanks!

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IF YOU HAD TROUBLE GETTING PGP INTERNATIONALLY …
Try again. This site makes available the free version of PGP internationally. I just verified the following page and it’s there: ftp.ox.ac.uk:/pub/crypto/pgp/pc/windows95. MAC users can look at ftp://ftp.ox.ac.uk:/pub/crypto/pgp/mac/. This will appear as a file list.. not extremely informative. Other pages can fill users in regarding PGP and its uses. By the way, I’m beginning to figure out that this particular copy of PGP has apparently been exported without permission and perhaps just a bit illegally. One source told us that it wouldn’t be the least bit illegal for you to use this version, but it would have been unethical for you to be the one who exported it. A fully legitimate version is being prepared for use at another overseas location and should be available within the next month.

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NEW STUDY BIBLE FOCUSES ON “KNOWING JESUS AND MAKING HIM KNOWN”
According to Paul Filidis, “Knowing God & Making Him Known” is the theme of a new NIV study Bible, available at http://www.ywam.org/books/books.html. Paul says this Bible’s study program is modeled after YWAM’s proven Discipleship Training approach. It reportedly features a 30-path study program with in-text notes, mini biographies, unreached people profiles, a center-column cross ref. system, book intros, concordance, index and more. It’s brand new — July ’97 release date from Zondervan. So if you were already planning on purchasing a gift for someone, why not make it a study Bible — $25 for the soft cover edition. Contact Paul at wcn@xc.org or fax (719)380-0936.

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GLOBAL GLIMPSE AT A GLOBAL CONSULTATION
The first week of July brought the world one step closer to global evangelization. The 1997 Global Consultation on World Evangelization (GCOWE) brought together 4200 Delegates from 135 countries to Pretoria, South Africa. 80% of the delegates were from countries that WERE missionary receiving countries — the missionary leadership base is now firmly established in Africa, Asia and Latin America! When the results were tallied, 390 ethnic groups previously with no church or church planters now had missionary agency leaders who had adopted them. It was reported on the last night that now 90% of the 1,739 Joshua Project unreached peoples now have either a church planting movement or a commitment to mobilize a team of church planters.
(Source: AD2000 web site, http://www.ad2000.org )
Global Glimpse is compiled each week by John Hanna, Caleb Project, Littleton, CO.

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WEB WATCH
Now that GCOWE ’97 is written into the history books, you might want to take a look at what some of those majority world churches are saying. Check out http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/5796 for one example, fresh from Gereja Persekutuan Maranatha Indonesia, Yogyakarta. And thanks to Arie “Denmas Marto” Saptaji ypkd-ind@yogya.wasantara.net.id for the tip about your church’s website!

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NEW INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER TAPS INTO GLOBAL MARKET
Terry Ware terry.ware@usa.net likes http://www.homegate.net as an Internet Service Provider (ISP), because they deliver 1,000+ Points Of Presence (POPs) in 155 countries. With all those pops, this new service might just explode in popularity… if they don’t snap or crackle first! :-) (Note that they aren’t delivering a “flat rate” suicide plan a la AOL!) Terry and Alice serve in Croatia and need international connectivity. I have a hunch that several other _Brigada Today_ participants do as well! :-) Check ’em out, especially if you average more than 30 minutes per month on email outside North America! Thanks Terry!

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SERVANT-WATCH
How does one learn humility? We all need it… everybody admires it… but where do you get it? Well I’m beginning to realize that some of this stuff is better caught than taught. I saw it in action this past weekend at the work day we were hosting at Team Expansion’s new location in Louisville, KY. Some volunteers from a local church had gathered to help us get started on the big job of cleaning, scraping, painting, and remodeling the old church building we’ve purchased on the outskirts of Louisville, KY, to use as a mission headquarters here in the USA. Picture some of our volunteers. Here was one of Louisville’s top anesthesiologists [he says his job is to go from room to room all day putting people to sleep; sounds like some of my preaching! :-) ] wiping out cabinets beside one of Kentucky’s foremost heart surgeons — and the cardiologist happened to be on call. Several times I would see them there on their knees scrubbing cabinets, cell phone in one hand, sponge soaked in Formula 409 in the other, taking calls from forwarding services and emergency rooms. “No, I don’t think I’d administer that together… better use 10 cc Lydocaine drip with….” (You get the picture — in spite of my improvisational prescriptions. :-)) This is the stuff humility is made of. There we were on a hot and sweaty Saturday morning, when many doctors would want to be out on water skis, watching ESPN, or shopping for some new car… anywhere but a musty kitchen cabinet of a 100-year-old church building. But hey — the building has tons of character, and so do these volunteers. So — missions department and volunteers at Southeast Christian Church, we salute you… but on a larger scale, we salute the doctors, missionaries, and volunteers worldwide who are “wiping down cabinets” (and performing tons of other servant-like tasks) worldwide today. You might not all be talking on cell phones while you scrub on sinks, but for whatever it is God has called you to do with Christlike servanthood, you’ve all got my thanks and the appreciation of zillions of folks from Louisville to Liberia, all saying, ‘thanks!’ for your attitude of service, humility, and Christlike life!!! And by the way, the cardiologist and his wife are due back tonight with the wife of the anesthesiologist — and dozens of others. The work marches forward around the world, thanks to humble hearts.

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(This issue of Brigada Today is Copyrighted © 1997. However, permission is granted to freely redistribute provided that such redistribution is to those who will help the Good News of Christianity to reach the unreached. But please tell your readers where you learned about the item, and if it’s not asking too much, include the 3 lines on how to subscribe — see above.
IMPORTANT: To copy or reproduce Brigada Today for any other reason is illegal and is not permitted.)

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BRIGADA TODAY IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE FOLLOWING TEAM OF REGULAR VOLUNTEERS:

*Global Glimpses: John Hanna, Caleb Project, jhanna@cproject.com
*ADVANCE: Mark A. Kelly, Kainos Press, MarkKelly@xc.org
*Brigada Website: Bob Mayhew, Brigada Volunteer, mayhew@xc.org
*Technical Development: Jonathan Marsden, MAFxc jonathan@xc.org
*Brigada Customer Service Manager: Revis Ann Massey, RevisAnnMassey@xc.org
*Brigada Coordinator: Doug Lucas, Team Expansion & Brigada, DLucas@TeamExpansion.org
*and many other occasional contributors too numerous to mention!
But thanks for working together! That’s the dream of Brigada!