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News and Notes about Brigada, Your Gateway to Missions Networking!
On the WorldWide Web, browse https://brigada.org
Compiled by Doug Lucas
[Pass this issue to a friend! To subscribe, see instructions at end.]
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In this issue….
* PARDON OUR BURP!
* URGENT – 24-HOUR RESPONSE TIME REQUESTED!
* ALL AROUND THE WORLD, NIGHT OR DAY, LISTEN TO THE LORD
* GLOBAL GLIMPSE OF A HAUNTING RELIATY
* HEADED TO CENTRAL ASIA??? DON’T MISS THIS CHANCE TO TRAIN!
* WEB-WATCH
* WANT TO STUDY SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN ARGENTINA?
* SEARCH FOR BURIED WEB TREASURE
* WHAT WILL YOUR HOUSE-GUEST SEE?
* TO SUBSCRIBE TO BRIGADA TODAY
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PARDON OUR BURP!
Looks like another message burped through the gateway into the full Brigada mailing list Sunday morning (Eastern Time). (Some… maybe all the Brigada mailing list rec’d a copy.) It gave information about a Philippine mission that was celebrating a 90-year anniversary. Normally, messages sent to bounce to the moderator — and most are then forwarded to for consideration in a future edition of Brigada Today. However, once in a blue moon O (which hung high over the sky on Sunday, apparently :-)), such a message somehow burps out onto the mailing list in all its glory. Please forgive any inconvenience. We’ll ask MAFxc to check and re-check all their safeguards and, as for all of us on the list, let’s just realize that we’re navigating uncharted waters — and that MAFxc is learning from the “Brigada experiment!” To our knowledge, they don’t have any other mailing list with 6500 subscribers… not that size should matter in those kinds of safeguards. And in the end, the truth is, judging from the fact that literally hundreds of messages are sent to that address in a given week, is it any wonder that one might sneak by in a “blue moon???” O By the way, you could reduce the chance of slippage all the more if you sent administrative items to and news items to . But please — don’t subscribe us to any mailing lists! Any contributions should be custom-prepared for the Brigada Today mailing and should not simply be carbon copies of tons of pages of your favorite announcements! :-) We see plenty of those. :-)
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URGENT – 24-HOUR RESPONSE TIME REQUESTED!
Thanks loads to Revis Ann Massey, Brigada’s Customer Service Manager since about December, 1995!! For two years she has served willingly and without a break! Well — she needs one! And she’s leaving the country to get it! :-) Tuesday — yes… in 36 hours — she leaves for language school in Costa Rica, where she’ll be dedicating herself totally to Spanish, in preparation for all the more church-planting with Team Expansion’s InterAmerican Team in Miami. So — EMERGENCY!!!!! — :-) — We need a new Interim Brigada Customer Service Manager until March, ’98 (when she’s coming back to the USA and will reassume the role — Thanks Revis Ann!!!) The only requirements are: receive zillions of email requests per day, process millions of them, ditch the rest. :-) Like all Brigada roles, it’s volunteer . . . and free… and there’s very little glitz and glamour… but it’s a great opportunity for someone to serve… Experience with MAFxc email conferences preferred but not required (we’ll train you if you’re a willing worker!) Estimated time required??? Maybe an average of one hour per day… Must be a MAFxc member. If you’re not a MAFxc member already, but are willing to work hard, Brigada will pay the $52 to buy your membership. So — any takers? If so, answer now. Gulp. Come Monday night (24 hours!), Doug will be switching them all his way and with his mission’s board meeting coming up on Friday and an endless loop of responsibilities coming after that, … Helllllllllllpppppppp! :-) Don’t look for many answers to Brigada mail ’til March… :-) unless someone pitches in! :-) Oh — and Revis Ann — Suerte con el espanol! Gracias por la ayuda estos dos anos pasados!
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ALL AROUND THE WORLD, NIGHT OR DAY, LISTEN TO THE LORD
One Brigada participant reminded us this past week that radio waves are beaming Bible broadcasts to the far-flung corners of the earth, 24 hours per day. To get up to date schedules for your particular area, you used to have to write stations in faraway lands and send self-addressed, self-stamped envelopes. Those were the days. What a hassle. Nowadays, just open your web browser and check out:
http://www.wb2000.org/airtotal.html for World by 2000,
http://www.febc.org/schedule.html for FEBC [note free video]
http://www.gospelcom.net/twr/t_schedules.htm for TWR [free magazine]
http://www.feba.org.uk/langschd.htm for FEBA
http://www.hcjb.org.ec/$dir/frequncy/int_freq.txt for HCJB
What? No web access? No problem. Just send email to hub@xc.org with only the words
get brigada access-via-email
in the text of the message. A report will be emailed to you explaining how to download web pages via email! So — let the whole world know!
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GLOBAL GLIMPSE OF A HAUNTING REALITY
Missionaries Dave Mankins, Rick Tenenoff, and Mark Rich have been held hostage in Colombia for almost five years now. On January 31, 1993, armed Colombian guerrillas entered the small village where these men worked, raided their homes and took the men back across the border into Colombia. The families, including seven children, returned home to the US. Now the youngest child is 5 and the oldest is 28. The youngest four children cannot remember their daddies. At a recent summit the guerrilla group denied having the men.
(Source: New Tribes Mission Media Release, October 24, 1997, Macon Hare Jr. or Scott Ross New Tribes Mission 1000 East First St.Sanford, FL 32771-1487 Phone: (407) 323-3430 E-Mail: ntm@ntm.org )
Global Glimpse is compiled each week by John Hanna, Caleb Project, Littleton, CO.
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HEADED TO CENTRAL ASIA??? DON’T MISS THIS CHANCE TO TRAIN!
The Central Asian Study Center (CASC) offers an 8-week intensive prefield training and orientation course especially for you! This course is highly recommended by the Central Asia Consultation for all those going to Central Asia, the Caucuses, and western China. Curriculum includes language sills acquisition, studies in Islam, CA peoples, history and culture, issues of Muslims evangelism, contextualization appropriate to Central Asia and church planting. CASC is held in the Middle East in a Muslim environment and led by experienced field leaders. The next CASC will be in June – July 1998 with a possible special one month session in Central Asia in October. For more information about either of these sessions contact Dr. Robert Douglas or tel. (773) 728-8661 fax (773) 728-8662 or Dr. Jim Romaine jromai19@idt.net. “Don’t leave home without it!”
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WEB-WATCH
Check out the International Institute of Technology and Theology (IITT) http://www.iitt.org. They reportedly provide FREE helps service to missionaries and pastors world-wide in Computer Hardware and Software, Medical, Church Administration, Church Planting, Counseling, Systematic Theology, Old and New Testament Studies, and Mission Strategy. The faculty of IITT are said to all have extensive educational and practical experience in their fields. Let us know if you try it out — and tell us how it worked.
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WANT TO STUDY SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN ARGENTINA?
Now you can. Write dreigel@sion.com for all the details. The course runs December 1-5, 1997 in Instituto Biblico Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires Bible Institute) Buenos Aires, Argentina. Cost is just $105. Tel. (54-1) 784-7501, Fax: (54-1) 786-4404.
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SEARCH FOR BURIED WEB TREASURE
Have you noticed the trend on the web lately? It would be hard to miss it. More, more and MORE !!! There’s so much, it’s hard to find everything you’re looking for, in fact! So, where do you start? The best place to begin are search pages… and not necessarily the one that’s built into the browser you use — the one that pops up when you hit “search” on your tool bar! PC Magazine just did a study and found incredibly differing results, depending on which search engine you used for gold-mining on the web. Their findings? They might surprise you. For surgical precision — finding the exact page you need — forget the famous pages like Lycos, Excite, and Yahoo (though they liked Yahoo for an all-purpose page). Instead, turn to HotBot! http://www.hotbot.com Try it. You’ll probably love it. If it’s a person you’re searching for, try http://www.four11.com. But if you’re searching for a business, try http://www.bigbook.com. For Usenet news, try http://www.dejanews.com. And for “metasearches” (complex language searching that utilizes dynamic language at multiple search sites), jump to http://www.metacrawler.com or, for advanced queries, try your luck with http://www.designlab.ukans.edu/profusion/. Those are the PC Magazine Editors’ Choices (Dec. 2, ’97 edition). I’d say a hearty amen! The differences are astounding. Try them out! At least bookmark them now… so when you need to search later you can try them out.
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WHAT WILL YOUR HOUSE-GUEST SEE?
I spoke in Chicago last week. And I tried my best to bless the church… but it was probably I that received the bigger blessing. The married couple which housed me was an exceptional life-lesson in parenthood. They had raised their 3 daughters in a kind of “old-fashioned” way. For example, if someone wanted to take one of their daughters out on a date, he first had to come to the house and have dinner with the Dad and Mom. If he didn’t “pass the test,” no dice! :-) Maybe Father really does know best. All three daughters have married marvelous Christian men, and now the whole extended family has lunch together every Sunday after church — with zillions of grandkids running between everyone’s legs! They all went camping together this past summer . . . and even built a big screen house for the whole clan to picnic under. Dobson would have been envious. :-) So — what makes a successful family? Gary and Laretta found the secret.
First, they never gave up. Every single morning they did Bible devotions together as a family. And even when things got hectic in high school, they never let schedules squeeze it out. (Our family is still on track in reading a chapter per night together, but our kids are only 11 and 8; I realize the bigger battles probably lie ahead in high school years. But at least we’re in the habit now! Even when I’m overseas or out of town, we still read the same chapters together each night to stay “in sync” — and I try to call them each night from wherever I am in the world, just to check in and see how they’re doing. Not always possible.. but most of the time it works.)
But second, Gary and Laretta kept hold of their responsibility as parents. They didn’t release their kids to the world. If you’ve been letting go, it won’t come over night to pull them back out of the fire. It’ll take work. But it’s apparently worth the effort. Now that Gary and Laretta are grandparents, you can see the fruit of their work!
Finally, they obtained good resources and helps. As for Gary, he happens to be a top guy at Gothard’s Institute of Basic Life Principles. So he’s actually using the materials he’s helping develop. (But ya know what? They apparently work! For an example of what they’ve done, see http://www.characterlink.net or call 630-323-9800. If you don’t have access to the web, write Gary at gnf@iblp.org, thank him for being a good dad all these years, tell him you read about him in Brigada Today, and ask him to forward your note to someone who can send him a catalogue. :-) I suppose you’re already plugged into Dobson, or Promise-Keepers or someone … but the key is to get some material and use it.
If the family is indeed the smallest fighting unit in God’s army, then, if the family crumbles, the entire army crumbles. It’ll behoove us to put some time in, then, eh? :-)
God bless your week.
Doug
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subscribe brigada
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At https://brigada.org on the web, you can see tons more.
(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, WebServant@Brigada.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!
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