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News and Notes about Brigada, Your Gateway to Missions Networking!
On the WorldWide Web, browse https://brigada.org or http://www.eGroups.com/list/brigada-today
Brigada Today is “the missionary helper newsletter!”
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….

* LAST WEEK’S ITEM ON “JOSHUA HARVEST” CAUSES A STIR
* LUIS BUSH INVITES BRIGADA AUDIENCE TO AD2000 & BEYOND CONSULTATION
* WANT MORE INFO. RE: PRAYING FOR THOSE IN THE 10/40 WINDOW?
* GET HELP ON PROTOCOL
* SPANISH MISSIONS MOBILIZERS HABLAN
* BIRTHDAY CANDLES … JUST 3 WEEKS AWAY
* FOR YOUR BROWSER … MOTHER OF ALL BOOKMARK FILE SYSTEMS – FREE!!!
* GOD’S CHURCH IS ON THE MOVE
* TO SUBSCRIBE TO BRIGADA TODAY

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LAST WEEK’S ITEM ON “JOSHUA HARVEST” CAUSES A STIR
lighting the way Well I’ve got good news and bad news regarding last week’s item on “Joshua Harvest: All Peoples, All Persons” (“FROM THE ‘WORD ON THE STREET’ DEPARTMENT… THE LATEST ON AD2000”). The good news is that evidently Brigada Today is being read by lots of missions leaders who in turn wrote lots of other missions leaders and apparently asked quite a number of questions about the item. The bad news is, the “word on the street” might have taken us slightly down the wrong road. Here’s the deal: Apparently, there is a plan entitled, “Joshua Harvest: All Peoples, All Persons” that is “in the works,” being considered by AD2000 & Beyond leadership. However, it is apparently not totally approved at this point (though many have voiced strong support for it). But evidently our biggest error last week was our indication that AD2000’s International Office (IO) would, in this case, not be shutting down. Quite the contrary, apparently the plan is for the IO to not be leading the movement at that point. Now don’t ask me how that’s going to play out — because I’m not exactly sure (e.g., how can we have international events without an international coordinating office?) — but the bottom line is that the IO is shutting down as previously announced, immediately after wrap-up of the final consultation, which is occurring at the end of the year 2000. (For more information about this consultation, see the next item.) Now… how can we be sure that this is not just a rumor? Because this time, we received messages directly from Luis Bush himself, who happened to be hearing about the Brigada Today item all the way over in Israel, where he was conducting meetings to plan a major AD2000 event! He wrote us, some 24 hours after the item went out last week, “Greetings from the Holy Land! The meetings of the International Coordinating Committee regarding Celebrate Messiah 2000 have just come to a close. In the course of these days together, as we gazed out the balcony of the room we were meeting at with the Dome of the Rock and Jerusalem in plain view we experienced the presence of God in a most unusual way….” Luis added elsewhere, “…The International Office is planning to close down shortly after the event here [in Jerusalem]. The termination of the non-profit organization AD2000 [& Beyond] Movement Inc is planned and all staff will be out of a job. A close down plan was already presented to the US Support Committee in our last meeting and approved.” So… looks like we’ve got to look for a job for Luis after all! :-)

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LUIS BUSH INVITES BRIGADA AUDIENCE TO AD2000 & BEYOND CONSULTATION
Been looking for the perfect time to visit Jerusalem? Always wanted to take that trip to the Holy Land but never had a good enough reason? Well now you do. This past week, as a part of the series of emails clarifying the misunderstanding about last week’s item (see above), Luis, in the process, invited the entire Brigada family to come to Jerusalem!!! :-) Now maybe you think I’m joking . . . but if you have any doubts, retrieve the email message he sent. Read it word-for-word in its entirety.
I’ll summarize here.. but you really need to get the whole thing if you’re interested. Basically, Celebrate Messiah 2000 is a colossal conference to cap off a decade of AD2000 & Beyond activities. Finite reporting will be available on progress in “finishing the Task,” and you can be sure there will be plenty of celebrating for what God has done in the 10/40 Window and beyond. If you’re interested in attending, get the CM2000 file because Luis says it much better than I can — and request an introductory brochure/invitation by writing info@AD2000.org. Keep in mind that this CM2000 itself is still a draft, yet to be voted on in May by core leaders of the AD2000 & Beyond leadership. Luis’ exact words were, “Registration has now been completed by 30 countries of the world for participation in the Holy Land event itself. The registration is still open. Please invite anyone interested to e-mail requesting [a] brochure from our office.” So… if you want… Holy Land here you come! :-)

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WANT MORE INFO. RE: PRAYING FOR THOSE IN THE 10/40 WINDOW?
Try CIN-News, a brand new email conference by the folks at Christian Information network. Subscribe by sending an email message to listproc@grmi.org with the message
subscribe cin-news Your Name

in the body of the message. This will automatically add you to the mailing list. Obviously, . . . substitute your own name for the “Your Name” in the instructions above. :-) (Duh…) :-)

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GET HELP ON PROTOCOL
For those fairly new to Brigada, or those just wanting to recap/review, don’t miss some recent changes made to the protocol file.

It explains good protocol for interacting in the Brigada family of email conference networks. Those with additional suggestions are welcome to submit them to DLucas@TeamExpansion.org.

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SPANISH MISSIONS MOBILIZERS HABLAN
lighting the way Last week’s item, “WHERE HAVE ALL THE SPANISH GONE?” rang a gong in the hearts of several Spanish speaking missions mobilizers. Evidently, there have been several compilations of organizations that send Spanish speakers. Are there any posted on the web? If so, drop me a note… and . . . perdone me por favor. :-)

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BIRTHDAY CANDLES… JUST 3 WEEKS AWAY
lighting the way Thanks for the ideas in response to last week’s item, “WE’RE NEARLY 3 YEARS OLD!” I particularly liked the one that suggested we mail out pieces of birthday cake to each and every subscriber. (Yeah right! :-)) Although we’re still unsure how to celebrate, the event is fast approaching. March 21st marks 3 years in Brigada business. I wonder if we can reach the 7000 mark (7000 subscriber/participants) by March 21st? Tall order. Would you invite 3 friends to join the Brigada network this week??? Just clip the final item (on how to subscribe) and send it their way.

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FOR YOUR BROWSER… MOTHER OF ALL BOOKMARK FILE SYSTEMS – FREE!!!
WebWatch Searching for an easy way to load in a bunch of bookmarks into your browser? (bookmarks are the “shortcuts” that let you jump from one web site to the next on the Worldwide Web). This can be a big-time need if you have recently switched over, say, from Netscape to Microsoft Internet Explorer (which seems to be happening more and more these days, by the way). Well now you can get Doug’s “mother of all favorite sites” bookmark files — FOR FREE! Zillions of bookmarks, including missions orgs, mission sites, mission research sites, and travel sites galore. (I’ve got a partner who has been buggin’ me to prepare this for months! Sorry it’s taken me this long, Eric!) Add to that a bundle of news sites, software URLs, computers & technology, and more! Well in the “old days,” it wasn’t as easy as you’d think — to combine the bookmarks in the file you’re already using with a “mother of all bookmark files” from somebody else’s browser. But now there’s a way! Just hop on the web and download “SyncURLs” first. It’s a free program on the Brigada site that lets you merge bookmark files (from either Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer! Organizes them in a tree outline, exports to whichever browser you want… or both! Then you can grab Doug’s “mother of all favorite sites” file and combine it with your own in whatever way you want! And in the future, if you ever want to export your file to your buddy’s browser’s format, no problem! So… get it today! . . . for free! Get SyncURLs by pointing your browser to: http://www.teamexpansion.org/tools/syncur.zip When your browser asks you if you want to execute or save, just choose “save” and pick out a suitable folder on your hard drive (don’t forget where you store it!). You’ll need the capability to unzip files. (If you don’t have pkunzip, talk to a computer tech to get it.) This is a 321K file that gives you the executable (courtesy PC Magazine; thanks!). Then grab the “mother of all bookmark files” by pointing your browser to: http://www.teamexpansion.org/tools/bookmarks.htm Once you’re there, use “save as” to save that file on your own hard drive as bookmarks.htm in your Netscape users directory, under your name. If there’s already a file there by that name, don’t overwrite it with the new file. Use SyncURLs to merge the new and the old! Import your own bookmark file over the top and you’re in business! See the help file for instructions — it’s very thorough. We regret that we cannot answer mail asking for tech support for this process. If you need help, see a computer tech in your town or office. (Hey — if we answered help mail all day, we’d never get our own mission work done! :-))

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GOD’S CHURCH IS ON THE MOVE
I’m writing this Brigada Today on the plane on the way home from a weekend full of meetings with a church in Calgary that has chosen to adopt a very unreached people group in Central Asia. Wow. blinking1eyes I’m humbled and sobered by their dedication. They’ve picked one of the “hardest” groups to reach . . . and yet they’re undaunted by the task. In the Faith-Promise missions weekend (at which they had invited me to speak), they pledged thousands of dollars per month for missions, including a great start-up seed fund for their new PACE Project (adopting that unreached people group and following a specific plan to plant a church there). If this whole process can now just be replicated a couple of thousand times, with each church taking responsibility for different unreached people groups, I’m confident we’ll see some pretty amazing stuff happen during the coming years!!! May God grant them . . . and you . . . lots of determination and wisdom as you seek to mobilize your church and/or agency to finish the task!

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COPYRIGHT — This issue of Brigada Today is Copyrighted © 2001. However, permission is granted to freely redistribute these materials, including those available through email autoresponders, provided that such redistribution is to those who will help the Good News of Christianity to reach the unreached. But please include this phrase: “For a free subscription of Brigada’s weekly missions publication, write <brigada-today-subscribe@egroups.com>.”
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DISCLAIMER — Please note that there’s no way we can possibly screen all the text on all the web sites or items we recommend. We try to check them out first… but if we miss something, please don’t assume that the opinions on those sites are identical to those of the Brigada family of networks. “Eat the corn, leave the cob!” ear of corn
For subscription questions or problems, write help@brigada.org.

SUBMITTING CONTENT — To submit content or ideas to Brigada Today, first please get a copy of “Guidelines for submitting items to Brigada” Then, once you’ve composed your item in keeping with those guidelines, send your item for Brigada Today to DLucas@teamexpansion.org.
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Emphasis is placed on items relating to unreached peoples and challenges faced by those reaching them cross-culturally.

not symbolPLEASE DON’T SUBSCRIBE US TO YOUR LIST — It’s always better to ask before manually force-adding anyone to your list-serve or mailing list. Recently, tons of well-meaning people have been subscribing Doug to their lists. Since he often travels overseas, he doesn’t join many of those, for obvious reasons (like being charged big-time for overseas access). So as a general rule, please don’t bulk-mail us! See the note above if you’d like to submit items for Brigada Today. Thanks for understanding. Bottom line: We will never create Brigada Today items from bulk mail. Bulk mail gets deleted immediately — sorry. Nothing personal. We suggest you apply the same standard to everyone. Ask first!

OPCWARNING ABOUT FORWARDING EMAILS — Please, before forwarding any kind of request (even if it says “please send this to all your friends”), please check to make sure it has a VERIFIABLE ORIGIN, a VERIFIABLE PURPOSE, and a VERIFIABLE CLOSURE (OPC). By following this simple approach, many “email viruses” could be nipped in the bud… at least in the Brigada family. More information about the full Brigada OPC protocol is available. Thank you.

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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
*Brigada Website: Bob Mayhew, WebServant@brigada.org
*Brigada Customer Service Manager: help@brigada.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!