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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 <DLucas@teamexpansion.org>, Louisville, KY
[Pass this issue to a friend! To subscribe, see instructions at end.]
In this issue….
JOHNSTONE WRITES: THE CHURCH IS BIGGER THAN YOU THINK
Remember Patrick J. Johnstone of
Operation World fame? Well, he’s been at it again! This past week I received a preview copy of
THE CHURCH IS BIGGER THAN YOU THINK. It arrived just in time, too, . . . since I had to present a workshop at a convention in St. Louis on “Who’s left to tell?” My buddy drove the van out to St. Louis and, in route to the convention, all I had to do was convert Johnstone’s great stats and stories into a Powerpoint presentation! The workshop listeners loved it . . . Johnstone made me look terrific… and now I’m trying to give credit where credit is due. Here’s a book you’ll want to get. Order it from
Christian Focus Publications
Geanies House, Fearn, Tain,
Ross-shire, IV20 1TW, Scotland, UK
http://www.geanies.org.uk/cfp
Tel 01862-871-011
fax 01862-871-699.
In USA,
Spring Arbour Distributors
10885 Textile Rd.
Belleville, MI 48111
Tel 1-800-395-5599
fax 1800-395-2860.
But do me a favor, would you? Tell them Brigada sent you. I’ve been trying to negotiate a special price with them… but it’s not finalized. You’d better ask them before you order. Tell them you’d like the special Brigada pricing . . . and maybe they will have agreed to something by then! 
Great book. 300 pages. Great index. Great bibliography. Good historical perspective… But it really shines on the task remaining. “Geographical, Urban, Social, Ideological, Spiritual, . . .” — Great stuff. And all the maps and diagrams are available in black and white or (as my friend Patrick would say) in “colour.” Order those from WEC at IRO@IO.wec-int.org or iro@opwld.demon.co.uk. (Contact them directly for pricing and availability.)
NEED TRAINING IN ISLAM AND/OR URBAN MINISTRY?
Have we got a deal for you! I just finished touring the Chicago Center for Urban Mission and it seems like just the ticket! Located in downtown inner-city Chicago, it offers a fully accredited Master of Arts in Urban Studies and/or Master of Arts in Muslim Studies via two-year (54 semester hours) residential graduate degrees. Students are required to live in the city, work a part-time job (and are assisted in raising support for their ministries), spend 2-3 days per week in “mentored ministry” in a church setting and attend classes one day a week. Although only graduate programs are available, those with less than a grad. degree COULD work out an audit program if the credits aren’t the end goal. In other words, they’ll work with you so you can focus on content as well as credits. The Center is located within easy reach of some 300,000 Muslims. Chicago is home for North America’s largest Islamic publishing and distribution company. The Muslim community there boasts five large K-12 schools, the American Islamic College, the East-West University, a dynamic Sufi Muslim movement, the Islamic Propagation Center and even its own cemeteries. It is also headquarters for the Nation of Islam and the American Muslim Foundation. Are we seeing a trend here? Chicago seems to be developing into THE city for such a center. So drop ’em a line and see that they can offer you — Robert Douglas is at
DouglasRC@aol.com should get their attention. They’ll try to answer right away. That’s the director’s address — and he gave permission for
Brigada Today readers to approach him directly!
SO WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU HAD SIX MONTHS ON YOUR HANDS???
If you were Daniel and Paulina Brolin, you’d memorize scripture and exercise! According to Infobeat, a pair of Swedish missionaries kidnapped in southern Russia survived their six-month ordeal by exercising rigorously and memorizing Bible versus, an interview published Monday said. Daniel and Paulina Brolin said they were kept in a dim, unheated cellar since their abduction Jan. 8 and were not allowed to go outside. They said they followed a disciplined routine of physical exercise during their imprisonment. Paulina laughed in the interview as she told how she did some 2,000 buttocks exercises daily. When they were captured, the Brolins were carrying an English language Bible from which they spent hours memorizing long passages. They were released last week. For more info, see
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2554855310-cee Infobeat is a great news source, if you’re not already patched in. Visit
http://www.infobeat.com for more information. It’s free and it’s emailed to you daily! If you don’t have access to the web, ask a friend or relative to sign you up and you can still hear the latest. You don’t need access to the web to get the daily news bulletins on the continents of your choice.
JESUS VIDEOS HAVE ARRIVED!
Here’s a great thank-you from Matthew in Thailand! “Just wanted to let people know that I got the five free Jesus videos, two in English, one in Thai, one in Burmese and one in Mandarin Chinese. What a wonderful project and of such use over here in Northern Thailand. Thank you so much [to the
Jesus Film Project and Campus Crusade!]. Evidently, Campus Crusade has “scratched an itch!”
PRAY FOR INDIA AUGUST 15
Several [Asian] Indians have asked that we join them in praying for India on August 15th. More on this later, as this plan shapes up. It’s evidently still in the formative stages.
THERE CAN BE AWAKENINGS . . .
Geoff wrote this past week to share this personal testimony regarding an encounter with an Iranian Muslim during his recent visit to Turkey. Evidently, one of Geoff’s friends “… ended up spending quite some time with him sharing who Jesus is and what he did. This man was completely blown away by the Good News. He couldn’t believe we serve God because he loves us, so we love him and serve him out of love. He said he had never heard the Good News before; that there was no one where he was from (Tehran) telling anyone about this. He then offered to pay the way for this member of our team to come to his mosque in Iran and speak so others could know about it! I don’t know if you want to share that testimony on your mailing list, and either way I hope it’s encouraging for you personally — I know it was for me! It made me realize that a country’s government may be closed – but the hearts of the people are VERY much open and hungry for the truth.” Before you ask… I’ll keep Geoff’s identity anonymous… but just join me in thanking God for openings and awakenings among the untold!
THOSE PORTUGUESE SEEM DESTINED TO CHANGE THE WORLD
… or at least a portion of it! Check out
http://www.teureino.org where Mario Scartezini and company in Brasilia pump out a prayer calendar with daily requests for unreached peoples every other month in Portuguese. Are we seeing a rally here or what!
GOT A PLANE YOU NEED FLOWN TO YOUR FIELD?
Here’s a pilot who would be glad to ferry it over for you . . . Write
hokanson@upstel.net (a commercial pilot willing to use his vacation time for the Lord). ‘Course, you’ll probably want to hold onto his driver’s license just to make sure you get your plane back someday!
[That last line is a joke, but his vision and unselfishness isn’t!]
ARABIC-INFO FOR FREE!
ARABIC-INFO is a free (secular) “bulletin board” for announcements related to Arab Studies (language, literature, culture, history, etc.) It is the largest mailing list in the fields of Arab/Islamic/Middle Eastern studies in the world. subscribers receive job announcements, calls for papers, announcements for conferences, new publications, notes on research in progress, news of Arab/Middle Eastern Studies Programs, and funding opportunities. Subscription to the list is free! To subscribe, send the message:
subscribe arabic-info to:
majordomo@indiana.edu (Thanks Grace!!!)
OKAY – SO MAYBE SABENA TRAY TABLE THING IS AN URBAN LEGEND
At least that’s what SEVERAL readers told me. (Reference last week’s item, “
HOW TO ZAP YOUR LAPTOP ON YOUR NEXT FLIGHT.“) Check out
http://www.sabena-usa.com/about_tips_trays.html if you want to see Sabena’s answer to the “legend.” I guess it’s not unlike one of those email “virus” messages that gets passed around the Net. It’s definitely a new “type” but just as deadly at sucking up bandwidth. So . . . bottom line . . . there are evidently no magnetic tray tables. It was someone’s idea of a joke! Thanks to all those who responded on this one!
WEB-WATCH
For an example of the possibilities, check out:
http:/www.sky-media.com where you’ll find a free Bible survey course on-line (using RealAudio) Note especially the Free Courseware section. In the New Testament course, there’s a teaching outline, along with discussion questions, etc., that can be viewed while you listen to the audio file. Author Evan Morgan wrote
Brigada Today this past week, “We are capturing on digital video a library of “Master Teachers” which will be available on the internet as a free resource, or in CD-ROM/DVD-ROM, as a product for purchase. We have around 20 courses in the plans, and under God’s hand will have them available in the next 18 months. We also have an extensive list of internet resources, ranked by level of difficulty. Since we are located here in the ski country of Colorado, we ranked it using the ski slope metaphor (Green Circle (easy), Blue Square (moderate), Black Diamond (difficult). You will find it under the Internet Resources section.” Now there’s a new twist! Thanks Evan!
LOOKING FOR A RENTAL CAR FOR YOUR NEXT FURLOUGH/HOME SERVICE?
Try Missionary Auto and Truck Service, Mike and Jeff Nottingham, Richmond, Indiana,
car@mats.org (Thanks Max!). Also, one reader said International Aid was a good resource. Ask for their booklet on agencies who rent cars for furloughing missionaries. Their e-mail address is
intlaid@juno.com. It would be great if someone could get it, convert it to a text file and send it in here for all to see (and we’d give credit to Int’l Aid of course).
BRIGADA IN THE NEWS?
Apparently more and more
Brigada readers are mentioning
Brigada resources in print! Thanks!!! Sam just informed us that we made the July/August
Discipleship Journal. Apparently on page 111, we are listed among the short summaries of mission-oriented web sites. Thanks to whoever was kind enough to send it in! Please keep up the good work! We have no marketing budget —
Brigada has no paid employees and is a totally volunteer-run, free service. So we appreciate any help you can give to spread the news so our family can grow!
WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR ENCRYPTED FILES
Here’s a reader with a friend from North Africa who have neatly handled the encrypted attached file problem. See the problem is, once you encrypt an attached message (a mission newsletter, for example), then attach it to an email, it might raise the eyebrow of someone watching your email pass by their server. So, after encryption, this pair of friends changes the extension to .exe, .com, or .dll so as to reduce the suspicion that it contains encrypted material. Definitely shaken, but not stirred!
KNOW ANYBODY WITH A MARKETING STUDY ON TV IN MISSIONS?
If so, George
100235.2517@compuserve.com would like to know . . . and he pledges to report any and all findings here on
Brigada in a couple of weeks . . . so write him today if you have any leads! He’s specifically looking for “… some form of definitive study on the effectiveness of TV ministry in missionary context in areas such as the CIS, (Russia and Ukraine in particular) and … in the Muslim world at large. I am hearing statements at one end of the pendulum of ‘TV is the way to go rather than presence on the ground,’ then of ‘the uselessness of TV as a means to achieve any spiritual result.’ Can anyone provide George with anything objective?
“GIVERS” CONTINUE TO SEE TRAFFIC ON THEIR SITE
The Givers Ministry has moved vehicles, computers, musical instruments, school/bible school supplies, etc. to needy ministries, and they believe that the Lord is about to open the floodgates and bring a tidal wave of givers through their site. They wrote
Brigada Today this past week, “It is our hope that by the end of 1998, there will be over 500 full-time, Christian ministries and their needs registered with the Givers Ministry, and that God’s abundance will be flowing like a powerful river back into His ministries.” For more info., write
info@giversministry.org or see
http://www.giversministry.org Remember, the site only deals with NON-monetary requests.
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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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BRIGADA TODAY IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE FOLLOWING TEAM OF REGULAR VOLUNTEERS:
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