19990411 Brigada Today

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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….

FRIENDS OF BOSNIA CONFERENCE BECKONS FOR GREATER COOPERATION

It all happened in Washington, DC, Apr. 9-10. Some 56 church and agency leaders flew in from Bosnia, England, Hawaii, and from all corners of the USA, all focused on a big pow-wow to figure out “what’s next” for Bosnia. One participant from Texas wrote, “The conference was all we hoped for and more. It was exciting to be in a room full of people — all of whom had a heart to take the gospel to the Bosnian people. Every speaker had a message that was meaningful to us. We came away affirmed and encouraged in our call to go to Bosnia. It was definitely in God’s plan that we attend the Friends of Bosnia conference.” Delegates decided unanimously to convene again in 2000 and annually thereafter. Watch future issues of Brigada Today for more info.

HOW DO WE REACH THE CITY?

That’s what Thad and a bunch of other folks would like to know over at the Brigada-cities conference. Why not join them and figure it out once and for all!

Just send a note to subscribe-brigada-cities@xc.org and you’ll receive a bounce-back welcome. From there, just send your inquiry or resource to brigada-cities@xc.org and see what happens!

SYNCHRONIZE VIA THE WEB

When it comes to storing files on the web, Tim says http://www.visto.com might be better than http://www.myfilesonline.com for people with multiple PC’s (home and work, etc.) because it comes with a free synchronizer that you can use to sync up your e-mail inbox, internet favorites, Outlook (etc) calendar between multiple PC’s and PDA devices. Give it a try! (Thanks Tim!)

HOUSE CHURCHES TO DISCIPLE THE NATIONS

Want to join a growing body of house churches who would like to make an impact on discipling the nations? Then contact Grace, at: gracew@idmail.com. She’ll send you a free list of resources on house churches and plug you in with others who share a common vision.

PRAYER AND POEM E-MAIL

If you would like to receive a weekly prayer e-mail with 3-5 current mission prayer requests, send a message to mertaka@everybody.org with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Praying recipients on the email list are the source of the prayer requests. Each email also includes a recent poem or parable written by Mert Hershberger, the editor of the list. Archives can be seen at http://www.everybody.org/mert.

FREE PRAYER RESOURCE

Lydia Prayer Fellowship offers free 1Tim2 pray for those in authority prayer cards. Bookmark size Bible cards list names of the U.S. President, his Cabinet and Supreme Court members. There are 12 scriptures to encourage prayer; 6 for political leadership and 6 for spiritual leaders. Cards come in packs of 100 and 1000. Only need number of cards you desire and a postal address. tryna@bahl.com

MISSIONS MEGAMENU

Have you registered your agency or school in the new MegaMenu white pages directory? It’s a free service, and, according to organizers, is used by many people to track down mission agencies. Just visit the page at http://www.globalmission.org/megamenu.htm check to see if you are listed, then follow instructions to add yourself if you are not. Organizers there also run a SHORT TERM MISSIONS DATABASE for opportunities. Again, you can list for free at http://www.globalmission.org/st.htm (just follow instructions on the page).

BE A BLESSING [ENGLISH-WISE] TO YOUR COMMUNITY

From July 19, 1999 to August 27, 1999 at YWAM, Roaring Branch, Pa, David & Vicky Scott, instructors from Kona, HI, will offer a 6 week intensive course will equip you to teach conversational English to non-English speakers. A certificate from U of N will be awarded upon successful completion of the course. For more write 103074.3726@compuserve.com.

GET YOUR NEWS NOW!

The jury’s back on this one. Thanks to Ken kmacharg@lam.org for compiling it. If you’d like to add something, please contact him directly.
Associated Press
www.newsday.com/ap/topnewsx.htm or www.newsday.com/ap/internat.htm
www.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/ap/index.html
Associated Press/Reuters in Spanish
www.espanol.yahoo.com/noticias/actualidad
Reuters News Service
www.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/wl (U.S. wire)
www.yahoo.co.uk/headlines/world (British wire)
AFP (French Press Agency)
www.yahoo.com.sg/headlines/world
Reuters News Service and United Press International (UPI)
www.nt.excite.com/news/international

MADELINE MARRAY O’HARE REST IN PEACE

Are you one of the scads of folks still circulating a petition about Madeline Murray O’Hare wanting to eliminate Bible reading and prayer from the radio waves? Two words: Forget it! Read http://www.fcc.gov/mmb/enf/forms/rm-2493.html from the FCC web site. Read my lips: She’s gone!

SAVE SOME BUCKS… USE YOUR WEB SITE FOR IRS REQUIREMENTS

According to Jack Strauss, a lawyer from Dallas, TX, the Internal Revenue Code requires tax exempt organizations to comply with any requests by anyone for copies of their application for tax exemption (Form 1023) as well as their three most recent annual information returns (Form 990). But if the organization has made the documents widely available, then they are relieved of these obligations. “Widely available” is defined to mean posting on the Internet. The IRS has just issued final regulations clarifying this new disclosure law. The regulations were printed in the Federal Register on April 9. The bottom line is that all tax exempt organizations may want to consider posting the required documents on their web site or another web site that is essentially a database of the required materials in order to avoid both the hassle of dealing with requests for documents as well as some pretty stiff penalties in case of non compliance. A summary of the regulations can be downloaded from The Legal Trends Memorandum web site: http://members.aol.com/jbstraus/page/index.htm Click on “New IRS Disclosure Regulations Issued April, 1999” under the “Special Reports” heading. Thanks Jack!

WANT MORE TESL RESOURCES?

You can bag some secular resources by browsing https://brigada.org/today/articles/webmission.html#english

ONLINE LEARNING FOR MISSIONARY KIDS

NorthStar Academy is a private online school offering grades 7-12 with three different programs of study: USA, Canadian, and UK. We have begun registration for the 1999-2000 school year and are looking forward to a great second year of meeting the needs of missionary families all over the globe and in our own back yard! Please visit our website at http://www.northstar-academy.org for more information.
In North America, you can call me toll-free at 1-888-464-6280, and you can email me at brett@northstar-academy.org.

FREE MACRO: STRIP CARRIAGE RETURNS

Are you tired of stripping carriage returns from emails? I am. That’s why I really like my new WinWord macro (with appreciation to PC Magazine for the inspiration). If you receive emails (with those nasty hard carriage returns at the end of each and every line) then paste them into other documents… even other emails… you’ll love this new macro — if you use Microsoft Word (Office 95/97). Just click on “Tools|Macro|Macros” to open the macros dialogue box, give it an appropriate name (like stripreturns) then choose “create.” Paste these lines into the starter boilerplate that Microsoft gives you (say, right before the “End Sub” line):

Sub StripParagraphMarks()
'
' StripParagraphMarks Macro
' Macro recorded 11/29/97 by Doug Lucas
' revised 4/16/99 to avoid loss of actual paragraphs
' find all double carriage returns and replace them with @$$@
  With Selection.Find
      .ClearFormatting
      .Replacement.ClearFormatting
      .Execute Findtext:="^p^p", ReplaceWith:="@$$@",
Replace:=wdReplaceAll
      .Execute Findtext:="^p", ReplaceWith:=" ", Replace:=wdReplaceAll
      .Execute Findtext:="@$$@", ReplaceWith:="^p^p",
Replace:=wdReplaceAll
  End With
End Sub

[snip snip… end of macro] Next time you want to strip out carriage returns, just select the text of the offending paragraph(s) with your mouse, then run your new macro. It’ll be even easier if you use “Tools|Customize” then choose the “Commands” tab and assign the new macro to the icon of your choice on your standard toolbar. (See Help for more info. on this)

SLOW LOGGING ON?

If you use Windows 95/98 “Dial-up Networking” to access the Internet, and if it’s been slow-going getting on board lately, try editing your Dial-up networking profile. Find it by clicking on the “My Computer” icon on your desktop, then clicking on Dial-up Networking, then hit “right-click|properties”, then choose the “Server Types” tab. Make sure the “Log On to Network” option is not checked (clear it if necessary), then make sure TCP/IP is the only service checked at the bottom (clear the checks in front of others if necessary). When I followed those two simple tips, I cut my log-on time in half!

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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!”
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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.

PLEASE 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!

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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!