19990516 Brigada Today

Now with 9099 participants!
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….

DOUG HAS CHANGED EMAIL ADDRESSES

Hopefully you can just file it away… honest… no need for all 9000+ to write to check it out!

But in case you ever have put my old address in your address book (old: ) please make the shift to my new address: Dlucas@teamexpansion.org. Remember… please don’t send your “subscribe” or “unsubscribe” messages to that address!

For those instructions, see the paragraphs at the end of each and every Brigada Today.

IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO ADVO-CATE!

There’s still time to apply for Advocate Training! Head for Littleton, Colorado, June 3-5 for Caleb Project’s fourth Advocate Training Seminar. Personal and interactive; speakers will address topics including people-group adoption, fundraising, security, networking, resources, and partnership. Read more about it at http://www.calebproject.org/ats.html or e-mail training@cproject.com.

TAKE A LOOK AT OUR “TOP 20 UNREACHED PEOPLES” LIST

So many people wrote saying they were having trouble downloading the Powerpoint file that we’ve converted the Powerpoint into a POA file – a “plain-old-ASCII” file!

Just send a message to: top20upgs@brigada.worldchurches.org and you’ll automatically receive a copy of the 11K document as email.

GET A FULL COPY OF OUR STATEMENT ON EMAIL HOAXES AND CHAIN LETTERS

Just send a note to opc@brigada.worldchurches.org and you’ll get the 1-page reply.

DON’T FORGET TO ADD A LINK TO YOUR “BRIGADA” LIST

When you get a chance, please go to the Brigada Today eGroups web page http://www.egroups.com/group/brigada-today then click on “links.” Use “Add a link” (at the very bottom of the links page) to list a link to an unreached people advocacy network, I begin the “Name” with a forward slash (the symbol we’re using for advocacy networks – see the examples)

FOR THOSE WITH ONLINE ENGLISH RESOURCES

SOON Gospel Literature offers a free easy-English evangelistic paper SOON, as well as an evangelistic Bible correspondence course. SOON would like to advise students of further Bible courses available online or by postal mail, preferably free. Please send details direct to tony@soon.org.uk. He’ll compile a list that we can distribute by autoresponder.

NON-WESTERN CHRISTIANS: YOUR TESTIMONY WANTED

SOON also needs testimonies of non-western people, written specifically for non-Christians according to their guidelines which can be sent by email, or viewed online at: https://brigada.org/today/articles/webtestimony.html

WOW – GREAT SITE FOR GEOGRAPHY!

Wow!

Have you seen http://geography.miningco.com It’s a great site for finding maps, the latest stuff on particular countries, and tons of resources about geography! The compiler wrote us a personal note, congratulating us on Brigada’s progress, too!

Check him out! (Added this URL to our “links” list at the Brigada eGroups site. Don’t forget to add yours there! Just go to http://www.egroups.com and register [if you haven’t already], then go to the “links” area and go to town!)

CLOSE-UP: THE BEJA OF SUDAN

The Beja of Sudan are a nomadic people who live in northeastern Sudan, their homeland since the days of the pharaohs 4,000 years ago. Most of the 1.5 million Beja are herders of camels and goats, although some settled in towns and cities. As wanderers, they live in tents made from woven palm matting and exist mainly on a diet of milk and grain, supplemented occasionally by meat and sugar. The Beja like to sing and play musical instruments. Although the Beja are Muslim, they continue to be highly concerned with the traditional belief of “jinn,” or bad spirits, which they believe exist everywhere and cause sickness and accidents. Intercede for the Beja with the Father. Ask him to set the Spirit free in their midst to draw many of them to Christ. Pray that believers will have opportunities to share the good news of God’s love with Beja people. Ask God to glorify his name by raising up a mighty army of Beja believers.
(From Mark Kelly’s Apr. 26th Advance, an occasional bulletin on mission. To subscribe, send an email to subscribe-advance-newsletter@xc.org.)

ASKAMISSIONARY EMAIL NEWSLETTER LAUNCHES

Prospective AND experienced missionaries are invited to exchange questions and answers about how to become a missionary. Anyone may subscribe to this free monthly newsletter by sending an email to subscribe-askamissionary@xc.org. Upcoming issues will discuss four initial questions: “I’m afraid of raising support. What do I do?” “How do I handle my school debt?” “How do I choose a missions agency – or should I?” “What advice can you give me if I’m interested in being a tentmaker missionary?” The newsletter will also point to magazines, books, conferences, courses and Internet sites. Askamissionary is edited by John McVay, coordinator of the Heartland MissionsFest.

UPDATED Y2K INFO

You can have easy access to international Y2K mission news, articles, and discussions contributed by mission personnel. Check it out at this website: http://www.eGroups.com/list/y2kmissions Also, join this worldwide mission community’s Y2K e-mail discussion forum by sending a blank message to: Y2Kmissions-subscribe@egroups.com.

WHAT WOULD “VERIFIABLE OPC” MEAN TO YOUR INBOX?

Over the past few months, we’ve been recommending that we apply a standard protocol to all the email “forwards” that we occasionally receive. We suggested that before sending a message to everyone in our address book, we should first make sure the message had a “verifiable OPC” — origin, purpose, and closure. (For a complete copy, send a message to opc@brigada.worldchurches.org.) One Brigada participant recent wrote to ask exactly what would that look like. Here’s what we mean.

*** VERIFIABLE ORIGIN: Does it have an author and a working email address or web site? If not, don’t forward it. If so, and if the content sounds questionable, then write the source and verify it. If you don’t get a reply or if the site is bogus, toss it. By no means forward it to everyone in Zanzibar! So, in summary, it would be great, before forwarding it, if someone verifies the author as legitimate by emailing him/her and/or asking for a cross-reference if the claim is an incredible one. In other words, if someone’s harvesting kidneys from your hotel room bathtub, that should probably be in a CNN news story somewhere.

*** VERIFIABLE PURPOSE: Will it make an actual difference if I forward it? The bottom line on this one? How will it help to broadcast this to 1000 people. Are we trying to blanket someone (like the FCC) with a lot of our opinions? The question to ask then is . . . will the FCC really care if 1000 (or 10,000!) people all email them . . . especially if the alleged petition doesn’t really exist! Verify the purpose before forwarding.

*** VERIFIABLE CLOSURE: How will we know when it’s complete? Does it have a cut-off date? The summary here? If it doesn’t have a cut-off date, consider it suspect.

So next time you compose a prayer request, or an urgent news update, or whatever, make sure it meets the “Brigada OPC Test” — Origin, Purpose, and Closure. If not, please do the Net a favor and think twice before forwarding it.

WHAT’S UP WITH THE OLD “GET” FILES (ARCHIVES)

With the transition to the eGroups server, there are a couple of changes in obtaining old “get” (archive) files from previous editions of Brigada Today. As always, the easiest way to access these files is to log onto the Brigada web page at: https://brigada.org Bob has archived every single get file there . . . in the full history of our Brigada family! So… when you’re reading a Brigada Today on the web, just click on the link and you’ll go directly to a web version of the original “get” file. As for new files, you’ll be able to get those via an autoresponder at brigada.worldchurches.org. Bottom line: as far as Brigada is concerned, you’ll no longer need to send any commands to the old brigada “hub.” We don’t have any current plans to archive previous copies on the eGroups web page since they’re already available at the www.brigada.org site.

BRIGADA BACKUP SITE

If you ever have trouble establishing a connection to https://brigada.org, you might want to set a bookmark or a “favorites” entry to the backup “mirror” site: http://brigada.worldchurches.org Bob Mayhew maintains this site in Texas as a backup in case conduits to the current site in Missouri are down. And… thanks to the sponsors of our new site in Missouri!!! They agreed to host the Brigada site as a ministry!!! No charge!! Yahooo!

(They asked to remain anonymous because they can’t afford to do it for dozens of others!

But God knows who they are and we ask that you join us in praying His richest blessing on their business, so that they can be all the more fruitful for Him!

ARE ALL XC.ORG CONFERENCES MOVING?

Many have heard that June 1st is the date that begins the switch for MAFxc — i.e., they’ll start switching contracts to charging the conference per message, rather than by flat rate. Will your favorite conference change? Not necessarily. MAFxc has told us that some conferences might actually cost less via the “per message” billing procedure. So it’s better to check first. Write to your conference moderator by emailing: conference-owner@xc.org So if you’re wondering about a hypothetical conference called brigada-africa, write to brigada-africa-owner@xc.org. Conferences who are moving are asked to register at the Brigada links page (Item 5 above).

ARE YOUR BRIGADA-TODAY LINES TOO LONG?

Do they cause your screen to scroll far to the right? Your email client might have a setting to “wrap” those lines. If not, you could click into the email message then quickly hit “ctrl-a” (to select all) then “ctrl-c” (to copy), then go to your word processor and click in a new file and hit “ctrl-v” (to paste). Your word processor likely will wrap the text correctly. Starting with this issue, we’ll not worry about manually inserting the hard carriage returns, since it appears that most people use email clients that handle line-wrap with no trouble.

GLOBAL GLIMPSE FROM ALGIERS

Church groups are sprouting and spreading in Algeria as Berber tribesmen respond to the gospel, despite seven years of civil war that has killed as many as 100,000 people in the North African country. Tens of thousands of people, including women and children, have been brutalized in the war. But the new churches have moved forward in outreach amid daily horrors. One Christian worker there recently baptized ten new believers in a bathtub, and larger churches are having baptisms almost every week. Tracts, the Jesus film, and radio broadcasts have been effective preparing hearts for the gospel.
(Source: Baptist Press, April 16, 1999, http://www.imb.org/maillist.htm or webservant@imb.org.)
Global Glimpse is assembled occasionally by John Hanna, Caleb Project, Littleton, CO.

MUSLIM MINISTRY TRAINING PROGRAMS

Check out a list of training programs for those involved in Muslim ministry by sending an email to: fia-news-muslim-training-programs@xc.org The subject and body are ignored. (Thanks to the helper who assembled this material, who, because of his ministry and love for Muslim people, wishes to remain anonymous.)

TAKE A PEAK AT HOW MANY ARE ONLINE!

Have you noticed how many of your neighbors are online? More and more, it doesn’t matter where you live!
Africa: 1.14 million
Asia-Pacific: 26.97 million
Europe: 37.15 million
Middle East: .88 million
North America: 88.33 million
South America: 4.63 million
Did someone say “global village?”
(Source: PC Week)

TRACT DIRECTORY ON THE WEB

Take a look at http://www.tracts.com/CTD.html for the latest version.

HEAR SCRIPTURES IN 60 DIFFERENT LANGUAGES!

Check out Audio Scriptures International (Escondido, California) on the web at http://www.audioscriptures.org. They’ve got “real audio” scriptures and “The Greatest Person Who Ever Lived” in sixty different languages. You can check ’em out, then order budget packs of 100 cassettes of these “portraits of Jesus cassettes” for just $125 a pack, using the new convenient OnLine Order Form.

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.]