19990822 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….

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS BRIGADA?

Brigada, pronounced “bree-GAH-dah”, is the rough equivalent (in Russian, Spanish, and even Filipino!) of a “brigade.” The idea is to stand side by side to pass buckets of hope for those most in need of Christ’s eternal message! Read 4+ years of weekly back issues at https://brigada.org. See recent back issues and links at http://www.eGroups.com/list/brigada-today. Brigada Today is compiled by Doug Lucas DLucas@teamexpansion.org, Louisville, KY.

SCOREBOARD ON REACHING THE LEAST REACHED

Dan Scribner, of AD2000 & Beyond’s International Office just sent us a summary of how the Joshua Project 2000 campaign is going. As you might recall, it was announced in November/December, 1995. Remember too that the criteria for being on the list are that the population be greater than 10,000 in a given country, and that the people group should be ethno-linguistically distinct, less than two (2) percent Evangelical and less than five (5) percent Christian adherents. According to Dan, eighteen months ago the Joshua Project 2000 list included 1510 active groups. Today the list has 1596 groups. In the last 18 months, 253 groups have been added to the active list because they fit the above criteria. During the same period, 167 groups were removed from the active list because either new data showed the group was incorrectly on the list to begin with or because progress of the Gospel moved the group above the criteria.

3700 CHANGES TO THE JP2000 LIST IN 18 MONTHS!

Dan went on to add that, during the last 18 months, over 3,700 changes or edits have been made to the Joshua Project list. This includes changes such as updates to people name, population figures, percent Evangelical and Adherents, Bible translation status, etc. During this same period nearly 15,000 new pieces of ministry-related information have been reported to AD2000 & Beyond bringing the total number of records of work-among related data to well over 40,000. Three milestones are tracked for each people group on the active Joshua Project 2000 list:

Targeted – is there a specific commitment to begin church planting among this group by Dec 31, 2000?
Church Planting team – is there an on-site church planting team among this people?
Fellowship of 100 – is there a fellowship of at least 100 indigenous believers among this people?

COMPARING THE JP2000 LIST TO 18 MONTHS AGO

One of the most significant advancements in the Joshua Project 2000 list can be seen when comparing the percentages for these three milestones from 18 months ago with today.

	18 Months Ago	Today
Reported Fellowship of 100	4%	30%
On-site Church Planting Team	43%	65%
Targeted for future Church Planting	77%	88%

According to the data reported to AD2000, today only 12 percent of the Joshua Project 2000 list remain untargeted. If you’d like a copy of the list of 194 untargeted groups on the Joshua Project list, send a message to untargeted@brigada.worldchurches.org. A copy will be sent to you automatically.

SO IS YOUR GRAD DEGREE HELPFUL?

That’s what Phillip HuberPhil@aol.com would like to know. He’s Managing Editor of World Christian and Tomorrow’s Christian Graduate magazines and, for the latter, he’s putting together an issue on the importance of grad school for tomorrow’s missionaries. If you’ve got a graduate degree and would like to comment, you can either

write to Brigada-responses-subscribe@egroups.com then send your comment to Brigada-responses@egroups.com or alternatively, just
write your response directly to Phillip at the address above.

If he had his wish come true, he’d hear your name, mission, type of work, country (if not sensitive), grad school/seminary attended, program, why you chose the program, why graduate-level education is important and how your education has helped your ministry. Who knows — you might be quoted in one of his magazines!

INT’L CALLING PLAN COULD PAY YOUR WAY TO LONDON

This just in from a guy who says he’s going to sponsor Brigada in the very near future. Remember the guy who offers the luxury Bed and Breakfast on his Colorado ranch practically free to missionaries (and which still has openings in Fall and Winter, by the way)? Well an unusual opportunity has spun out of his successful creative-access “Kingdom Business” platform. Now, for missionaries and/or others traveling through international airports and other tourist areas, particularly Europe, Taylored Communications, Int’l, will provide, at no cost, a means to strategically place international calling info as you travel. A “casual” minor effort creates a calling opportunity for others and medium term residual income off calls generated. The “Beta Test Missionary” paid for his trip to London for 15 minutes effort. Calls came in for three months. If you’re not a missionary, the company will be happy to send the income to Brigada or some other missions project. For more information, write gary@operatorservices.com.

WEBWATCH: TAKE AIM ON AIMS

Accelerating International Mission Strategies (AIMS) recently launched an updated website which outlines the details and results of last year’s ministry reorganization. The site features information about AIMS’ people group adoption program, as well as its alliances, seminars and products. It also features information about the newly organized Alliance For Missions Advancement (AFMA) and other ministry outreaches. The site can be accessed at http://www.aims.org.

NEED A BATTERY? CHECK THIS LIST OF SITES

Thanks to Dennis who referred us to TidBITS, a newsletter which featured a recent article by Adam Engst that contained 3 great sources for replacement rechargeable batteries for your gizmos and gadgets:
http://www.batterybarn.com/
http://www.mjmelectronic.com/
http://westcobattery.com/

CAN’T BEAT THIS PRICE ON THESE OUTLINERS/WORD PROCESSORS

How does free sound? Symantec has apparently released its “MORE 3.1” outliner, David Dunham has freed Acta (another popular outliner), Nisus has released its flagship Nisus Writer word processor, and even Corel has gotten into the act by releasing WordPerfect 3.5. Note that these might be only the MAC versions, but hey… those folks need software too.

Check it out.

http://www.outliners.com/more31.html
http://a-sharp.com/acta/
http://www.nisus-soft.com/news/pr/980925.asp
http://www.corel.com/products/macintosh/wpmac35/pack_freedownload.htm

UNIQUE CHRISTIAN GIFT SERVICE

Is it frustrating being away from family and friends, especially when they are going through a difficult time? Check out Plant’N Prayers, a unique Christian gift service that can help American missionaries and other Christians working abroad. Missionaries receive a special discount off the already pleasing prices. Inquiries and orders can be placed through e-mail order@plantnprayers.com or through the website located at http://www.plantnprayers.com.

(Remember that although Brigada recommends that you never send your credit card through unencrypted email, secure web servers are just fine.) They ship to other countries, but note that all the scripture prayers are in English.

ANOTHER OPTION FOR THOSE WANTING INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS

Brigada participant Brian kicked in one last for international email travelers: that MAF can set you up with an email-only account that you can access from virtually any country in the world without having to dial internationally. It uses the EQUANT network (the one the travel agencies and Airline companies use). So just about any country with an international airline will have a local number (at least in the capitol city). From interior it will probably take a Long Distance call to the capitol, but from there it is a flat rate of (last time I checked) $0.75 per minute (not that expensive when you consider the alternative of dialing internationally!) Again, as Brian reminded, this is for email only, but really, most of the time, that’s the most significant need when traveling anyway. For more information, contact HelpDesk@maf.org. Great tip, Brian! Thanks!

GLOBAL GLIMPSE: PYRAMID MARKETING

… in a manner of speaking, anyway. You see, Egypt appears around 700 times in the Bible. Today, the Bible is appearing with increasing frequency in Egypt,” writes the German Bible League, which distributes Bibles in Egypt, among other places, and trains local Christians. “In Egypt, it is illegal for more than 5 people to meet in a house, but over the last year, 36,000 people met in 1,267 Bible groups. In 1998 alone, 71 house churches were started by local Christians working with the Bible League.
(Source: German Bible League, fax (+49)-791-857035 e-mail BibelLiga.D@t-online.de via DAWN Friday Fax 8/27/98 http://www.cmd.org.nz/ffaxnu.html )
(Global Glimpse is compiled occasionally by John Hanna, Caleb Project, Littleton, CO.)
(DISCLAIMER: By the way, the dumb joke about “pyramid marketing” wasn’t John’s idea.)

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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>.”
IMPORTANT: To copy or reproduce Brigada Today for any other reason is illegal and is not permitted.

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!”
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.

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!

WARNING 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.

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!