20030525 Brigada Today

“IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE” — :-) Remember that scene at the end, when Jimmy Stuart’s character is bolstered up by all those townspeople? He takes encouragement from the fact that so many from the community would pitch in to help out the “Savings and Loan.” Well guess what: this past week, I felt like “George”! What an incredible encouragement it was to receive 12 different “PayPal” gifts that added up to $575, plus a couple of other notes promising $300 more in the near future! And most all urged me to say more about our hopes of bringing on a secretary that could help us with getting these newsletters out on time. (My own time would continue to be volunteer.) So, by faith, she’s resigned her previous job and she’ll show up ready to roll on August 18th.

IF WE BUILD A BRIGADA SECRETARY, SHE WILL COME — So then this Brigada participant named “Paul” writes, “Brigada has been a wonderful force in the kingdom for networking, which I’m sure you know. I’m afraid most of us missionaries are so used to getting things for free – – at least, free to us (somebody has to pay) that it takes a paradigm shift to think of supporting even something as helpful to us as Brigada is. When you said only $500 had come in :-( I was ashamed for all of us freeloaders! How about considering a fundraising drive once a year or so to try to raise the next year’s budget???? We need Brigada!!!!” [blush] [resolute sigh] So. Ahem. Here we go. [drum roll] What we need is $1300/month for 12 months. That’ll get Brigada a secretary. That’s it. U$S 15,600. Can we do it? So far, we have $1250.

IMAGINE LIFE WITH A HUMAN BRIGADA HELPER — Imagine someone there, ready to help you with Brigada questions and subscription help. Imagine Brigada Todays on time!!! :-) This is where it all begins! Just log on at https://brigada.org and click on “Sponsor” at the bottom of the page. Donate $25 or $250 or $2500 — whatever amount you desire — from your church, your company, or your wallet. Donate once a year… or once a month (please let us know). You can even make the gift anonymous, if you’d prefer. (Please let us know how you’d like your name to appear on the sponsors’ page.) Use PayPal, or send a check according to the instructions at the bottom of that sponsorship page. And once more, to those who donated last week, thanks for your partnership! It’s a wonderful life! :-)

MULTICULTURAL TEAMS WORKSHOP IN CYPRUS IN OCTOBER — If your mission is like the one for which I work, you’re probably seeing more and more nationalities in your teams. This factor has brought several questions out on the table, many of which we’re still addressing. Well if some of those questions are unanswered in your own work, now there’s help. Sign up for “The Dynamics of Multicultural Teams and Partnerships” workshop led by Dr. Lianne Roembke, who brings 28 years of experience and research to bear on helping teams relate and work well together. Author of “Building Credible Multicultural Teams,” she has designed this workshop for mission leaders, HR and Member Care staff and cross- cultural workers. It will be held in Limassol, Cyprus, October 23-28, 2003. As a new component this year Dr. Roembke is offering Step One for facilitator training of the M-C Teams Workshop. You won’t want to miss Cyprus in October! Reserve your place by sending a USD 100 or EU 90 check payable to “Scan InterAct (Cyprus) Limited”. Hotel (half-board, 3 stars near beach!) costs CYP 112 per person (USD 215 at present rate) payable on arrival. Email Kerry or call +357 25 822970 for more details. To register send your name, contact info and check to: (Mr) Kerry Buttram, PO Box 51939, CY3509 Limassol, Cyprus. </kbuttram@pobox.com>

VIRUS WRITERS GET DEVIOUS — Can you believe the advances the virus writers are making in being devious, derelict, and deadly? I mean, take this message I received this morning: “I would like to inform you about important information regarding your email address. This email address will be expiring. Please read attachment for details.” You open the 28K attachment, and — bang — you’re dead. … or rather… your laptop’s dead. Now by itself, this message would be unimaginative. But the tricky part about *this* message is that it comes from “admin@yourdomain.com”. So these virus writers are perusing the web with their “spider software”, finding companies that list a “Contact us” domain name, then they’ve harnessed this wonderfully ugly sub-routine that changes the email’s “From:” address to something that looks very familiar to you… something you think you can trust. So… boys and girls… let’s keep that antivirus software up to date, shall we? Don’t even *think* about operating on the Internet without the latest subscription to Norton or McAfee or whatever you use that you trust. It’s just an evil world out there. Yikes. Masquerading as our system administrator. What’ll they think of next! :-)

HOW DO WE BYPASS YAHOOGROUPS’ ADS? — We get mail. Regularly. And one of the common inquiries we receive is… “How does Brigada Today manage to appear without the typical YahooGroups advertising?” You know… the x10 camera and the scantily-clad young lady? … or the palm-reader? Well here’s the mystery-solved. You see, ages ago, back when Brigada used to live on the “eGroups” server, we brokered a deal whereby we bought out the ads with a fairly nominal fee. Not long afterward, eGroups was swallowed up by YahooGroups and, for who knows what reason, some tech-guy (or some management-type) decided to honor the “grandfathered” deals. Since that time, to our knowledge, YahooGroups has never offered a similar “buy out”. But — thank God — they continue to honor ours, even though the only thing remaining of the former company is my old eGroups t-shirt. So… I’m not sure how that helps current group moderators. Some have said, “You must be living right!” :-) Others probably complain, because if they want to buy one of those little X10 cameras or get their palms read, they have to look elsewhere. :-) Oh well. They can deal with it, right? :-)

MAGAZINE DESIGN COURSE — The Magazine Training Institute announces a Design for Magazines course to be offered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Nov. 2-6. The course is open to Christian magazine publishers, staff members, and freelance designers who work with Christian magazines. The course is subsidized, so tuition and room and board costs are minimal. For more information, write <info@magazinetraining.com> or check MTI’s website at http://www.magazinetraining.com . MTI has been offering conferences and courses for Christian magazine staff members since 1989. </info@magazinetraining.com>

BECOME AN ENGLISH TEACHER — This one month course, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), gives the student excellent training in techniques for teaching English, techniques that are useful world-wide. It’s offered by Youth With A Mission in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, USA, September 2-26, 2003. For information and application forms, log on at http://www.ywampa.org , or email <ywampa@comcast.net>. </ywampa@comcast.net>

YWAM DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING SCHOOL — Youth With A Mission in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, USA, is offering a 5 month school for people aged 17 to 35 aspiring to learn more about the character and ways of God, how to hear God’s voice, and about God’s heart for the nations. A 3 month lecture phase is followed by a 2 month outreach, September 24, 2003 through March 3, 2004. For more information and application forms, click over to http://www.ywampa.org, or email <ywampa@comcast.net>. </ywampa@comcast.net>

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