20001008 Brigada Today

In this issue….

THE ENVELOPE PLEASE! (BRIGADA SURVEY WINNERS ANNUONCED)

These past 24 hours have been pretty exciting for 7 lucky winners, notified personally and directly by email, of course: Tex, Tom, Kevin, Philip, Irvin, SK, and JCMI. (How else would Brigada contact a winner?

) These winners were the folks picked by a blind draw out of the pool of respondents to the reader survey we did a while back. (See — sometimes dreams do come true!

) Results are still being tabulated, but in the meantime, 6 of the 7 winners will each receive a PUR Sport Water filter bottle, provided through the kindness of Mike & Deb at TealBrook http://www.tealbrook.com. In my opinion, these water bottles are the best for short-term travel overseas. The filtration action happens as you suck the water through a special drinking spout, so you’ll never have to pump water through a cylinder again. No dripping rubber hoses either. If you run out of water while out and about, just sneak up to any old fountain or faucet in the bazaar or city square and fill the bottle full, resting in full assurance that when you suck the water through the straw, you’ll be drinking safe water filtered with the same level of purity that you’d get from a Swiss Katadyn ceramic pump filter. The only loss is . . . you won’t get the isometric body- building practice any more. ‘Course, as for me, I always felt a bit self-conscious pumping that liter of water in front of the six-year-old at the house where I might be staying that particular week.

Anyway, if you’d like to try a PUR Sport filter for yourself — and lose the body-builder thing

— you can email Mike & Deb at info@tealbrook.com. Cost is only $30 each; ask for an $8 holster if you want to make it totally handy! And while you’re at it, please pass along our thanks for their kind gesture (totally unsolicited!) of donating six of these filters for the Brigada readership survey! A seventh winner will receive a piece of original Archie Comic Strip artwork, courtesy Nate Butler ROX35Media@aol.com. Nate worked on the original Archie staff years ago and this piece of history is nearly impossible to replicate! It’s been years since Archie shut down — so this is probably a collector’s item. So if you ever need illustrating or would like to learn more about illustrations for discipleship materials, Nate’s your man. He works with ROX35 Media, Inc., http://www.rox35.org a non-profit, non-denominational ministry which has been organized to provide international training and consultation in the production and use of Christian comics for evangelism and discipleship. Thanks Nate and thanks again Tealbrook!

PEOPLETEAMS NOW CONNECTING HUNDREDS OF MISSIONS SITES/PEOPLE

It’s been nearly a year since we mentioned PeopleTeams.org and their staff of 40 continues to move forward at http://www.peopleteams.org. Believe it or not, they’ve now got nearly 300 different unreached people networks going there! Boy am I glad they’re on the Lord’s side!

It’s an ad-free environment in which to host your unreached people group network, or at least point people to it. Just click on “Request a Free Website.” (By the way, somebody should ask them to add the Brigada website to their resource links listing.

Thanks for reminding us to mention this service again, Scott!) Stay tuned for more info. on PeopleTeams in coming weeks. There are some special plans in the works so keep reading!

WE GET MAIL (RE: “ARE YOU LOOKING FOR BRIGADA SUB-GROUPS?”)

We heard from several readers regarding last week’s item “ARE YOU LOOKING FOR BRIGADA SUB-GROUPS?” Just to clarify — we weren’t intending to criticize MAFxc for instituting the policy whereby they would charge per message for email conferencing. We were only trying to speak objectively about some of the factors that influenced the demise of Brigada sub-conferences, since several readers were looking for them. Our point was that once MAFxc suggested they would begin charging by the word or by the message, groups began searching for other cost- effective locations like egroups.com . Nowadays, peopleteams.org is an even better solution! Once they get email conferencing software up and running at that site, it’ll be perfect. MAFxc, for its part, was only trying to operate in such a way that they could stay afloat financially. We’re very thankful for the start that CrossConnect (later MAFxc) gave to the missions email conferencing world — and for the birthing they gave to Brigada! One additional note about that item: If the comment about the putting “com” on the end instead of “org” was offensive, we apologize. (Referring to this somewhat well-known trick used by pornographers on the web, we jokingly said it would send you to a pornographic site. We didn’t intend to make light of the issue that pornography and prostitution are real problems — and you’re probably right — they indeed have no place in a missions journal like Brigada Today. Please forgive if the failed attempt at [probably late-night- written] humor bothered you!)

MEDICAL MISSIONS CONFERENCE COMING SOON!

Please note that November 1, 2000, is the deadline for applying to the Fifth Annual Medical Mission Conference to be held in Louisville, Kentucky, on November 17-18, 2000. ALL details for the conference including registration are available on the web site at http://www.medicalmissions.com. So check there for the whole story on the two full days of conference agenda, plenary speakers, workshops, agencies, panels, and more! Call 502-253-8069 if you have questions the website can’t answer.

SECURE SERVER READY AT STRATEGIC NETWORK DOT ORG

Wow!

Those folks at strategicnetwork.org even read Brigada Today. After including an item about them in last week’s issue, they wrote almost immediately to report that their secure server was back online. I probably misunderstood its purpose though. It’s mainly for login. I was thinking they had designed a site whereby private webgroups could have ongoing roundtable discussions in a secure environment. Either way, learn more at http://www.strategicnetwork.org.

MAKE NOVEMBER 12TH A SPECIAL DAY OF PRAYER

Nov. 12th is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Find all kinds of resources planning this emphasis at http://www.persecutedchurch.org.

NEW DOMAINS CREATED

As Mike pointed out to us in an email this past week, it seems that some additional domain names have been released lately on the Net. Learn more at http://name.space.xs2.net/gTLDs/. Maybe you can get a unique domain that you previously never dreamed would be possible. Some of these would require a new way of viewing the web though — so read the fine print. Thanks Mike.

MORE FREE ONLINE BIBLES

Thanks to Joel, who added to our previous referral to http://www.bible.org by pointing us this past week to:
http://bible.gospelcom.net (multiple versions, fully searchable)
http://www.blueletterbible.com (commentaries, images, maps, more)
http://www.OnlineBible.com (free downloadable KJV, commentary, etc.)

Meanwhile, Teresa prefers Bible Gateway http://horeb.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bg (with tools for research/writing)

FREE MONTH OF NEWSCASTER FOR BRIGADA READERS

SF Foundation is offering Brigada readers a free month and is waiving set up costs on its new Newscaster. See samples at http://www.newscaster.ws/WEF (World Evangelical Fellowship) and http://www.newscaster.ws/PrayerTransformation (Prayer Transformation Ministries in St. Paul/Minneapolis). Newscaster is designed for use with current and prospective donors to your ministry but it can also be used for posting and archiving news and items for intercessors. It does cost a small monthly fee thereafter to cover SF’s expenses. SF Foundation is a ministry helping ministries speak more clearly to donors. As a ministry they appreciate your prayer too. For more info, contact Bruce bruce@sf.org, tel. 952-897-0841 in Minneapolis. Read reports provided by others at http://www.sf.org. This offer from SF Foundation is available through the remainder of October 2000.

SPANISH COURSE IN ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

An intensive 2-week course in ethnomusicology will be taught in Spanish at a seminary in Guatemala City, Nov. 6-16. It is open to pastors, missionaries, worship leaders, and students who would like to be able to encourage indigenous Christian music. The course will be taught by Dr. Tom Avery of Wycliffe Bible Translators and of the Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. This course has no musical prerequisite, but does require that participants have a letter of recommendation from their pastor. Tuition fee is $35. For information, contact Janet iwenger@guate.net.

MISSIONS IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM: THE BOOK

If you’d like one of the initial copies of Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Key Trends for the 21st Century, you’re in luck. It should be printed in time for Urbana (end of December). It’s being assembled by the current editor of Pulse Magazine. Contact guthsc@aol.com for more details.

MISSIONS RESOURCES INFORMATION “TAKE TWO”

In our earlier inclusion of this item, we incorrectly passed along a space in the URL. (Sorry for an inconvenience!) This site gives missions resources in different languages, with over 150 sources for Bibles, Books, Tracts and Videos at http://www.esbc.com/missionsresources.html For more info, email David_Baptist@Hotmail.com

MISSION OPPS WITH UK BASED MISSIONS

If you are looking for new opportunities with UK based mission agencies, either in the UK or worldwide, then you might like to check out the Christian Vocations web site. They have a UK jobs page, a section called WHEREhouse, UK contact details and more. Click to: http://www.christianvocations.org or email info@christianvocations.org.

APOLOGIES TO THE EDITORS

Our apologies to the editors of the upcoming edition of Mission Handbook! (Sept. 29th Brigada Today). Both editors’ names were misspelled. We’ll try to get it right in the future — John Siewert not Stewart, and Dotsey Welliver not Dorsey. (Thanks to Ferne for the correction!)

A BRIGADA BOOTH AT URBANA?

Mark asked that question this past week. It’s unlikely, since we don’t have an advertising budget to pay for the exhibit fees and travel costs. As you know, Brigada Today is free — we don’t even sell ads! (Our only tool for getting the word out is referrals from readers like you.) But you can learn more about Urbana at http://www.urbana.org. Thanks for asking though Mark!

“ACTS 29” TRAINING COURSES

Due to an increasingly demanding international seminar itinerary, Emmaus Road International has (at least temporarily) suspended its scheduled dates for its ten-week pre- field training, the ACTS 29 Training Course. However, they are pleased to announce that they will continue offering the four-week Mini-ACTS Training Course, as schedule permits. Get more info at http://www.eri.org/training.html. The dates for the next Course are March 1 -30, 2001. A Syllabus and Enrollment procedures are available upon request. E-mail: Emmaus_Road@eri.org Phone: 858-292-7020.

NOW IN SPANISH – HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE

Segment One of Warren Doud’s “EQUIP series” of Bible study training materials has been translated into Spanish. There are 27 lesson files, and these will be distributed to subscribers by email, two lessons per week. To subscribe (free), write to Warren Doud wdoud@bga.com. See http://www.realtime.net/~wdoud/ for more info.

WE’VE LOST CHINA INSTITUTE

Thanks to those who have pointed out that the China Institute website link was a dead end. We’ve written the contributor of that item to ask for an alternative link or location. Sorry for any inconvenience.

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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
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