20010930 Brigada Today

In this issue….

MISSIONARY CRISIS MANAGEMENT MATERIALS

This is a horrific, but appropriate time to remind mission leaders and missionaries that if you don’t manage the crisis, it will manage you. But you don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. Many missionaries and missions have contributed to a fairly large amount of crisis management information that is available free for missionaries to use to develop their own crisis plans. Information is available that relates to kidnapping, car bombs, record keeping, evacuation, Rapid Kidnap, home security, a generic security manual and more. Contact Rich – rcwagner@compuserve.com or rcwagner@enlace.net. He’ll verify that you are who you say you are, then send you some free crisis consulting materials. Now… I’ve told him he might get… literally… hundreds of requests… but hey… the guy has survived car bombs, kidnapping, and tons more. So what’s a flooded email inbox among friends!

He says he’ll do it for the Brigada family! Yahooo!

OXFORD MA IN COMMUNICATION PRACTICE

The MA in Communication offered by the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies has recently been revalidated and OCMS are now accepting applications for the MA in Communication Practice. Printed copies of the course brochure are available on request from the course manager, Geoff Morgan gmorgan@ocms.ac.uk The brochure may also be downloaded from the ICTI web site http://www.icmc.org/icti/ma.pdf or the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies website.

STRESS MANAGEMENT

“Big Book” Stress Management is a new book by chr. author and counselor, Eva-Maria Woodruff. Originally written as a doctoral thesis, it is now available in book form. It seeks to warn “Family Members” about the deceptive and dangerous pseudo-scientific practices used in counseling, medicine (especially cancer treatment and pain management), business and education. It then offers sound “Big Book” alternatives compatible with true scientific findings. You may order it from any bookstore that has an account with Spring Arbor distributors or e-mail the author at evamwood@aol.com. To open a new account with Spring Arbor (in case your area has no bookstore) you may call 800-937-0152. They require no minimum purchase.

OPERATION WORLD CD CORRECTION

In the 2001/08/31 BRIGADA TODAY we said: “Patrick and the GMI folks have given you permission in advance to utilize these resources in your newsletter or website”. Those who followed our advice to “read the details on the CD” will have noticed that except for brief quotations, the permissions granted in advance are only for printed materials. Sorry about that!!!

IMPROVED OPERATION WORLD WEB LINKS

Michael Jaffarian, who researched most of the web links for the Operation World Book and CD- ROM, has provided his full research database (including star ratings and abstracts not included in the book or CD-ROM) for inclusion on the Operation World web site. These expanded listings may be reached from: http://operationworld.org/updates/website.html

or using the “For updated links, see . . .” links at the bottom of the Internet Links pages on the OW CD-ROM. From any country web site update page, click “Web Sites” on the Table of Contents to see the World and subject-related sites.

OPERATION WORLD WANTS YOU!

The new web site update pages have a form where you can suggest new web sites. Afghanistan, for example, has only one entry currently. Please add your favorite web sites for countries, regions, or topics of interest to you.

WANNA’ HELP WITH AN INTERNET SECURITY SURVEY?

Here’s the chance you’ve been dreaming about!

Mike, an “Aussie”, is doing a survey from “down under”, and he’d love to get your input. Here are the questions:

What is your role in missions?
How important for you is internet security in missions?
What security measures do you take in getting information to your counterparts around the world?
What ways do you protect the sending and receiving of information?
How do you handle emails with those in secure countries/regions?
What and/or is your biggest security threat?
In what ways has your security been breached in the past?
How did you deal with that breech?
How is publicity of your organization done using the Internet? i.e. in regard to websites or other.
Are you concerned with the names of domains and/or email addresses associated with your organization?
Any other comments you have about internet security and missions.

If we participate, he’ll report about the outcome of the survey here on Brigada! Just email your response to: mikeall@worldview.edu.au To qualify, make sure you email the response within 7 days of receiving this Brigada Today! Thanks!

MUSIC TO REACH UNREACHED PEOPLE GROUPS

Would you like to help a group develop indigenous Christian songs? Consider taking a week-long course at CIT in N. Carolina (Oct. 29-Nov. 2, also end of April 2002). The focus is on empowering a community to make culturally-appropriate Christian music, and to use it effectively in evangelism, worship, and church planting. You do not need to be a musician to benefit from this course. Some attention will be given to music of each student’s geographical interest. See http://www.citi.org or write NeeleyPL@netscape.net for information.

Sorry the notice is short… but we’re hoping that if you can’t make the 10/29 class, maybe you can shoot for the April version!

“COUNTRY NETWORK” MISSION DOMAINS

A Christian initiative to assist in promoting mission advocacy networking worldwide, is offering “network domains” for almost every country in the world. For example “TheAfganistanNetwork.com” or “ThePakistanNetwork.com” For inquiries on country availability and price email jackson@doctor.com.

TO SUBSCRIBE — To subscribe to BRIGADA TODAY, send email to brigada-today-subscribe@egroups.com.

TO UNSUBSCRIBE — Send email to brigada-today-unsubscribe@egroups.com. (Subject and text are ignored.)
IF IT DOESN’T WORK — Write Don & Judy, our Customer Services Managers at help@brigada.org. Yahooooo for volunteers!!!

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.
Thanks to for hosting the Brigada mailing list.
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!