In this issue…
1. GOT 5 MINUTES TO MEASURE YOUR FOLLOWERSHIP STYLE?
2. NOW YOU HAVE A CHOICE: YAHOOGROUPS *OR* GOOGLEGROUPS
3. A FLASH DRIVE COMPLETE WITH BROWSER AND SECURITY
4. SPAM PREVENTION STILL NO EASY TASK
5. TIP US: WHAT’S THE BEST DATA PROJECTOR ON THE MARKET?
6. TESOL COURSE IN THAILAND
7. SHORT TERM MISSION TEAMS
8. GET STARTED IN MISSIONS: DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING SCHOOL
9. AUTOMATIC SLIDESHOWS IN MS POWERPOINT 2000
10. INTERNET EVANGELISM VIA DVD
11. STILL LOOKING FOR A GREAT FIREWALL?
12. CATCH GLOBAL PASSION
13. BE CHANGED BY THE WORD
14. THANKS TO OUR SPONORS, PARTNERS, HELPERS, FRIENDS!
15. WOULD YOU JOIN THOSE CHIPPING IN TOWARD OUR EXPENSES?
16. THE BACK PAGE: A CHALLENGE FOR ONE IS A GAME FOR ANOTHER
17. CLOSING STUFF
1. GOT 5 MINUTES TO MEASURE YOUR FOLLOWERSHIP STYLE? — The good news is… day before yesterday, my university gave me the green light to proceed with my dissertation questionnaire. The bad news is… Now I have to find 500+ people to *take* it. It’s actually pretty simple. Takes about 5 minutes to finish. I need to find full-time workers in a non-profit mission agency, church or humanitarian organization. It doesn’t matter whether you’re based in the field or in the home office, nor does it matter what role you’re in. If you’re a non-profit or church worker, *and* if you have a supervisor with an email address, you would be an answered prayer for me. Everything’s confidential. We don’t report anything back to anyone else. The results are going to be used *only* to advance our understanding of “followership” and will not be used in any sort of personal sense whatsoever. The first 500 workers will be *greatly* appreciated!!! Thanks a bunch. Just click here to get started: http://brigada.org/followership/
2. NOW YOU HAVE A CHOICE: YAHOOGROUPS *OR* GOOGLEGROUPS — This past week, we considered switching the Brigada Today mailing list from YahooGroups over to GoogleGroups. We even initiated the command to paste in the mailing list… but, to their credit, the GoogleGroups tech staff intercepted the upload, assuming I was a spammer, and switched the command from “add these addresses” to “invite these addresses.” Thus the confusion some of you reported — my having said “no action necessary”, immediately followed by GoogleGroups saying, “click here if you want to accept.” Confusing, eh? :-) Sorry about that. However, I admire their conservative views on spammers… and in fact, that was half the original reason for the proposed cutover. It seems like YahooGroups is taking a bum wrap these days because of the (perhaps) few who are abusing the service. (Ain’t it always so!)
Anyway, by this evening, some 1611 faithful readers had said, “yes” to the new server. And 9563 on were still hanging on at YahooGroups. In fact, several readers wrote begging, “Please don’t switch us over!” Well … it’s all the same to me. So instead of dropping YahooGroups, what we’ve decided to do is offer *both* channels. It’ll be exactly the same text sent through both services at approximately the same exact minute. So… you’re welcome to keep both for a while and see which delivers the best response rate. Either way, there’ll be no more sending of invitations. If you’d like to switch to GoogleGroups version of Brigada Today, just send message to brigada-today-subscribe@googlegroups.com Please remember, either way, we won’t be subscribing or unsubscribing anyone manually. Everything’s automatic. (Except for those who have sponsored or contributed. We’ll always offer human help to them. Just remind us of your sponsorship within the past 12 months, when and if you ever have to ask for help.
So — again, bottom line — now there are *three* great channels for reading Brigada Today: the web, YahooGroups, and now GoogleGroups.
(Note: Just because you answered my announcement with the word “accept”, it doesn’t mean you subscribed to GoogleGroups. You would have needed to answer the original GoogleGroups invitation with a reply.)
3. A FLASH DRIVE COMPLETE WITH BROWSER AND SECURITY — See it at… http://www.stealthsurfer.biz/index.html It’s StealthSurfer II and it offers comprehensive protection of personal information, credit card numbers, and financial transactions from online snoops. Tiny enough to carry on a keychain, and bundled with its own high-speed browser, the USB 2.0 flash drive plugs into the USB port of a computer and allows users to surf the Web with total privacy. This would be handy for a worker in a sensitive-access land, especially if he or she had to use public internet cafes.
4. SPAM PREVENTION STILL NO EASY TASK — One user wrote to point out that spam filtering still was no easy task. Getting all those pesky settings hooked up correctly can be a daunting task. The long and short of it: Choose a service that will help you with configuration. We’ve been hooking up our organization with OnlyMyEmail.com. We don’t get a kickback from them… but, as “one beggar telling another where to get bread,” they’ve been very responsive to hooking up our organization’s 160 or so email users in a corporate account. Visit http://www.onlymyemail.com for full information on corporate or individual settings. It’s not free… but it *did* win the PC Magazine Editor’s Choice for spam filtering… and they *do* answer their emails. :-)
5. TIP US: WHAT’S THE BEST DATA PROJECTOR ON THE MARKET? — Here’s a Christian worker whose name is *also* Doug (like mine), with email address tank87(at)net66(dot)com [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .], who would like to know if we have any new recommendations for reasonably priced LCD projectors that are fairly rugged and replacement bulb cost is on the lower end. When he says rugged, he means something that can withstand vibration, dust, humidity, etc. Please write him if you have an idea or a spec sheet for something you like!
6. TESOL COURSE IN THAILAND — Learn to teach English in a non-English speaking country. This four-week intensive course is registered with the University of the Nations (YWAM) and with SEA English Academy, Australia. The course will be held in Chiang Rai Thailand and runs from October 3 through October 29, 2005. The Practicum includes teaching English to Asian university students. For more information or to submit questions, please email: Chiangraitesol(at)gmail(dot)com Address your emails to Julie.
7. SHORT TERM MISSION TEAMS — Gospel Literature Outreach run one or two week teams throughout Europe and are expanding into Africa. These teams give the opportunity to work alongside a resident missionary team for one to two weeks and are primarily evangelistic in nature with Bible teaching for the team as well. For further information go to http://www.glo-europe.org or contact admin(at)glo-europe(dot)org [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .]
8. GET STARTED IN MISSIONS: DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING SCHOOL — YWAM Turner Valley Canada offers DTS for you to grow in relationship with Christ and obedience to Mark 16:15. Dates are September 14th, 2005 – February 10th, 2006 OR mid March 2006- mid August 2006. The school includes 12 weeks of teaching and training in Canada and 8 weeks of mission work in South East Asia or North Africa. Topics during training include: Character of God, Sin & the Cross & Repentance, Bible Meditation, Frontier Missions, Relationships, Evangelism, Islamic/Buddhist Worldview and more. Mission work is done among unreached people groups who need the Gospel. Outreach activities may involve helping long term workers, evangelism, prayer ministry, community development projects, children’s ministry and more. Please call 1-403-933-3754 for information or email to turnervalley(at)ywam(dot)ca. [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .] Or…. check out the website: http://www.ywamturnervalley.com
9. AUTOMATIC SLIDESHOWS IN MS POWERPOINT 2000 — So often at the end of a conference or retreat it is a neat conclusion to show a quick slideshow of the pictures taken on a digital camera during the event. If you have ever tried to create a simple slideshow from photographs in MS PowerPoint 2000 you know how frustrating it can be. Each slide must be manually created followed by the insertion of a photograph followed by the re-sizing and centering of the picture — it can take 2-3 minutes per slide! Yes, there are some ways to make all these steps simpler, but there’s also a way to have it all done automatically. You can simply choose which photographs/graphics you want included and have a slideshow automatically created with the pictures in various options (full screen, within margins, 2 per slide, 4 per slide, etc.). Amazingly M$ offers this “Photo Album Add-in Program” free! [Thanks for the tip, Peter!] (Note, the following URL will “wrap”. You’ll have to copy and paste it into your browser and “reassemble” it…
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID =55d2 4b47-c828-4141-a8de-9a459c63db1a
Or use this tinyURL http://tinyurl.com/9yomg (a shortcut, created at www.tinyurl.com)
10. INTERNET EVANGELISM VIA DVD — A three DVD set is now available of 19 of the workshops presented at the recent Internet Evangelism for the 21st Century Conference held at Liberty University. Cost is only $27.95 with S& H in the USA and $34.95 overseas. See the DVD Ordering Page for a list of workshops included on the set and ordering instructions at http://ie-21stcentury.com.
11. STILL LOOKING FOR A GREAT FIREWALL? — One user, Nick, wrote to recommend: http://smoothwall.org/ It’s a firewall at the right price — free. Nick’s brother-in-law, a computer programmer, had recommended it as being easy to set up… and free to boot! Haven’t tried it ourselves here.. but thanks for the tip, Nick!
12. CATCH GLOBAL PASSION — Global Passion 3 is a two day conference that will reveal the biblical basis for global change, showing us God’s unfolding plan which He is using to transform the world in which we live. Find a way to energise, equip and empower yourself through understanding life priorities, prayer and cultural understanding. It takes place in Liverpool, UK on 10th & 11th June, £35 for both days. For further information contact globalpassion(at)ywamliverpool(dot)co(dot)uk [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .] or check out… http://www.ywamliverpool.co.uk
13. BE CHANGED BY THE WORD — YWAM Turner Valley Canada’s School of Biblical Studies (SBS) is an intense inductive Bible school. Students in this school go through the Bible five times in nine months while using effective study tools. This is an exciting opportunity for those wanting to study and apply God’s Scripture as a whole. SBS begins September 12th, 2005 and concludes June 30th, 3006. Please call 1-403- 933-3755 for information or email turnervalley(at)ywam(dot)ca [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .]
14. THANKS TO OUR SPONORS, PARTNERS, HELPERS, FRIENDS! — We get *sooo* much encouragement from our sponsors, among whom this week are… an anonymous “David” ($25), an anonymous “Peter” ($100), and an anonymous hosting firm ($25). (We’ll try to get the hosting service to at least give us a domain… so if you need a hosting service, you could consider jumping on board a Brigada sponsor. If you’ve got to choose one anyway, might as well pick one that helped the cause, all things being equal, right? :-) ) Thanks again to these givers!
15. WOULD YOU JOIN THOSE CHIPPING IN TOWARD OUR EXPENSES? — Our goal for 2005 is $16,576, which includes webspace, some secretarial help, and a small amount of advertising. That’s it. Not a penny more. If anything else would come in, we’ll apply it in advance toward 2006. As of today, we stand at: $5,023.22… not quite 1/3 if the way there. It’ll take a special gift of $2,000 or so just to catch up with May. Maybe somebody out there is equipped to do that… but otherwise, it’ll take 20 gifts of $100? Either way, if you’d like to help make Brigada a reality for next week and beyond, just log on at https://brigada.org then click “sponsor” in the top menu (to use PayPal or a credit card), or just send a check payable to Team Expansion to: Team Expansion (Brigada secretary), 13711 Willow Reed Dr., Louisville, KY 40299. Thanks! As always, be sure to let us know if you’d like us to promote any particular service or ministry, or if you’d prefer your gift be anonymous.
16. THE BACK PAGE: A CHALLENGE FOR ONE IS A GAME FOR ANOTHER — I’ll never forget one night in 1991 when my family and I stayed in an old basic hotel in Kiev, USSR. (Yes, it was still called the USSR at the time.) We had been working in southern Ukraine and this was one of the only fun getaway trips we could squeeze in. Travel services were still *very* basic (maybe we were the only foreigners in the whole city that night? — ok… maybe it wasn’t quite *that* bad :-)). The particular room we had was so hot and muggy that there were *dozens* of mosquitoes… maybe *hundreds*. Finally, our 4-year-old even got into the act. He would swat with a rolled up magazine using both hands. Splat! (We left quite an impression on the walls that evening.) About an hour later, when the dust had settled, I *think* we finally emerged victorious, he and I. The “Mrs.” was impressed, thanking us for an effective hunting expedition, relieving everybody of dozens of potential bites through the night. To me, it had been a hassle… ridding the room of these interlopers that were about to suck blood from us life and limb. That’s when the 4-year-old chimed in with his characteristic stutter, long since outgrown, and that killer grin: “H- h-h-hey… L-Let’s remember this g-g-game: Killing b-b-b-bugs.” :-) To him, it had been a *game*! Like a 1991-version of something one would do on a Nintendo (sometime later). Splat, splat, splat! :-)
I guess that night I learned a valuable lesson: The degree of “hassle” in a particular activity is tied directly to one’s perspective. The more one can posture it as “fun”, the better off one will be. So… next time we have to do something difficult, let’s re-draw it in our minds. Let’s see if we can reposition it as a kind of game… like Chris did… “killin’ bugs”. :-) Either way, watch out for those bugs – ’cause it’s a jungle out there! :-)
Doug
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