- SOUNDS OF GLOBAL WORSHIP NOW ON YOUTUBE
- ADOPT-A-TERRORIST FOR PRAYER
- A BRIEF TENT-MAKERS SURVEY
- SHARING CHRIST MINISTRIES WEBSITE
- SHIP OR MOVE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
- PERSPECTIVES WEBSITE GIVES ANSWERS
- BUSINESS AS MISSION CONFERENCE
- SOBERED BY THOSE WHO MAKE BRIGADA POSSIBLE
- CORRECTION ON “HELP MISSIONARIES SERVING ON THE FIELD”
- CAN YOU VAULT US INTO 2008 BY PROVIDING A LIFT?
- THE BACKPAGE: WHAT KIND OF HOPE COMES FROM STRIPPING AWAY HOPE?
- SOUNDS OF GLOBAL WORSHIP NOW ON YOUTUBE — God is receiving worship from many nations, people, tribes and languages in their indigenous heart music. Heart Sounds International has created a YouTube broadcast channel to present a series of these worship videos entitled “Sounds of Global Worship”. Click on the following link to access:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=HSIOM
The channel currently features 17 videos, with many more to be added in the weeks and months ahead. Available for viewing are worship clips from Azerbaijan, Congo, India (Assam, Bengal, Punjab), Himalayas, Malawi, Mongolia, South Africa and Sudan. You are welcome to subscribe to the channel, after which you will be notified as new videos are added.
- ADOPT-A-TERRORIST FOR PRAYER — This movement has completed a static web site at
Pray that God will work through this site to head off difficulties and achieve lasting peace. For more information, write admin(at)
myatfp(dot)com [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with . and reassemble the address on one line.]
- A BRIEF TENT-MAKERS SURVEY — The folks at Emercy are conducting a brief survey to learn more about missionary tent-makers and their agency / administrative needs. The survey is only 10-questions long. To take the survey, visit
http://www.missionaryresources.org/tentmakers.html
Results to the survey will be posted next month at
- SHARING CHRIST MINISTRIES WEBSITE — There’s something for everyone – – Christian, non-Christian, pastor, missionary, or discipleship organization. You’ll find training materials and resources to equip Christians for the work of the ministry – all free! There is also a CD providing classical, favorite hymns, words of inspiration with heart inspiring readings, a narration of Biblical principles. Find it all and a lot more at:
- SHIP OR MOVE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD — Modern Shipping Inc. offers its best efforts to help missionaries ship anywhere around the world. They claim to have an excellent team to assist anyone internationally, regardless of whether the challenge is full container loads, limited container load, ro-ro & purchasing container to worldwide destination. They offer low competitive prices to missionary organizations to achieve their goals. Email shipping(at)
msifreight(dot)com [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with then reassemble the address on one line.] Alternatively, call toll free in the USA (866)916-0961 Learn more at
- PERSPECTIVES WEBSITE GIVES ANSWERS — Visit it today if you want to learn the latest about Perspectives…
- BUSINESS AS MISSION CONFERENCE — Business As Mission (BAM) aims to assist individuals with an interest in exploring the possibilities and discovering the practicalities of becoming a kingdom-minded business professional in a cross-cultural context. Mission practitioners will give a general overview of the BAM paradigm for ministry while providing practical advice, case studies and stories of their own experience. Join other BAM workers from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 23, 2008 at the Loudonville Community Church in Albany, NY. To receive a brochure with all the details please contact Jamie at 603.525.4219 or northeast
(at)ludlow.net. Sponsored by Interserve USA and Loudonville Community Church. [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with . then reassemble the email address onto one line.]
- CORRECTION ON “HELP MISSIONARIES SERVING ON THE FIELD” — Remember the item about “Veteran missionaries, do you remember how alone you felt when you were out there and no one seemed to understand” (Item #3 in the 10/19 edition of Brigada Today). Nation to Nation provided us with an incorrect email address. It should have been Karen.here4u
(at)gmail.com [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), we have broken them up with a carriage return and replaced the “@” sign with “at”.] Please forgive us for any inconvenience.
- SOBERED BY THOSE WHO MAKE BRIGADA POSSIBLE — We are so blessed to have received gifts recently from anonymous donors for $180 (from a worker in China) and $25. We also received $25 from
They’re a Richmond Personal Injury Law Firm. If you have *any* reason to have to call a lawyer and you haven’t engaged one yet, I would *sincerely* hope *someone* gives them a call, if for no other reason than they know that Brigada readers appreciate them helping underwrite Brigada.
Finally — and get this — we received a $300 donation from WorldconneX Mission Network at
Expect to hear more about them in the future — and for now, we *greatly* appreciate their help!
- CAN YOU VAULT US INTO 2008 BY PROVIDING A LIFT? — Yikes. At this point, we have received only $6,752.87 toward our 2007 budget needs of $17,150. If you have ever found something in Brigada to by helpful… or if you’d like to underwrite Brigada for someone who lives in a faraway land who cannot send funds on his or her own, please just click on the “Donate” page. Because, together, we need 6,752.87 by Dec. 31st. Gulp. That could still be done like this…
- 1 gift of $1000 for a total of $1000
- 5 gifts of $500 for a total of $2500
- 10 gifts of $250 for a total of $2500
- 13 gifts of $100 for a total of $1300
- 27 gifts of $50 for a total of $1350
- 70 gifts of $25 for a total of $1750
Granted — that’s a lot of volunteers. So the question is.. Has God prepared you with the resources to help with any of these gifts to take us to the finish line? You can pull the money from your PayPal account or from any major credit card. Or if you prefer, send a check payable to Team Expansion to: Team Expansion (Brigada secretary), 13711 Willow Reed Dr., Louisville, KY 40299. (Team Expansion is a 501(c)3 incorporation so for USA citizens, your checks made out to Team Expansion are tax-deductible.) 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. And thank you in advance for helping.
- THE BACKPAGE: WHAT KIND OF HOPE COMES FROM STRIPPING AWAY HOPE? — Today’s Wall Street Journal Europe Edition caught my eye (Dec. 7 issue). The center pages were all about how Europeans, though economically ok, were seemingly more and more afraid… and worse, without hope. The pages were based on a survey of 10,373 Europeans from throughout Western Europe. Control populations were included in the USA, India, Russia and Turkey. In all, they gathered responses from 20,999 people in 20 countries — no small group.
The outcome? Europeans are scared. Lack of direction, lack of leadership, lessening freedoms, more worries, more selfishness, and increasing pessimism. Interestingly, the responses also revealed a shocking rise in secularism, a loss of purpose, and, in general, a breakdown of society. The study included, among many other references, a quote from Yoda, of all folks (Star Wars; 1999). :-) “Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” Sure enough, many Europeans reported fears about terrorism, war, global warming, moral decay, and finances. In fact, as many as 1 out of 10 reported that things were so bad, they simply had no hope — period. Even greater numbers said they had lost hope in the future.
What’s the source of this fear? Remember that movie, “The NeverEnding Story”? In it, the warrior Atreyu had to go up against the “Nothing Monster”. I remember that giant turtle… what was his name…Morluk? Atreyu had asked him what was left when the Nothing Monster raided a certain town. “What’s left in its wake? Does it leave rocks?” Morluk answered, “Why… no! Rocks would be *something*. The Nothing Monster leaves… well… *nothing*!”
In the same issue, a reviewer chronicled the new movie, “Golden Compass.” He observed that it was “stripped of ideas,” made little sense, yet was based on anti-religious elements. Apparently, the author is an outspoken atheist making no secret about his efforts to chip away at faith. The reviewer, Joe Morgenstern, wrote, “The script… retains an all-seeing and all-knowing institution that kidnaps children and ships them off to an arctic facility where their souls are permanently separated from their bodies.” In the book form of “Golden Compass,” that institution is clearly identified as “The Church.” Because of public outcry, the movie refers to it as, simply, “The Magisterium,” but the metaphor, nevertheless, clearly remains.
So I had to grin. I shuttled back between the review of Golden Compass and the outcome of the survey. Duh. Should we be surprised? Clear case of ‘garbage-in, garbage-out.’ If we program our children with movies like “Compass,” we shouldn’t be surprised by the survey results. Morgenstern continued, “Vagueness colors all, banishing emotional connections in the process.” News item: I have seen a better way.
So what about you? Do you catch yourself inwardly losing your flame? Do you ever feel like you’re just going through the motions? In reality, do you wake up sometimes without hope? If so, you might be suffering from a bit of “Golden Compass” programming. How does one get around it? One idea is — invest. Invest in someone. The way to beat the Nothing Monster (in Never-Ending Story) was to care, love, and take courage. Emily Dickinson wrote, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers – that perches in the soul — and sings the tune without the words — And never stops – – at all.”
So this Christmas, may you experience a renewed sense of hopefulness. May the fire & passion reawaken within you. And, if you go see “Golden Compass,” may it not drag you down. Apparently, it and several other factors have been dragging us down now for several years.
God bless your weekend.
Doug
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