News and Notes about Brigada, Your Gateway to Missions Networking!
Compiled by DLucas@TeamExpansion.org

[Note: Please forward or pass this Brigada Today to as many people as you think might be able to see a future in it! To subscribe, email hub@xc.org with only the following line in the body of the message: subscribe brigada

Brigada is free (though you still have to pay your normal email charges, of course).]

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In this issue….

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STILL GROWING!

270 have subscribed to this top level conference, Brigada

You can be a member of more than one conference, but to do so, you must subscribe to each conference individually. Subscribing to the top level Brigada conference does not automatically get you mail from each of the subgroups. (If it did, you’d go crazy with mail!!! :-)) To subscribe to any of the conferences, just send email to hub@xc.org with the word “subscribe” followed by the conference name (include the hyphens in the conference name, but lose the quotes in “subscribe”). For example, to subscribe to the albania-durres subconference listed, your message to hub@xc.org would read,
subscribe brigada-albania-durres

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FEATURED CONFERENCE – NEW ‘BOOKSHELF’ FOR THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD:BRIGADA-PEOPL

The depository is ready. Read below for the exciting developments in preparing online unreached people profiles… by GCOWE! There are already six profiles available… but there will soon be many more. Getting a list of them is simple. Just email hub@xc.org with only the words
filelist brigada-peoples

in the body of the text. (Brigada regulars will notice that this is one ‘conference’ that you don’t have to join in order to use. It has been set up specifically as a ‘bookshelf’ location. You need not subscribe.) In a few moments, you’ll receive a list of the people profiles available for downloading. Pick out a profile, then send email to hub@xc.org with only the words
get mozambique-ndau

in the body of the text ( of course, replace this particular people group name with that of your choice from the file list). Note that in this new file area, the profiles no longer begin with the prefix, “peoples-“, since the entire location is dedicated to this topic.

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ADOPT-A-PEOPLE CLEARINGHOUSE & COMPANY MOBILIZE FOR ONLINE ACTION

Thanks to representatives from over half a dozen or so cooperating agencies, keyboards and scanners will fire up Monday morning to begin the process of transferring literally hundreds of people profiles to electronic (machine-readable) format! This initiative, spawned in part through a meeting last Friday at the Adopt-A-People Clearinghouse in Colorado Springs (for which many of you prayed), will hopefully result in the availability of abundant information on the peoples of the 100 Gateway Cities as early as May 15, the eve of the Global Consultation on World Evangelization in Seoul, South Korea. God has used several people to bring about this chain of events, but clearly among those at the vanguard of the effort are Bill and Amy Stearns. In a note to Brigada late last night, Bill wrote, “… Lo and behold, we got a team of 10 together today (representing 6 different organizations) to scour the Adopt a People Clearinghouse for background info on the peoples of the 100 Gateway Cities. We finished compiling the stuff, it’s being photocopied now, and the writing process will kick in as of Monday!” This information will be applied in several ways. First, it will be available for downloading from the new Brigada-peoples “bookshelf.” (Note that where necessary, for security in limited access nations, all names will be removed prior to posting.) Second, it will be converted to html code for posting on Brigada‘s Worldwide Web page. Third, Bill Dickson and the folks at Global Mapping will add it to the CD-ROM that they’re preparing for distribution all over the globe in June. For mobilization to occur effectively, we have to have access to good information… and now, thanks to God’s grace, power and answered prayer, we’re one step closer to that goal!
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TOOL OF THE WEEK – COMPUSERVE ADDS WORLDWIDE WEB READER… TODAY!

For those Compuserve users waiting for access to a more graphical way to access information on the INTERNET, wait no longer! As of today, you can download a copy of Compuserve’s own special edition of Spry-Mosaic Browser for Compuserve and begin surfing the web immediately! Best of all, included in the monthly base rate of $10 (Basic Services) will be 3 free hours of WWW time per month! For instructions and obtaining “NetLauncher”, GO NETLAUNCHER. Note that after 3 hours of use in any one month, you will be billed at a rate of $2.50/hour, well below the cost of most other service providers. However, if your web use climbed above 7 hours per month, you’d be better off with Netcom, which charges $19.95 for 40 hours per month of WWW (or any other INTERNET tool) use. Don’t forget to stop in and see Brigada’s WWW page at http://www.xc.org/Brigada/Brigada.html. Watch for upgrades on that page in the very near future. While you’re at it, check out a web page from a sister online publication, MissionNet: http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/mnet/mweb-home.html

[Note about NetLauncher: Let’s be patient as Cserve works the bugs out of the system. My own trial of this tool this morning resulted in very slow access times compared to using Netscape browser on Netcom. But we’re confident that they’ll fine tune it over the next few weeks. Also, if you normally access the WWW through another browser, such as Netscape, beware that the Cserve install will try to replace your WinSock driver with its own proprietary Winsock.dll in the C:\windows subdirectory. A word to the wise…. :-) ]

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DOES WWW ACCESS MEAN BRIGADA WILL CEASE OPERATING EMAIL COMMANDS?

Nope! One user wrote this past week, “While it is true that WWW is easier to navigate, I for one do not anticipate having access to it, so I hope that you are not implying that email access will be curtailed once AOL and Cserve offer WWW.” True… and much of the rest of the world will be without a graphical user interface to the INTERNET for at least the next couple of years. So we’re continually searching for ways that we’ll be able to offer both options, especially because of those who will be gaining access to the INTERNET in majority world nations.
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IT’S WORKING!!!

We wish you could see the action taking place on the various Brigada conferences … Here’s a comment from Tom Alberts, as posted on the Brigada-peoples-arab group…

“PRAISE GOD! I couldn’t help but say this repeatedly as I read Doug and Al’s response to Jim’s mail. It’s working! The network is working. It is just this kind of connection and cooperation we need to finish the task that remains in our generation (see attached file below ). May this kind of activity increase and abound on this and other missions networks! Needless to say, I am very excited about the networking possibilities that lie ahead of us as God takes another technological tool and uses it for His great purpose – the reaching of the unreached peoples of the world. Carry on dear brethren, and let us unite together in prayer and labor, faith and love, to that glorious end. The Lord bless and keep you all for His great name’s sake.
Tom Alberts, GLM

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“HOW DO I GET HELP FOR BRIGADA?”

… asked one user this past week. First, send email to hub@xc.org with only the words
get brigada help-detailed

in the body of the text. If you still can’t figure it out, write to BrigadaCoord@xc.org (which for now is the same as writing to DLucas@TeamExpansion.org). For questions of a technical nature involving specific commands or INTERNET issues, write helpdesk@xc.org.

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GLOBAL PRAYER DIGEST ONLINE VIA BRIGADA IS A HIT!

One Brigada participant wrote this past week to say, “Thanks for your testimony re GPD online [in the Brigada Today, April 7]. I have found the same thing to be true at my household. We are praying more regularly and consistently for these daily featured peoples due to the regularity with which we find them in our e-mailbox and print them out to be prayed for and shared with others…. I hope this is an encouragement to you and to those who labor to produce them. God bless you brother! Tom.”

It’s simple [and free] to subscribe. Just send email to hub@xc.org with only the words,
subscribe brigada-pubs-globalprayerdigest

in the body of the text. The GPD is sent out by Elise Christol, Computer Services, USCWM, Pasadena, CA and is produced by the Frontier Fellowship.

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A MOVEMENT THROUGHOUT THE LAND…

We live in a day when the Spirit of God is working to bring revival and renewal throughout the globe. Witness this report from Wheaton College, written by Wheaton student Ryan Smith, relayed to us late last night from Brigada participant, Bob Skiles.

“…There wasn’t any pressure placed on the roughly 500 students to come forward, but people came. In fact, they kept coming until 6:00 A.M. and there were still students waiting in line to confess sin. It was a mutual decision to reconvene our time of confession until that night at 9:30 P.M. For the next three days Monday-Wednesday, students and faculty met from 9:30 P.M.-2:00 A.M. to “…confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed” (James 5:16). The confessions were sincere, honest, orderly, and honoring to God. Here is a common example of what happened in this time of confession: A guy would come up and confess his struggle with lust, and how he would like prayer to have victory in this area of his life. After he was finished many students (usually some of his friends) would come forward to lay their hands on him and pray for him. A visible result of the times of confession could be seen in a pile on the stage. Students were encouraged to rid themselves of any “hidden provision” which were hindering the victory over sin in their lives. Piles of Pornography, CD’s, Drugs and Alcohol, fashion magazines, credit-cards, etc. were put into big garbage bags and destroyed. No one, except the Holy Spirit, was forcing the students to get rid of the things that caused them to stumble. The last student came forward to confess sin on early Thursday morning. It was agreed that we, (about 1500 of us: students, faculty, and people in the community) would meet together for a time of testimony and praise to our God…. For about the last couple hours of the Thursday night meeting, the focus of the night turned towards missions, and evangelizing the lost. There was a call for any students who felt that God was leading them into full-time Christian ministry or missions to come forward and be prayed for. Hundreds of students came forward, including myself. Then we worshipped God. It was a time of worship that I will not soon forget. Jesus was honored, praised, glorified, and magnified, and the students rejoiced and overflowed with gratitude to our Awesome God…. I WOULD HOPE THAT YOU WOULD BE PRAYING FOR THE MEMBERS OF THE WHEATON COLLEGE COMMUNITY including myself, that we would love God with all our hearts, soul, mind and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves….”

Let’s pray not just for Wheaton, but for this kind of response all around the planet!

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HAPPY EASTER ARTWORK!!!

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