In this issue…

  1. HEARD THE LATEST? CALEB PROJECT + ACMC = INITIATIVE360
  2. THE GLORY STORY PROJECT
  3. FREE SERVICES ABOUNDING ON THE NET
  4. INTERNET SEARCH WARNING TO WORKERS IN SENSITIVE COUNTRIES
  5. THE NAMA/DAMARA PEOPLE: “WE WANT TO LEARN”
  6. PERSECUTED CHURCH ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT NETWORK ESTABLISHED
  7. WHY DID YOUNG ISAIAH FEEL GUILTY?
  8. GATHERING OF LATIN AMERICAN COMICS ARTISTS
  9. THE ZHUANG OF SOUTHERN CHINA
  10. ONLY 3 MONTHS LEFT TO HELP BRIGADA PAY ITS SECRETARY FOR 2006
  11. THE BACKPAGE: “HURTING YOU IS LIKE HURTING ME”
  12. CLOSING STUFF

  1. HEARD THE LATEST? CALEB PROJECT + ACMC = INITIATIVE360 — That’s right. Caleb Project is no more. ACMC a thing of the past. Save your books and conference brochures. They’re now collectors’ items. :-) Sell ’em on some eBay missions chat room somewhere. Make millions. Tithe to initiative360. That’s the new result. Greg + Brent equals “Take it Global”. That’s their website, in fact:

    http://www.takeitglobal.org

    As a partnership of members, Initiative360 will walk alongside churches on their missional journey with life-changing products, services, curriculum, and real-time experiences. Sounds like a perfect marriage of two top-notch organizations. We look forward to hearing more.


  2. THE GLORY STORY PROJECT — Here’s a DVD that tells the story from Genesis to Revelation in animation. The whole Bible story in 10 minute chapters, is told in just under two hours. Two Covenants, two DVD’s, one story, The Glory Story. These guys sent me samples of this product and, honestly, it’s a cool idea that you could use with children *and* adults. Pull the snippets for upcoming messages on practically any topic in the Word. Interested? Watch the film trailers at The Glory Story website:

    http://www.TheGloryStory.com

    They’ve also shared still pictures & text CD’s as well. With these, you tell the story personally. View all of the pictures at The Glory Story website.


  3. FREE SERVICES ABOUNDING ON THE NET — I’m kind of surprised by all the free services that are once again cropping up on the Internet. One of the columnists I read regularly was recently observing them: Mapquest, Google search, Google news, YouTube, Flickr, Putfile, Gmail, Skype, GTalk, jot, photobucket, … and the list goes on and on and on… How all these services sell enough ads to stay in business, I’ll never know. Maybe they don’t… in which case they end up getting bought out … or they start charging us someday, once we’re hooked. Either way, in the meantime, those of us who like a good deal should be able to find it out there online somewhere. Just be careful not to tie up a lot of your media without a backup. Someday we might try to access our stuff, only to find it’s vanished like a puff of smoke.

  4. INTERNET SEARCH WARNING TO WORKERS IN SENSITIVE COUNTRIES — [Thanks to the anonymous worker in an anonymous sensitive country who wrote, …] If you serve in a sensitive country, chances are you try to keep information about your work off the internet. So how would you know if some well-meaning church or organization is posting your newsletter on their website. Of course, you search the internet, right? WRONG! Every time you request info via a search engine you are again reminding that search engine that it needs to keep a history of whatever key words you are searching for. Even if you contact the offending website and get the original page deleted, the page lives on in the history of the search engine. You are in a catch 22 position. The more you do the searches, the more you are hurting yourself. Stop searching so that the history of these search engines will eventually “forget” you. Make sense? Don’t search!

  5. THE NAMA/DAMARA PEOPLE: “WE WANT TO LEARN” — Amanda, a 24-year-old Christian woman lives in Grunau, Namibia. She is a single, unemployed Nama. Although she is a member of a Lutheran church, the church does not reach to unsaved people. Amanda wanted to start a Bible study in her home, but the church did not encourage it, and she had no materials. While two Christian workers visited her, they shared and discussed the principles of Pioneer Evangelism and left tracts and Bible portions from the book of John for her to use. They prayed for her mother, who had been a church leader. In the final stages of AIDS, the older woman is no longer welcome at the church. Please pray for Amanda to be strong in her faith. Pray that she will continue to have courage to reach out to the unsaved and ostracized. Pray that the members of this church will come to know the true meaning of grace, peace and mercy that comes with having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Pray for continued teaching so these forgotten people will come to know the truth of God’s Word. Adopt the Nama/Damara people for prayer by visiting

    http://www.forgottenpeoples.info or email lynchdp(at)iafrica(dot)com [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .]


  6. PERSECUTED CHURCH ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT NETWORK ESTABLISHED — Responding to the serious, growing economic challenge for persecuted Christians, 16 leaders from 11 international organizations met recently in Atlanta to form the Persecuted Church Economic Development Network (PCEDN) to explore how the global church can assist fellow believers. In addition to discussing the status of the persecuted church, the group also agreed on broad definitions relating to micro-finance, sustainable small and large enterprise development, tentmaking and macro-economic conditions. Moreover, leaders identified critical roadblocks to economically helping the emerging, persecuted church. PCEDN Working Groups will address the need for sustainable economic develop models and standards for training and consulting with the emerging church. Plans are also underway for a PCEDN enewsletter and website. The next global meeting of the PCEDN will be held spring 2007 in Bangkok. For more information contact David,

    cdmustine(at)aol(dot)com [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .]

    The working consultation was developed and facilitated by visionSynergy

    http://www.visionsynergy.net


  7. WHY DID YOUNG ISAIAH FEEL GUILTY? — He tells us he saw the Lord, he heard angels calling to one another, he realized that he himself was ‘unclean’ in the presence of a holy God. So what happened next? To find out, go to

    http://www.easyenglish.info

    Click on “Choose a Bible book” and select Isaiah Unit 9 “The Problem of Guilt” by Raymond Brown is translated into EasyEnglish Level B (2800 word vocabulary) by Mary Read.


  8. GATHERING OF LATIN AMERICAN COMICS ARTISTS — COMIX35 is calling on all Christian cartoonists and comics artists from Central and South America to gather at this year’s combined Letra Viva Consulta and LITT- WORLD 2006 conference near Sao Paulo, Brazil from November 12 to 17. In addition to the opportunity for fellowship and discussion with other Christian comics producers, and to hear practical and inspirational talks by the LITT-WORLD speakers, attending artists will also meet many Christian writers, editors, and publishers.

    For information in Spanish on the LITT-WORLD 2006 event, go to

    http://www.littworld.org/LW06_spanish.htm

    Information in Portuguese on the LITT-WORLD 2006 event, go to

    http://www.littworld.org/LW06/lw06_bro_port.pdf

    To learn more about the work of COMIX35, visit their web site at

    http://www.comix35.org


  9. THE ZHUANG OF SOUTHERN CHINA — October 1st begins a month long prayer emphasis for the over 17 million unreached Zhuang of Southern China. They are the largest people group in the world without a Bible in their own language. Each month on the first is a time of prayer and fasting on behalf of Zhuang, but in the month of October each year there is a special emphasis. There is a full color prayer guide “31 Days for the Zhuang” available in several languages. The price is US $1 per book for one to fifty copies, after 50 copies it is sixty cents a copy and the postage charge to mail them. To be added to the list of those who are taking part, or to receive the prayer guide, write:

    zhuang(at)pobox(dot)com [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .]


  10. ONLY 3 MONTHS LEFT TO HELP BRIGADA PAY ITS SECRETARY FOR 2006 — If you were considering helping Brigada during 2006 but haven’t yet, now would be a *reeeeeeeally* good time. Only 3 months remain. Want to help underwrite this weekly newsletter for thousands of overseas readers who don’t have access to checking accounts or credit cards? If you subscribe to another magazine, consider donating the cost of a subscription . . . or give double, so you can pay someone else’s share too. Just click on “sponsor” in the top menu (to use PayPal or a 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. 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. In any case, thanks for considering Brigada in your estate giving, your monthly church missions fund, and/or your own personal giving for this calendar year.

  11. THE BACKPAGE: “HURTING YOU IS LIKE HURTING ME” — With 3 school shootings in 5 days, the USA is reeling as it seeks to come to grips with violence played out against its most vulnerable citizens — it’s young people. Our mission happens to be engaged in purchasing some gazebos for use as prayer shelters . . . and we’re buying the kits from a company in Pennsylvania with several Amish employees. Yesterday morning, I picked up the phone and called to let them know that, “If someone hurts one of your children, it’s like they hurt one of mine.” The owner of the company took time to talk to me for 20′, I bet. He had gone to school as a child just a mile from the site of the most recent shooting, a one-room schoolhouse in rural PA. He transferred my call to a sales rep who was having a hard time . . . and before the day was done, they asked my permission to have one of their delivery guys call me. He was on the road in Maine… unable to process and debrief the shootings with his colleagues back in PA. In the middle of our phone call, he broke down and cried at the prospect that a random guy in Louisville would express identification with him and his neighbors of a different faith.

    All of the above led me to conclude that we probably need to be more intentional about *empathy*. I mean… think about Jesus’ life: much of it was built around the concept of empathy. He walked our dusty paths, ate our food, was tempted with the same transgressions — yet remained sinless. Gave his life… rose again… so that in turn, we could empathize with Him in his struggle and victory.

    So maybe it’s a key principle of the Christian faith . . .and one that we should/could employ on a daily basis. With whom can you empathize today? How can you express it? Simple words and prayers might be enough. They seemed to work for a bunch of builders in Pennsylvania. But you could also choose greeting cards, flowers, visits, cookies, emails, phone calls, … the list is endless. Let’s practice empathy and walk dusty roads with someone who needs a friend — today.