Brigada Today
14 of Feb., 1997

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Now with 4729 Participants - double the normal weekly growth rate from last week! Thanks to those who passed the word about Brigada! Please keep it up! Just 5 weeks left 'til we turn "2" [years old]! Can we hit 5000???? With no marketing dept. or budget, it's up to you! Thanks!

News and Notes about Brigada, Your Gateway to Missions Networking!
[Pass this issue to a friend! To subscribe, see instructions at end.]
Visit Brigada on WorldWide Web: http://www.xc.org/brigada

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In this issue....

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DON'T FORGET YOU CAN FAX FROM THE WEB!

This past week, we got mail from a Brigada reader in South Africa, wondering if it was somehow possible to fax from off the web. Don't forget about the two great services profiled in previous editions of Brigada Today! If you're a new reader, make sure you check out both options to figure out which one is best for you. Some will choose http://www.faxsav.com. (You can also use the old-fashioned telephone to call FaxSav Customer Service at +1 908 906 1555 from outside the US or at 1-800-909-0080 from inside the USA.) It's a great service. But the last time I checked it out, if you wanted to send a formatted page, you had to do it "live" over the web. There was no way to do it via email.

By contrast, I settled on http://www.faxaway.com/ (with customer service at +1-206-301-7000 outside the USA and 1-800-906-4329 within the USA). This service allows you to "attach" binary files from a dozen or so different applications that the Faxaway server "knows." When it receives your emailed attachment, it decodes it and faxes it immediately. You can set up your account with Faxaway in a matter of minutes and be doing quick faxes all over the world instantly! https://ronin.kallback.com/faxaway/applic.cgi lets you use a secure browser to do the account by credit card.) I think you can also email them at welcome@faxaway.com and they send you the necessary info.

These things are no-brainers to use, gang. Basically, you just compose an e-mail, then address and send that e-mail to (in the case of Faxaway, for example) FAXNUMBER@faxaway.com (country and city code included). When Faxaway receives your e-mail, it opens a telephone line to the fax machine that you designate, and sends the fax away, including whatever binary-encoded attachments you might have included (such as an Excel spreadsheet). Most faxes to the USA are 10-15 cents max - sometimes less- regardless of your point of origin around the world. Fantastic savings if you're faxing the USA from overseas. What's more, they buy up humongous overseas phone time, so even faxes to other countries are cheaper too. Worth checking out. Only downside is you don't get to stand there and watch the paper crawl through that little roller. (Rats What will you do with all that newly discovered spare time? - maybe play with your new copy of Encarta '97? :-))

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DO YOU NEED HELP MOBILIZING CHURCHES?

Lately, we've been taking a close look at TCMC (Training Church Mission Consultants), launched last year "to equip key church leaders, mission agency representatives and mobilizers to be more effective in assisting churches in their global vision." Apparently, via demonstration, instruction and practice, a participant learns, among other things, the five stages of consulting and how to use the "Global Access Planner" to help a church develop a strategic five-year plan. The training takes place in two phases, each lasting four days, and is limited to 25 people. During 1997, TCMC will be held four times (the first being in southern CA, March 9-12). After taking the training, Andy Rietveld of The Bible League says: "I think it was one of the best things I've ever done, tremendously valuable." David Jones of C&MA writes: "The TCMC workshop is the single most important source of training for mission mobilizers that I have encountered." For more information regarding TCMC, contact Larry Walker 102003.317@Compuserve.com or by phone (800-587-ACMC). I'm trying to get them to let me come to sample it... Let you know how I come out. :-)

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"DID YOU KNOW?" - FROM OUR UKRAINIAN CORRESPONDENT

This week's "amazing facts to know and tell" is a real doozey [Is that how you spell "doozey"?]. The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672. Can you believe it? The only continent with no permanent inhabitants and, compared to the USA, it has three times the number of digits in its international dialing code! :-)

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TOP LEVEL OPPORTUNITY TO LOSE AT TABLE TENNIS

Here's an ad I came across for those interested in opportunities to live and study in China: "July 3-23 we can take up to 200 college age young people to Guilin to Guangxi Teachers College for a cross-cultural program. Guanxi Education Commission is partnering with us to offer this program. For each American student we provide, a Chinese young person will be placed in the program. Most of the young people will come from the Zhuang, Dong, Yao, etc. minorities from that region. During the a.m. the U.S. young people will study Chinese language and culture while the minority youth study American culture focusing on English training. Afternoons will be spent competing in tennis, learning baseball, Americans losing in table tennis, etc. Evenings will feature performances. For $2700 the students receive credit, cruise up the Li River, visit the Great Wall, Tianamen Square, Forbidden City, terra cotta soldiers, and travel to and from LA to Beijing, enjoy living in a nice hotel and Chinese food. Interested young people should contact Dr. Treva Kay Gibson, 602-589-2808, 1-800-800-9776 ext 2808, tgibson@grand-canyon.edu. Reservations need to be made soon." For more info., contact Treva Gibson tgibson@grand-canyon.edu.
Treva, love the table tennis quip.

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DID YOU CATCH THE ENCYCLOPEDIA REVIEW IN PC MAGAZINE?

[][] Sorry to say, "Encyclopaedia Britannica on CD" scored only the honorable mention spot, when compared to Encarta '97. The former, however, came in first place with most articles (67,000), so if it's pure information you want, EB is probably the way to go - at $300. However, Editor's Choice was Encarta '97 Deluxe Edition ($80), with 31,000 articles. And when it came to media - like sound clips and video/animations, Encarta won hands down, with 2300 audio clips and 153 video segments. EB scores a disappointing zero on both counts. So if you missed the $79 EB sale, don't fret. Get the Editors' Choice for the same price! :-)

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"FCC WARNINGS" CONTINUE TO POUR IN

The "FCC warnings" (about local telephone fees) you might be getting in your in-box should subside soon, since feedback is due there within the next month. Jonathan Marsden, one of the top-ranking techs at Mission Aviation Fellowship's MAFxc, agreed with Brigada Today in its fear that the Internet community might be overreacting. He wrote, "The people to be angry with are the small phone companies who are trying to persuade the world the Internet costs them money, instead of taking advantage of the opportunity to offer high speed data communications to their customers that don't use analogue phone lines (POTS lines) at all!" Precisely. I saw the list of phone companies petitioning the FCC for the new fees. Yikes. What a shopping list! :-) Don't forget to check out http://www.xc.org/brigada/internettax.htm for some informative links. New one added just today. A primary deadline for "input" (which is probably not even needed) is already past... with the secondary deadline coming up on Monday, the 17th.

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"SODA[LITY]-CRACKERS"

Got a note this past week from the Director of Frontier Missions at YWAM's "Eastern Caribbean Centre for World Mission." Seems he's reviewing their operational structure there. He writes, "We have had input from a business paradigm, but want to receive input from a missions paradigm. Can anyone recommend to us any good articles, books, discussions re: the operational structure of sodalities/mission societies?" The frightening thing is - he's serious! :-) (There's got to be a dissertation here somewhere! :-) ) Anyway, if you can send Brian a soda- - I mean a sodality- - study, write him at hogan@sunbeach.net. (And with that domain, he might need a soda anyway. :-) ) Brian, when you're done, we're looking for an electronic summary back here at Brigada to post so the world can enjoy the soda-whatchamacallits you write about, eh? :-)

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HUB-CAPS

This past week, reader Roger Doriot asked us to provide "a succinct paragraph of what Brigada Today is." (Now there's an imponderable! What do you call a frontier missions journal that studies populations in Antarctica, profiles on-line encyclopedias, and reports on unreached peoples consultations all at the same time?) So - rather than try to write one ourselves, we grabbed a piece of mail that went floating out over the Internet this past week from a satisfied Brigada participant named Eric Derry, from Dayton, OH. He copied this paragraph to a ton of his email friends (as if to answer Roger) - (Thanks Eric!):

"I'm not sure how many of you have joined this excellent resourceful mission minded conference. If you already receive Brigada Today...then forward this to gobs of your friends, so we can make this great resource available to more of our Christian Friends. If you haven't joined the conference, I encourage you to try it out. You will get ONE message each week (normally Friday) with loads of useful, practical, information. It will contain hints, tips, insightful comments, progress reports, updates on missions stuff around the world, and it's FREE! Brigada Today has 4000+ subscribers right now. We would love to hit the 5000 mark before BRIGADA has it's 2nd birthday (March 21st)! And if you don't like it (I doubt it) you can always UNSUBSCRIBE! And did I say...IT'S FREE!?! No strings attached.

TO SUBSCRIBE TO BRIGADA TODAY, send email to hub@xc.org with only the following message:
subscribe brigada

TO UNSUBSCRIBE, send email to hub@xc.org with this line in the text:
unsubscribe brigada

You can also visit Brigada on the WorldWide Web: http://www.xc.org/brigada

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CHANGING ADDRESSES???

Please don't forget to unsubscribe before you unhook your old service. Once your service provider disconnects your previous address, our server lets Revis Ann Massey know! So every week, she does dozens of unsubscribes (especially from disgruntled AOLers! :-) )!! She handles all the "customer relations" for Brigada - as a volunteer! Between the role she serves on a church planting team in Miami, the classes she teaches, and the Spanish she's studying, we'd like to make her Brigada work as simple as possible. You can help! Use that "Unsubscribe brigada" command before you disconnect, then on your new service, just "subscribe brigada" all over again. Also, if you're on a LAN connection to the Internet and your network administrator wants to change your address or your addressing setup, again, make sure you "unsubscribe brigada" before the switch. Once you've changed addresses, it'll be too late. You lose. And so does Revis Ann!

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MAKE MILLIONS - WIN ZILLIONS

Caught your eye? This note caught mine this past week. Almost sounds too good to be true... so somebody needs to do this and then let us know if it worked! :-) "Know expats or nationals needing AND capable of a serious professional independent business as a matter of authentic presence in the marketplace for expats or as income source to enable nationals in ministry leadership? Because our business is in "stage two" of a global launch of a new service in the hospitality/tourism and the telecom industries, we have expat reps in the creative "hard" places on our biz visas - and nationals marketplacing the Gospel. Six month of VERY hard and concentrated, undivided work with any skill in marketing will lead to (very) high long term income. You or any missions-hearted, proven business performer you know in any country may want to contact me. I will provide Web site, ample details and "Stages to Agent Development" upon contact. gary@tayloredcomm.com. This weekend I start a 3-week Europe and N. Africa and Israel trip, could contact candidates enroute."
All right. Who's going to be our guinea pig. We'll expect a full report, okay? :-)

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FLASH! OPERATION WORLD RUSSIN' TO MARKET!

It's finally finished! Operation World in Russian is printed and, according to inside sources, it looks GREAT! For orders, you can contact Pasha Damyan at "Bibles for all," Shpalernaya 60, block 1, St. Petersburg, Russia. Tel: 812 271 9102, Fax: 812 127 8646. For more info., you could try emailing jane.barlow@ge.om.org.

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GLOBAL (WORSHIPFUL) GLIMPSE

Imagine being a Christian with no hymns, devotional books, or cultural Christian expressions. For many Christians in the 10/40 Window this is part of their daily existence. Author John Piper wrote, "Missions exists because worship doesn't." One cutting edge mission agency recently amended their policy that each church planting team should aim at recruiting a team worship leader not just to lead the team in worship but to help train musically gifted national believers to write indigenous worship material or lead indigenous worship. All across Central Asia indigenous worship songs are spreading among brand new churches.
(Sources: Caleb Project field reports and Let the Nations be Glad, John Piper, 1993, Baker Books)
Global Glimpse is compiled each week by John Hanna, Caleb Project, Littleton, CO. jhanna@cproject.com If you write him an encouraging note, make sure you tell him you saw his "glimpse" on Brigada. We get a $5 commission for every encouraging "customer" we send his way! (NOT!) :-)

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BACK IN ACTION!

The Brigada - Advance super-searcher is up and running. This feature of the Brigada web site, maintained by tried and trusted Brigada volunteer, Bob Mayhew, allows you instant access to megabytes of resources, quotes, over 400 pages of back issues, the works! Find it at the site... http://www.xc.org/brigada.

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STILL WORKING ON "MISSIONS IN THE BOOK OF ACTS"???

Interestingly enough, we got yet another request for workshop content this past week! Remember to send your "missions in the book of Acts" material to kronborg@centrum.dk. He's compiling the compendium for all to "get" here.

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WEBWATCH

Do you write HTML (the code language of the WorldWide Web)? I don't. I'm so thankful for Bob Mayhew, who has maintained our web page from its very beginning, in June, 1995. What a faithful friend. He gathers and compiles each Brigada Today into HTML code, then publishes it on the web for all to read, search, and see for months afterward.

But I'm learning. And new tools are helping all the time. Microsoft FrontPage '97 simplifies web-writing tremendously. Sausage Software's HotDog Pro is even more "technically aware." And now, with Microsoft Office '97, almost anyone can publish pages to the web, since WinWord and its sister apps. now has added "Save as HTML" to the File menu. So.. I've got tons to learn.. but check out http://www.teamexpansion.org for my quick and dirty "first attempts." I've got maybe 30-60 minutes invested in the whole site (I know, I know - you're going to say, "It looks like it!" :-) ), but try to stand back for a second and realize, if newbies like me can do this, what's the world coming to! :-) I mean..., this is...., to quote a famous philosopher, "a whole new world!" (who was that... oh yeah. Jasmine. :-)). Anyway, I know this WWW.com stuff is probably pelting us from all sides, but the ramifications are tremendous. Our mission used to spend $2000 per mailing for 24 pages of text to 13,000 people. It was newsprint. Mostly tossed, I bet. Now we'll be able to do full color graphics - and we're publishing a book on our site!!! (Resources for Missionary Recruits, chapter by chapter, beginning this week! Check it out!)
So... we're seeing a revolution unfold here, gang. Wake up and smell the coffee. The WorldWide Web is here to stay! You can order plane tickets at the lowest fares, download patches and updates for free, and even read Resources for Missionary Recruits, which is a sold-out no-longer-in-print book! So whoever said progress is painful should check out the web. It works.

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TO SUBSCRIBE TO BRIGADA TODAY, send email to hub@xc.org with only the following message:
subscribe brigada

TO UNSUBSCRIBE, send email to hub@xc.org with this line in the text:
unsubscribe brigada

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BRIGADA TODAY IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE FOLLOWING TEAM OF REGULAR VOLUNTEERS:

*Global Glimpses: John Hanna, Caleb Project, jhanna@cproject.com
*ADVANCE: Mark A. Kelley, Kainos Press, 70420.1057@compuserve.com
*Brigada Website: Bob Mayhew, Brigada Volunteer, mayhew@xc.org
*Technical Development: Jonathan Marsden, MAFxc jonathan@xc.org
*Brigada Customer Service Manager: Revis Ann Massey, RevisAnnMassey@xc.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!

14 of Feb., 1997

"If you've been asked to lead, you've been asked to serve."
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