20070415 Brigada Today

In this issue…

1. MICROFINANCE AND MICROENTERPRISE TRAINING
2. NEED A WAY TO SEND AND RECEIVE INTERNATIONAL SMSES?
3. SHORT-TERM MISSIONS WITHOUT LONG-TERM HARM
4. WHERE ARE THE BEST PODCASTS?
5. WHERE DOES A MOBILIZER LEARN TO MOBILIZE?
6. TIRED OF TYPING IN THOSE PASSWORDS?
7. NEW MERCY SHIP LAUNCHES: _AFRICA_MERCY_
8. FREE DOWNLOADS OF EVANGELISTIC MESSAGES IN 4140 LANGUAGES
9. NEED FREE VIRUS SOFTWARE? DON’T FORGET AVG
10. ENCOURAGING GIFTS ARE LIKE FUEL FOR THE FIRE
11. WITH BRIGADA, YOUR GIFT MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE
12. THE BACKPAGE: FINAL “COOL TOOLS” FOR TRAVEL & MISSIONS
13. CLOSING STUFF

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1. MICROFINANCE AND MICROENTERPRISE TRAINING — The “Principles and Practices of Christian Microfinance and Microenterprise Development” is a course conducted by the Chalmers Center. It gives an overview to microenterprise development and microfinance and orients you to the selection and design of a holistic intervention appropriate for your ministry context. The next email-based distance course will be offered on Sept. 28 – Nov. 16, 2007.

   The prerequisite for the course is called “Foundations and Principles of Holistic Ministry.” It lays the foundation for understanding appropriate goals and strategies for Christian economic development in poor communities. The next email-based course will be offered on Aug. 20 – Sept. 15, 2007.

   Both courses are guided reading programs that feature weekly reading and written (e-mail) assignments, peer-to-peer interaction with other course participants, and a lesson summary by the facilitator that reflects on the responses from the course participants. The microenterprise and microfinance course also includes the opportunity to receive individual responses from the facilitator. Because the courses are email-based, slow dial-up speed will not limit your participation. On average, you will spend 8-10 hours per week on course work. To register or to learn about group or Two-Thirds World discounts, visit

   http://www.chalmers.org

   When registering, use Reference Identifier BRN-05/07.

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2. NEED A WAY TO SEND AND RECEIVE INTERNATIONAL SMSES? — Try …

   http://www.ipipi.com

   It’ll act as a kind of “inbox” that merges with your traveler’s cell phone… and will often even work on prepaid cell phones when no other type of SMS will. Costs are reasonable, maybe as little as 10-15 cents each.

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3. SHORT-TERM MISSIONS WITHOUT LONG-TERM HARM — The Chalmers Center conducts an email-based distance learning course called “How to Do Short-term Missions Without Doing Long-term Harm.” It will be offered on Oct. 29 – Nov. 16, 2007 and a second time on March 10 – March 28, 2008. This course is designed for: 1) sending churches and denominations, 2) host churches and missionaries, 3) missions project leaders, and 4) missions team members. It provides an understanding of the issues surrounding the execution of short-term missions (less than one month) in the context of the socio-economic poor. The course presents frameworks for considering these issues so that you can maximize the benefits and minimize potential harm from your missions projects.

   The training is a guided reading program that features weekly reading and written (e-mail) assignments, peer-to-peer interaction with other course participants, and a weekly lesson summary by the facilitator that reflects on the responses from the course participants. Because the course is email-based, slow dial-up speed will not limit your participation. On average, you will spend 6-8 hours per week on course work. To register or to learn about group or Two-Thirds World discounts, visit

   http://www.chalmers.org

   When registering, use Reference Identifier BRN-05/07.

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4. WHERE ARE THE BEST PODCASTS? — Brigada participant, “Melissa”, wrote this past week wondering, ” I am looking for some good podcasts or online sermons on Missions. Do you know of any really great pastors, professors or speakers that are available through the web?” Rather than sending these to a person, let’s try to collect them together at Brigada Brigade. Just browse to:

   http://brigada.org/brigade/?p=3

   Find this item there and click “Comments” in the line immediately following the item. Add your URL in the text, making sure you type it correctly. Begin it with http:// just so the stars will align correctly. Let’s try this Brigada.org/brigade approach so everyone will get more real-time feedback on contributions to these compilations.

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5. WHERE DOES A MOBILIZER LEARN TO MOBILIZE? — Here’s a note from Wayne requesting locations for “Sales and Marketing Training”, as it relates to mission mobilisers. He says, “Any location would be considered.” To add your advice, or see feedback from others at Brigada Brigade, just click to:

   http://brigada.org/brigade/?p=4

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6. TIRED OF TYPING IN THOSE PASSWORDS? — I Like Roboform, but Robert sent this favorite to us this past week and, I’ll have to admit — the price is right! He suggests Keepass

   http://keepass.info/

   He says it’s “a great free little utility to help you keep track of all those internet passwords and id’s. It has room for notes, web page addresses, cut ‘n paste options, and an option to type both your user id. and password on the just-visited web page (it’s sooooo yesteryear to actually have to type your user id and password, don’t you think?).” :-) Well said, Robert. Thanks for the tip!

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7. NEW MERCY SHIP LAUNCHES: _AFRICA_MERCY_ — The newest Mercy Ship, “Africa Mercy”, sailed as planned on May 4th with plans for a brief stop in Rotterdam on her way toward life-changing surgeries, first in Monrovia, Liberia. Read more at

   http://www.mercyships.org

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8. FREE DOWNLOADS OF EVANGELISTIC MESSAGES IN 4140 LANGUAGES — Global Recordings Network (Gospel Recordings) has evangelistic messages in 4107 languages and dialects on mp3 files available for free downloading. See their web site at:

   http://globalrecordings.net/

   A total of 5649 languages and dialects now have their own recorded gospel message. These can be ordered by emailing to: Orderdept(at)GlobalRecordings(dot)net [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .]

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9. NEED FREE VIRUS SOFTWARE? DON’T FORGET AVG — Tired of pumping dollars into Symantec like quarters in a parking meter? Try AVG:

   http://free.grisoft.com/softw/70free/setup/avg75free_441a944.exe

   Some say it’s more or less equal to Norton Antivirus in some ways anyway. It’s certainly cheaper… and better than running nothing at all.

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10. ENCOURAGING GIFTS ARE LIKE FUEL FOR THE FIRE — Thanks to the Brigada participant from Kingdom Come Training who sent $20 this past week. He joins a partner from Chiang Mai who sent $10 and another partner from TalkBibles.org who sent $25. Thank you so much for the encouragement!

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11. WITH BRIGADA, YOUR GIFT MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE — Maybe to some, a gift of $25 or $50 would just be lost in the shuffle. To Brigada, it’s a breath of life. To breathe greater life into Brigada, just click “Sponsor/Donate” 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. (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.

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12. THE BACKPAGE: FINAL “COOL TOOLS” FOR TRAVEL & MISSIONS — In previous issues, we’ve listed these tools:

    #1: Beat jet lag (Sleep E., Party W., Gear up to sleep, Herd your kids) #2: Get your own mosquito tent (for malaria-infested areas) #3: Insist on AC adaptors that don’t require converters/transformers #4: Rent or buy a “worldphone”, satphone, and/or sat modem #5: Pack by checklist, pack light #6: Use roller bags #7: Bring a filtered water bottle #8: Carry a thin notebook & a pen, write everything down #9: Use a money belt #10: Try a photographer’s vest #11: Stay healthy, but don’t become O.C. #12: Find a camera/kit you can truly *carry*, then *use* it #13: Pack modularly #14: Use passive noise-reducing earphones

    Today we’ll add, in our final installment of “cool tools” for travel and missions, …

    #15: Buy travel interruption insurance — The more complicated your itinerary, the more likely it is that there will be some kind of hiccup. You can buy travel interruption insurance from a number of sources, among which are…

    http://www.missionaryhealth.net/brigada.htm

    and

    http://www.gninsurance.com/brigada.asp

    Regardless of where you purchase it, it’s becoming more and more necessary these days. Security lines are longer, check-ins are more complicated, and connections are more harried. So do yourself a favor. It’s a small price to pay for a great reimbursement plan. Basically, no matter what you have to do, just make sure you keep your receipts and everything will be covered.

    #16: Grab a camel’s hair blower-brush to get rid of the dust — …from that laptop screen while you’re on the road. Any photography store should have them. It’s one of the only ways to clean that screen without risking scratches.

    #17: Carry an 8′ brown extension cord — File the widened ‘polarization tip’ off the one prong of the plug so it’ll plug into the 220 V. British (round prong) tip adaptor ok. Use the brown extension cord not only to bring the electric closer to you (in rooms that only have 1 plug for the whole room), but also to multiply the plug so you can charge your a) laptop, b) PDA, c) digital camera all from the same cord. Many rooms will have only one plug. You won’t want to have to decide which unit to charge.

    #18: Find a USB-cell-phone charger — Many makes of cell phones now sell chargers that plug into your laptop’s USB port, charging the cell phone or PDA throughout the night with a slow charge that should do the trick by morning. That way you save one entire slot in the brown extension cord. :-)

    #19: Take [thin] extra reading (including Bible) — It might be easy to forget in this day & age, seeing as how many of us take our laptops. But when those jets are taking off and landing, it helps to have a couple of copies of your favorite magazine for the times that they won’t let us fire up our laptops. Either way, we need access to a thin Bible or its equivalent for daily quiet time and teaching times anyway.

    #20: Finally, pick up an external hard drive to take along for daily backups. I like to buy a 80-100 gig laptop-size hard drive, then pick up a USB-powered travel case. There are zillions of choices. I like the one offered by

    http://www.newegg.com

    Search for product HD-201U2. New Egg has suitable hard drives too. Something like their “100GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache ATA-6 Notebook Hard Drive” for $109. $19 for the enclosure + $109 for the drive gives you $128 traveling 100 gig backup system, all in a portable format that’s so small and light, you’ll barely notice it in your checked bag. If your hard drive ever fails (like mine did while traveling overseas two years ago), you’ll be glad you’ve backed up.

    For now we’ll quit with those 20 tools. I’m sure you have others… but these should get you started. Besides… if we keep thinking up new tools to carry, there’ll be no space left for *you*! :-)