Wednesday Potpourri

** Foreign Service Institute Language Courses
Breathefire posts about original texts and audio files from the Foreign Service Institute language courses - used at one time to train government employees in foreign languages. The courses are now public domain information so it is okay that the courses are online.

Available Languages:
Cantonese
Mandarin
French
German
Greek
Portugese
Serbo-Croatian
Spanish
Turkish
http://fsi-language-courses.com/

** 10,000 new churches in the US?
Steve Addison posts about US church planting trends versus population growth.

Just to keep up with the current US population growth between 2000 and 2004, 10,000 more new churches were needed.

It's an interesting dynamic to keep these statistics in mind as well as compared around the world - like an estimated 1.25% of Christian mission giving is going to missions work in the 10/40 Window, and ninety-seven percent of the world's trained youth workers - mostly from the US I would suspect - live and work in the United States, ministering to less than 3% of the world’s youth population.

** Global Startup Ideas

1. Build cheap Wi-Fi networks for Brazilian resorts.
2. Become a biodiesel producer in Argentina.
3. Create an ad network for India's mobile content developers.
4. Launch an exclusive social network for Russian millionaires.
5. Open an American-style restaurant in one of China's fast-growing cities.
6. Remodel homes for China's burgeoning middle class.
7. Flip mining claims in Bolivia.
8. Export the planet's next great wines - from Greece.
9. Import fine wines to upscale restaurants - in India.
10. Export gourmet coffee from Rwanda.
11. Become a social entrepreneur in South Africa.
12. Be among the first to invest in the new Libya.

The cover story from the August issue of Business2.0. #2 and #5 sound awesome to me.

** Water Statistics

- $46 billion - Amount spent per year globally on bottled water
- $1.7 billion - Amount needed per year beyond current spending to provide clean drinking water to everyone on earth
- More than one billion - Number of people worldwide who lack reliable access to safe drinking water
- 80 - Percentage of world illnesses due to water-borne diseases

The full post from the Defeating Global Poverty blog