Our dear partners,

Thank you for your faithfulness in prayer with us as we returned to serve in the Naskapi community at Kawawachikamach in Northern Quebec. We have had a good welcome over the past couple months, as we watched the end of summer fade through a sudden autumn as winter begins here in Schefferville. Our first blizzard was this past weekend, enough snow to shovel and plow.

I (Bill) have been working on some of the Naskapi language projects that needed more of our full attention, including the back-translation of the Old Testament Lessons, which we completed just last week in preparation for a checking session with a translation consultant.

Norma Jean has been very active in re-establishing relationships with friends in the community, and making many more new friends. Her roles include literacy and scripture engagement, and she tells of a continuing hunger for God’s word in the lives of the Naskapi people. She has been busy with books as she helps the Naskapi curriculum department to produce quality books that promote reading in the language.

And it has been our privilege to have our Elizabeth with us for these months–she has been involved in children’s groups at the school and has also worked illustrating a number of books for the Naskapi curriculum department. She was recently offered a full-time position at the school and she is grateful for God’s leading and provision for this will help her in paying off her (substantial) college debt.

We are on the train as I write this, coming south for a working trip for the next few weeks: Bill will be presenting a Naskapi linguistics paper at the Algonquian Conference in Montreal this weekend, and we will also be meeting with our field administrators there.

Then after a brief visit with family in Connecticut, we are going to help with a workshop for the Mi’kmaq translation team in Eskasoni, Nova Scotia on Cape Breton.

Following this, Norma Jean is participating in a workshop near Winnipeg to help learn how to apply the scriptures to some of the problems facing Native people in the north.

Then at the end of November we return to Schefferville where we will stay for Christmas.

Sadly, Beth will not be with us on this trip, since she will be working at the Naskapi school.

Thank you for your prayers for all of us as we travel and serve. We want to be sensitive to God’s continued leading wherever we go.

Blessings, Bill and Norma Jean

Jancewicz
Box 2363
Schefferville, Quebec G0G 2T0
CANADA

Our dear partners,

After some thousands of miles (Grand Forks ND, to Preston CT, to Rush NY, to Quebec City Quebec, to Sept-Iles Quebec, to Schefferville Quebec) we are home in our little house in Schefferville near the Naskapi community of Kawawachikamach.

We drove our car until arriving in Sept-Iles (7-islands), and then boarded a train after conducting some business transactions: We purchased a ’93 4×4 Toyota 4-Runner in fair condition (lots of rust and about 260,000 km on the odometer) to use as a vehicle here in the North. We loaded it with groceries and put it on the train.

Snow greeted us along the way: As the train rolled through Labrador the ground was completely snow-covered on August 27. Here in Schefferville some light snow remains on the hilltops, But the blackflies are still here (but not for long)!

But we are content to be here too. Bill has been in the translation office and the team seems eager to get moving on the language projects and translation checking. Norma Jean and Beth are making plans to complete their first Naskapi literacy book and start on some others. We still have firewood to gather and some outside work to do before winter REALLY comes.

The Internet service is intermittent here, so our replies by e-mail may be delayed by a day or more, but we do have a phone and the postal service is still reasonable. Here is our address:

Bill and Norma Jean Jancewicz (and Beth)
C.P. 2363
Schefferville, Quebec G0G 2T0 CANADA
phone: (418) 585-2664

Thanks for your prayers and partnership with us.

Serving with you, Bill and Norma Jean