Bill & Norma Jean Jancewicz

Tentmakers

Northern Translation Brief 09Apr2014

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Bill Jancewicz

Our Dear Partners,

Even though we are still living here in Aldergrove, BC where Norma Jean is working hard on her MA studies, we are still working with the Naskapi translation team in Kawawachikamach.

The celebration of resurrection day is nearly here, and this year marks a special Easter for the Naskapi community. We have completed the final book in the Walking With Jesus series, ᒋᓴᔅ ᑲ  ᐅᓂᔅᑲᑦ The Resurrection of Jesus, printed and delivered in time for Easter at Kawawachikamach.

The Walking With Jesus series was a literature promotion and scripture translation initiative sponsored by the Bible Society in the early 1990s, that consisted of a series of six booklets containing scripture portions from the Gospels that could be translated “shell-book” style for multiple languages and produced at lower cost because of the volume printed. The Walking With Jesus series played an instrumental role in the establishment of the Naskapi language project for Bible translation in 1993, and books 1, 2, 5 and 6 were completed at that time. These were the first books ever published in the Naskapi language.

George Guanish working on the Walking With Jesus books in Bill’s office in 1993

For various budgetary and human-resource reasons, in the middle 1990s the project was set aside by the Naskapi Development Corporation (NDC), in order to focus on pursuing other language development projects. Still, the booklets that were produced found a niche readership within the Naskapi community, and were distributed through the NDC, the church, the school and the local store. Meanwhile, as we slowly moved ahead with other language development and translation projects locally, the Bible Society discontinued the production of more booklets in the series. Consequently, books 3 and 4 were not completed.

Fast-forward to 2007, and the dedication of the Naskapi New Testament: The Bible Society partnered with the Naskapi Development Corporation for the publication of this truly significant book. You were there to share the excitement with the community on September 16, 2007, when the Naskapi population at large was introduced to a book that they valued greatly, and were just starting to appreciate just how much it meant to them. This marked the beginning of a period of deepening community interest in Naskapi literacy, language development, education and literature. Several NDC projects in partnership with the Naskapi school, daycare, and church were initiated at this time that resulted in the acceleration of the release of book titles being produced and read in Naskapi in the community. The Naskapi community needed books, and they needed good books, and right away, too.

So the Translation and Linguistics Services Department at NDC revived the “Walking With Jesus” project, and entered into a special agreement with the Bible Society to produce the “missing volumes” in the series: Books 3 and 4, the “Parables” and “Teachings” of Jesus.

Books 3 and 4 finished in 2010

In June of 2010, we signed an agreement with the Bible Society for the use of the Illustrations in the Walking With Jesus Series, and work begun on completing the series that was begun 17 years earlier.

Thanks to the advent of “print-on-demand” publishing services, our tiny department now had the resources it needed to produce bookstore-quality resources in small quantities needed for the Naskapi community. Also at this time, Norma Jean Jancewicz completed a literacy course at SIL at the University of North Dakota, and immediately applied what she learned to the production of quality literacy materials for Naskapi children at the Naskapi childcare centre and at the school. Also, now that the New Testament was completed, our department could focus on Old Testament readings and work towards the completion of the complete set of Sunday lectionary readings with the local Naskapi Anglican church.

But it was the inspiration that was directly related to the Walking With Jesus series that had one of the most significant impacts in our community. Kyle, the young grandson of Ruby Sandy-Robinson, the Administrative Director of the Naskapi Development Corporation, was heard at home reading from Book 3 of the Walking With Jesus series in Naskapi. Ruby was so moved and inspired by the fact that her grandson could read the story of Jesus in his own language (having learned to read through the result of the

Kyle Shecanapish reading “The Good Samaritan” in Naskapi

Naskapi curriculum program at the school) that she also was encouraged to increase her own efforts to learn to read her own mother tongue better. She says that her own desire and subsequent ability to read the scriptures had their foundation in her late father, Deacon Joseph Sandy, reading the Cree scriptures to the family when she was a girl–but it was her own grandson reading in Naskapi to her that helped her realize that being able to read the scriptures herself in her own language were indeed a blessed possibility. She actively encouraged the Translation and Linguistics Services Department at NDC to not only complete the two “missing” Walking With Jesus books, but to also complete a revision and re-issuing of the entire Walking With Jesus series in Naskapi. Here is a video of Kyle reading, which has been such an inspiration to his grandmother Ruby (and others) in the Naskapi community:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vimqT144lg

So over the past three years, we have made steady progress on the publication and review of the complete set of the Walking With Jesus books in Naskapi. These books have become a centerpiece of literacy education in the Naskapi language, being used at home and in the school, and have also been used in several adult-literacy initiatives over the past several years.

Serving with you, Bill and Norma Jean Jancewicz

Northern Translation Brief: First Nations in Canada

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Bill Jancewicz

Our Dear Partners,

As you are all aware, the Naskapi Bible translation project is just one of dozens of languages across Canada still spoken by First Nations people. Some are so closely related to Naskapi that we understand them and they understand us very well–such as the Mushuau Innu in Natuashish, Labrador or the Northern East Cree at Whapmagoostui on Hudson Bay. Still, there are many other communities across the north part of Canada clear west over to the Rocky Mountains where there are people who speak related dialects that are like each other but less and less like Naskapi.

Some of these languages have had a long history of Bible translation work in them, like Plains Cree, Moose Cree, Montagnais, Atikamekw, Algonquin, and Southern East Cree, with translated New Testaments or whole Bibles in those languages.

Some of these languages have work going on by our contemporaries and colleagues even now, and people who have waited for many years are just hearing the gospel in their own mother tongue for the first time.

Yet still some speakers of these languages are still waiting for translations in their own mother tongue.

This week, we have an opportunity to meet and discover how God is at work in many of these communities across Canada, and how we might be used to help all of the First Nations language speakers in Canada to have adequate access to God’s Word. Representatives from the Canadian Bible Society, our own field director, and other interested parties will be meeting together with us all day on Thursday at CanIL (the Canadian Institute of Linguistics) here in British Columbia to:

Pray together
Share how God has been at work in the existing projects we have all been involved in
Look at the big picture of how God is at work in all the other language communities in Canada
Discuss how we may be used by God in our partnerships together with the Bible Society, SIL/Wycliffe, and the First Nations communities that are still waiting for God’s word in their mother tongue, and continue to help the Naskapi with their goals

On Friday, Bill and Norma Jean will be meeting with our field director to pray and discuss our ways we can work to best meet the language development needs of many communities including and beyond Naskapi.

On that same day, Bill and Norma Jean will be celebrating the work that God has done in the Naskapi project with a presentation to the entire staff and student body at CanIL, and challenging them to consider how they might be involved in the work that remains in Canada in the future.

Later that day, we will join our field director meeting with some of the linguistics students who have expressed an interest in First Nations language work in Canada. Maybe God will use some of them to join us in the work.

You can pray with us,

that we will be sensitive to God’s Holy Spirit as we meet together this week,
that God will continue to work in the hearts of First Nations communities who we would partner with to do translation work,
that God would open our eyes so that we can see where the fields are ripe,
that He might send more workers into His harvest field here among the First Nations languages of Canada that are still waiting to hear the Good News in their heart language.

Serving with you,
Bill and Norma Jean

Translation Brief 19Nov2013 “FAQ”-3

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Bill Jancewicz

Our dear partners,

This is the third follow-up to answer Frequently (F) Asked (A) Questions (Q). Thank you for your response to FAQ-1 and FAQ-2, and for the great questions that you have asked to keep this going!

Another question that (understandably) many people are thinking about is:

(3) “So… what about the Naskapi Translation?

The short answer is that it’s “still going on”… and more of us are sharing the load.

Most of you will remember the remarkable story of “The Fantastic Four”, describing the new “Naskapi Language Specialists-in-training” that were recruited, hired and trained by Bill to work at the Naskapi Development Corporation. They are all young (in their 20s) and enthusiastic about their work, and each one has taken on the translation of an Old Testament book of the Bible in Naskapi. They are following a training plan in which they study translation principles, Naskapi history and culture, history and geography of Bible times, and Naskapi grammar, along with practice in using some of the computer technology that has been set up so that they can type in Naskapi and organize and edit their work.

Amanda is assigned to the book of Joshua, Kissandra is working in 1 Samuel, Kabimbetas is working on 1 Kings, and Medora will be starting on 2 Kings soon. These are all stories of the history of God’s relationship with Israel.

In addition, Tshiueten, who has worked as a Naskapi translation intern now for about 3 years, has made significant progress through the book of Exodus, the “prequel” to all those stories, the beginnings of the nation of Israel.

Silas is still the senior translator, and besides his own work on the Psalms and his service as deacon at the church, he reads through and revises the work of the younger translators.

Bill interacts with the team several times each week, answering questions and teaching sections of their training plan, and also mentors and guides them into the correct spelling and other translation procedures. But they are gaining experience and their enthusiasm at the translation office at Kawawa is an encouragement to all their co-workers.

Also, our friend Rene Labbe, a former pastor from Quebec City now works as a science teacher at the Naskapi school. He comes by each week to present an inductive Bible study on the period of history and the books of the Old Testament that they are working on. We are so grateful for his involvement with the translation team.

The very first books of scripture that were translated in the 1990s, the “Walking With Jesus” series, have met an important need for beginning and intermediate readers of Naskapi. These are transitional readers that have large print and colorful illustrations, comprising six short (32 page) books that contain highlights of the life of Christ. These have recently been completely revised and the last book of the series “The Resurrection of Jesus” is in the final checking stages. These books make reading the Bible familiar and accessible to children and adults who are motivated to learn to read in their own language. The local radio station also plays audio-book versions of these that Bill produced as MP3s.

The books of Naskapi Lectionary readings, the cycle of readings that are read each Sunday in the Naskapi church, have been through one complete three-year cycle as of the end of this month. Bill worked with Silas to revise and correct the “Year A” book over the past several weeks, and it is now ready for it’s re-release for the first Sunday of Advent this December 1.

The first book of the Naskapi Legend series, “Kuihkwahchaw: Naskapi Wolverine Stories” was completed this summer, and Bill is working with the translation team and consultant linguists to prepare the second book, “Chahkapas”, which will be completed early in 2014. These books not only provide good quality reading material in Naskapi, but also give a glimpse into the traditional storytelling genres that is such an important part of Naskapi culture. These two latest books, along with several others were illustrated by our daughter Elizabeth, and we have hopes that she will continue to be invited to participate in the development of these literacy materials. While the main location these books are distributed is at the Naskapi Development Corporation office in Kawawachikamach, anyone can find them on-line as well at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/naskapi.

Even though Bill keeps pretty busy with his other work [link] our time in British Columbia is giving him some of the margin he needed to bring some Naskapi linguistics and documentation projects further along, like the Naskapi dictionary, grammar, toponyms (names of places in Naskapi territory), maps, the Naskapi Hymnbook revisions, the Book of Common Prayer in Naskapi, and archiving. We are encouraged that there is now a growing staff of Naskapi-speaking language specialist who are gaining some of the skills they need to carry on this work themselves.

Thanks for your prayers for them, and for us.
Serving with you, Bill and Norma Jean

Northern Translation Brief 20April2013

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Bill Jancewicz

God is doing lots of good things here in Kawawa this spring, I just want to highlight a couple of them. Back in February, I received some remarkable news from the directors of the Naskapi Development Corporation (NDC), where I have been working with Silas over the past two decades plugging away at Naskapi Bible translation, and other Naskapi language development projects (New Testament, Naskapi children’s books, church lectionary readings, Naskapi dictionary… such things).
The directors decided that to better serve the community, they should increase the translation staff–they decided to quadruple it!–and so, I was invited to recruit and hire persons for two to four new “Naskapi Language Specialists-in-training” positions to continue the Naskapi translation work beyond the projects we already have underway. So, in February, we posted the positions, that carry a modest (for Kawawa) salary, but include the possibility of becoming a life-changing career for the recruits with “the right stuff”. On the last week of the posting, I interviewed four bright young Naskapi people: two women and two men, all of them between the ages of 25 and 30.
After testing their baseline skills in Naskapi, I prayerfully decided to hire and train all four of them, and began to work with them at the office on March 1.
Since then, Amanda Swappie, Kabimbetas Noah Mokoush, Jimmy D. Shecanapish and Kissandra Sandy-Dominique have made tremendous progress surviving my instruction and applying themselves with daily practice, as they are learning to read Naskapi fluently, type and transcribe Naskapi syllabics into the computer, learn the various computer-based translation tools that help us today in language work (parallel Bible tools, dictionary and digital audio tools, commentaries and grammars), and study the structure of the Naskapi language.
The NDC office has been regenerated with the youthful enthusiasm of these new recruits, and we have started to refer to them as the “Fantastic Four“. They are learning to work both as a team and independently, and have improved on many levels during their current probationary period of employment.

For the first three weeks of April, I was once again given the wonderful opportunity to serve as the guest instructor for the Naskapi-McGill teacher training program, teaching another section of the Naskapi Language Foundations course (Naskapi IV) to the cohort of about a dozen undergrad Naskapi students enrolled in the McGill University program. I was able to bring the “Fantastic Four” with me into the classroom to audit the grammar and literacy training that is being provided to this bright group of students.
And now, this week each of the “Four” will be starting on the adventure of translating a portion of the Old Testament into Naskapi–they are each beginning on a different “historical” book (Joshua, 1 & 2 Samuel, and Kings), which, Lord willing, they will all be working through for the long-term, as they continue to learn the skills and art of crafting a translation of the Bible into their own mother tongue.
All this while at the same time I am in “thesis mode” as work through the write-up of my own MA in linguistics final project. Our plans are to leave Schefferville at the end of this week as we begin to make our way over to SIL at the University of North Dakota where I am scheduled to defend my thesis this summer. If a candle had more than two ends I guess I would be burning those as well.
But I am so deeply grateful for the privilege of working with our new “Naskapi Language specialists-in-training” (the Fantastic Four) as well as the Naskapi-McGill teacher-training class. Seeing God at work in the lives of so many people here in the Naskapi community is exciting and humbling at the same time.
We know that you will want to remember to pray for each of them by name, but even if you can’t remember their names, just bring the Fantastic Four working on the Naskapi Old Testament to the Lord, and He’ll know who you are asking about. Remember us too, as we have many thousands of miles to travel in the next month or so (and all the loose ends to take care of, and a thesis to write…)

Serving with you, Bill and Norma Jean

Northern Translation Brief: Naskapi Genesis Dedication

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Bill Jancewicz

On Sunday, 17 February 2013, the Naskapi community celebrated during the dedication of the translation of the book of Genesis in Naskapi. This dedication was held during the Sunday morning services at St. John’s Anglican Church. Rev. Martha Spence led the congregation in thanks to God for the many years of work by the Naskapi Development Corporation (NDC) translation team that brought this portion of God’s Word into the hands of the Naskapi community in their own language.

Silas Nabinicaboo, who was recently ordained a deacon at the Naskapi church, has served as the lead translator on this project since it was started in 1996. At that time, his salary was completely funded by donations from interested individuals and churches who partner with us for Bible translation. After a the first few years, however, Silas was invited by the NDC board of directors to continue work as a full-time employee as they realized the importance of Naskapi Bible translation as one of the core activities related to Naskapi language development.

The cover design of the books was inspired by the hand-painted caribou-skin ceremonial coats that were made and worn long ago by ancestors of the Naskapi. The Genesis books were printed in two sizes: standard 6″ x 9″ size for general reading and use in church, and “large print” 8″ x 10″ size for distribution to elders, use on the pulpit, and anywhere where large print text would make reading easier. Both sizes are available in library-quality hardcover or paperback. The NDC presented a gift copy of a large print edition to each Naskapi elder household. The remaining books are available for sale to the general public at the NDC office at Kawawachikamach; $20 buys a hardcover book in either large print or regular size. Paperback versions are $10.

Outside Kawawa people can order their copies online here:

Regular size hardcover, large print hardcover, regular size paperback, large print paperback.

During the service, the books were displayed on the platform at the front of the church and all those assisting in conducting the service gathered around the books to pray God’s blessing on all who would read His word from them in the years to come. After the prayers, gift editions were given to all the elders who could be present at the service.

Following the service, a community feast was held in the church basement. We are grateful for God’s faithfulness and the prayers and generous support of all our partners that has made this milestone possible.

You can read a related article on the Naskapi News website here.

Final volume of the Naskapi 3-year Lectionary published

Posted on November 23, 2012 by Bill Jancewicz

Advent 2012 begins “Year-C” of the Revised Common Lectionary, the collection of Sunday Bible readings that are used in the Naskapi church. You may remember that the “Year-A” book came out almost two years ago now (the blue book) and the church has been using the “Year-B” book (the red book) for the past fifty-one weeks. Over the past several months we have reviewed and revised the remaining Old Testament verses that are contained in the “Year-C” book, and we have just printed sixty copies for distribution. On November 23 another prayer was answered: All the boxes of Year-C books arrived in Kawawachikamach in time for the first Sunday of Advent, which is December 2 this year!

Each Sunday morning, a selection from the Old Testament is read (generally somewhere between 8 and 30 verses), followed by a Psalm; then the New Testament readings: a selection from the Epistles and a passage from the Gospels. The three-year lectionary cycle is used by many denominations of the church, in which Scripture readings are arranged according to a schedule that follows the calendar of the year. This practice of assigning particular readings to each Sunday and Holy day has continued through the history of the Christian church. During the course of three years, more than seven thousand verses are read aloud to the congregation, a total that represents almost one-quarter of the Bible.

Like the other volumes of the lectionary, these books are being published and distributed by the Naskapi Development Corporation. People can drop by the office in Kawawachikamach anytime to purchase their own copy for just $10. The books are printed in diglot; that is, with the Naskapi text along side the English on each page. Readers simply look up the current Sunday in the index and turn to the appropriate page.

Anyone outside of Kawawachikamach can order this book (and many other fine Naskapi books) from the Naskapi Resources page of the Lulu website, at this address: www.lulu.com/spotlight/naskapi. The Year C volume is a perfect companion to Year A and Year B.

Even though the Year C volume completes the series, the Naskapi Development Corporation translation and language services department continues to actively review and revise these readings each week as they are read at church, and plans to publish updated versions during the coming three-year cycle. The latest volume would make a perfect Christmas gift for any of your Naskapi family or friends.

There are several more Naskapi publication projects nearing completion in the coming months. We are currently working on the final check of a proof of the entire book of Genesis in Naskapi that should be completed in the coming weeks Lord willing, followed by the 2013 Naskapi Scripture calendar, a new Naskapi children’s book, the first book of Naskapi legends featuring Kuîhkwâhchâw (Wolverine), and the final book in the Walking With Jesus series of Bible stories on the life of Christ.

We want to thank you for your interest and support for all of these Naskapi language projects.

Serving with you, Bill and Norma Jean

Northern Translation Brief 26Sep2011

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Benjamin Jancewicz

Our Dear Partners,
We would like to thank you for your prayers for us as we traveled to the Mushuau Innu community of Natuashish on the Labrador coast. We are very happy to report a good trip, a warm welcome, and many good and positive contacts with regard to helping the Mushuau Innu language community to take some steps towards building capacity to start a local translation project into their dialect. The Naskapi Mother-Tongue Translators who work with us at Kawawachikamach, Phil, Silas and George, were very encouraging to their Mushuau Innu speaking counterparts at Natuashish. Indeed, speakers from the two communities, Naskapi and Mushuau Innu, have very little difficulty in understanding each other’s speech.

Naskapi MTTs and the Mushuau Innu chief and deputy

We met with the Mushuau Innu leadership at their council office, including the chief, Simeon Tshakapesh, and the councillor in charge of education, Simon Pokue. We also spent time at the Natuashish school, and made some important contacts there for Innu language literacy and helping to establish consistency in spelling.

We discussed the possibility of Bible translation work with Sister Sheila, who serves the parish church at Natuashish, and also with Cajetan Rich, who serves in the church as one of the Innu language lay-readers. Cajetan helped us with a draft publication of a church book, providing us with recommended spelling changes and revisions.

We are grateful for hospitality and assistance from workers with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland and Labrador, who serve the community by hosting a Sunday School and the school breakfast program. We were provided with an excellent opportunity to meet with the Hon. Peter Penashue, the first Innu Member of Parliament, who was visiting in the community at the time.

Meeting with Hon. Peter Penashue MP

Finally, representatives from the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) were in Natuashish meeting with local leadership, and they took the time to also meet with us to learn about how language-based development work has benefited the Naskapi community, and how it could also be applied in the Natuashish community.

To top it all off, back at Kawawa three days after getting back ourselves, we were unexpectedly visited by an entourage from the Natuashish community: The Mushuau Innu band council chartered two aircraft and flew direct from Natuashish to Schefferville with 28 visitors, including their chief and deputy, some elders and youth, and various other leaders in their community. They toured the Naskapi community, got re-acquainted with relatives, and met with the Naskapi translation department where we work on Bible translation. They were very interested in learning from the Naskapi team how they might establish a similar initiative in their own community.

Monique Rich and Norma Jean

Now that we are back here in Kawawa working on Naskapi Old Testament and literacy, and the Mushuau Innu have gone home to Natuashish, we are looking forward to seeing what God is going to do in both communities.

Thank you for continuing to pray for both of these communities, their response–and ours.

Serving with you, Bill and Norma Jean

Northern Translation Brief 06Sep2011

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Benjamin Jancewicz

Our Dear partners,

We are preparing for our second trip to the Mushuau Innu community of Natuashish on the Labrador coast. As most of you remember, this community is closely related to the Naskapi in the interior; in fact their recent ancestors were the nomadic caribou-hunting families of the barren grounds of what is now Quebec and Labrador. Some of these families centered their trading around Kuujjuaq (Fort Chimo) near Ungava Bay and the rest were settled around Utshimassits (Davis Inlet) on the Labrador coast, since the early 1900s.

The Fort Chimo group moved to the Schefferville region in 1956, and they are now the Naskapi of Kawawachikamach.

The Davis Inlet group relocated to Natuashish, a new community built on the mainland in 2002.

The Mushuau Innu community is well known in Canada because of widely publicized social problems:

Because of their shared history, the Naskapi language spoken where we work in Kawawachikamach is very close to the speech variety spoken in Natuashish. But there are significant differences that developed over the past 100 years due to contact with outsiders:

The Naskapi live in Quebec, the Mushuau Innu live in Labrador
The Naskapi live inland, the Mushuau Innu live on the coast
The Naskapi write in Canadian Syllabics, the Mushuau Innu write in a Roman orthography
The Naskapi are Anglicans, the Mushuau Innu are Catholics
The Naskapi are in the Quebec school system, the Mushuau Innu are in the Newfoundland school system

In the spring of 2008 we tried to take a trip to Natuashish, but we were hindered by foggy weather on the coast.

Bill and two other Naskapi colleagues made it there in April of 2010 for a four-day visit.

Bill and Norma Jean will be leaving Friday, 9 September with his co-worker (and former Naskapi chief) Phil Einish, and mother tongue translators Silas Nabinicaboo and George Guanish.

For an interactive Google Map (zoom in and see the Natuashish village) try this link:

On Friday we are scheduled to fly south to Wabush, in western Labrador, and then east to Goose Bay in central Labrador. Sunday, 11 Sept we are scheduled to fly north to Natuashish on the coast, spending five days there before returning back the way we came starting Friday, 16 Sept.

The goals of this trip include presenting the possibilities of a community-based language development project that would include scripture translation into the Mushuau Innu language for Natuashish.

Thanks for your prayers for good contacts, travels, and outcomes.

Pray for us: “that our love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that we would be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God.” Phil. 1:9

(The apostle Paul expresses it better that I can.)

Serving with you, Bill and Norma Jean

Summer Translation Brief

Posted on July 31, 2011 by Benjamin Jancewicz

Our dear Partners,

Greetings from the University of North Dakota where we have been living and working for nine weeks this summer. Bill is enrolled in an MA program in linguistics at the graduate school here, and Norma Jean is serving as the program’s Director of Childcare. Jaiden is still with us and keeping us on our toes as we serve him and his family as his Foster Parents.

By mid-August, we will be on our way back to the Naskapi community in Northern Quebec where we continue to serve their translation and language project.

Some important milestones for our family this summer: We gained a son-in-law at the beautiful wedding of our daughter Elizabeth to Eric Stevenson on July 16 at our home church in Connecticut. It was a wonderful, happy day and God has answered so many of our prayers.

Eric and Elizabeth will make our house in Preston their new home as they begin their lives together.

Bill has made good progress on his Master’s degree in linguistics–Lord willing, two more summers of university work should allow him to complete the program. Meanwhile, the rest of the year we will continue to work on the Naskapi and other related language projects.

This summer Nick also completed his State GED, earning his diploma. We are grateful to all our friends who supported him as he reached this goal. We are proud of him and eager to see how God will continue to lead him in his life.

Finally, in the past few months we have completed some important publication goals for the Naskapi project: The first edition of the Naskapi Lectionary Readings (Year A) which contain a considerable portion of Old Testament Lessons in Naskapi, was published in time to be used in the Naskapi Church at Easter. Also, Norma Jean and Elizabeth collaborated on another Naskapi literacy book “Little Lost Caribou”, which was published simultaneously in Naskapi and in English by Eric and Elizabeth under “Pocket Vinyl Productions”.

In spite of the busy summer, it has been a joy see all our children and our grandchildren again. Ben and Tamika are still in Baltimore with their children Nya and Arion, and Nick is staying in Preston with Eric and Elizabeth.

Serving with you, Bill and Norma Jean

Naskapi Lectionary Dedication

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Benjamin Jancewicz

On Palm Sunday, 17 April 2011, St. John’s Anglican Church Kawawachikamach conducted a dedication service for their new lectionary books.

Naskapi Lectionary Year A

A lectionary is a collection of Bible readings to be read to the faithful during the worship of God. Lectionaries have been used since the fourth century, where major churches arranged the Scripture readings according to a schedule which follows the calendar of the year. This practice of assigning particular readings to each Sunday and Holy day has continued through the history of the Christian Church.

Since the 1990s, the Naskapi Development Corporation (NDC) has assisted St. John’s Church, Kawawachikamach with the selection, translation and production of these lectionary readings in the form of a Sunday church bulletin of readings. They were guided by the Revised Common Lectionary, which is the pattern used by the Anglican Church of Canada and many other denominations around the world.

The lectionary provides a three-year pattern for the Sunday readings. Each year is centered on one of the synoptic gospels. Year A is the year of Matthew, Year B is the year of Mark, and Year C is the year of Luke. John is read each year, especially in the times around Christmas, Lent, and Easter, and also in the year of Mark, whose gospel is shorter than the others.

While the Naskapi New Testament has been in use in the community since it was dedicated in 2007, this event is significant because it represents the the first significant portions of the Old Testament available in the Naskapi language.

Also, this lectionary book provides the Bible readings for each Sunday in both Naskapi and English together on the same page. Not only will this help Naskapi people engage with God’s Word each week, but will also be an aid to those who are still learning to read in their own language. We are grateful to God for the privilege of having a part in bringing this new book to the community, and thankful to all of you who helped this come about.