Tag Archives: Elizabeth

Summer Translation Brief

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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

Little Lost Caribou

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The newest edition in the Naskapi children’s book series has recently been published: “Little Lost Caribou” is a story of a little caribou as he tries to find his family. He is helped along the way by various animals that also live in Naskapi territory. A great book for children to learn through repetition. The story is by Norma Jean, with brilliant artwork by our daughter Elizabeth. The Naskapi translation was done by the translation team at the Naskapi Development Corporation. These books are published in two editions: One in “Naskapi only” (with an English translation at the end, in an appendix) and the other in a diglot, containing both the Naskapi and English text on the same page. Elizabeth and Eric have published the Naskapi and English version on their “Pocket Vinyl” publications page here: www.lulu.com/spotlight/pocketvinyl.

The Naskapi versions of the books that will be used in Naskapi homes and at Sachidun, the Naskapi Childcare Center, are available at this website: http://stores.lulu.com/naskapi, along with all the other Naskapi books that we have produced so far. Also at this website are the “Big Book” versions of these, 12″ x 12″ coffee-table sized books that are used by schoolteachers to read to an entire classroom of Naskapi children.

We are into our second week at SIL at the University of North Dakota: Norma Jean is director of childcare, Bill is taking courses toward his MA in linguistics and Jaiden is being a pre-schooler. Over 100 other students are here preparing themselves for cross-cultural language development work all over the world. Time to hit the books again.

Blessings, Bill & Norma Jean

Trip to SIL-UND

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Our Dear Partners,

We are boarding the train tomorrow to begin our summer journey SIL-UND*, where we will be serving/studying for 9 weeks again this summer. We will be driving, and along the way we have a stop in Connecticut (May 16-20) Houghton NY (21) and on the road to Grand Forks (May 22-26).

Bill & Norma Jean Jancewicz
c/o SIL-UND
2901 University Avenue Stop 8217
Grand Forks, ND 58202-8217 USA

(701) 777-0575 (SIL reception)
(701) 777-0586 (SIL administration)

e-mail as usual (bill_jancewicz@sil.org)

We just confirmed with Quebec social services that Jaiden, our 3-year-old Naskapi foster son is coming with us again this year. We are grateful to have him along.

There we will stay until the wedding (Elizabeth and Eric, July 16) and then back to the academics until August, when we will make our way back here, retracing our path.

That’s all for now. Please be patient with us, as I will not be checking e-mail as often, and Norma Jean won’t be updating facebook as regularly. But we would appreciate any prayers for protection, provision and care while we are covering all those miles.

Blessings, Bill and Norma Jean

*SIL still means “Summer Institute of Linguistics”, and UND is the “University of North Dakota”. Norma Jean will be coordinating the childcare services for the summer, and Bill will be part-time MA student and part-time assistant to the administrative director. We will both be full-time parents of a pre-schooler, too.