Our Dear Partners,

It has been good to settle into a routine of work and support for the translation projects since having our grandchildren with us for an extended visit over the holidays. Norma Jean is on the home stretch for her grad program assignments, and the translators in northern Quebec (Naskapi) northern Ontario (Oji-Cree) and  Saskatchewan (Plains Cree) are all back to work on their translation projects after the holidays. In fact, the Oji-Cree translators took advantage of their holiday “break” to get even more done on their Bible translation goals, and that was a real encouragement to us and to the other teams.

This is a picture of the report we see when progress is made on any of the Bible Translation projects that we work with. You can see every member of the Oji-Cree team worked on their translation; on Matthew, Romans, Luke, John and 2 Corinthians, all during the week between Christmas and New Years! What an encouragement to us.

Naskapi

The big news for Naskapi is that Tshiueten has just finished the final verse on the first draft of the book of Exodus. This has been an active Naskapi project for several years, and over the past three years, Tshiueten has been the main translator. Now of course there is a lot of checking and review to do before it is approved for publication, but this is a tremendous milestone and he is to be congratulated.

Tshiueten Vachon, Naskapi translator working on Exodus

Oji-Cree

The team is working very steadily on the Sunday “Epistle” and “Gospel” readings for the church in Kingfisher Lake. The translators, many of whom are also church lay-readers, report that the community has enjoyed hearing these church readings in the new translation, and some have also been looking closer at the old (Mason) Cree translation, giving God’s Word a closer look than they had previously.

Pictures of the Oji-Cree translation team that they took themselves and posted on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ismm2014/posts/1257611154281381

Plains Cree

Gayle and Dolores have been making good progress on the checking and review of the New Testament, completing the back-translation through the book of Acts, and working with the Bible Society translation consultant Ruth nearly every day by Internet and Skype. Bill and Ruth have also been making progress editing the hours of recorded audio of the book of Luke in Plains Cree.

Dolores and Gayle working on Plains Cree checking and review

Legacy (Mason 1862) Cree Bible

This old translation is still in use and highly regarded in many northern communities and churches, even if it is not the way people speak today. The Bible Society will be producing an updated reprint and make it accessible electronically. The Plains Cree team, along with Ruth, the translation consultant, are also making steady progress toward that goal.

Old Cree Bible at St. Matthew’s Church, Kingfisher Lake, Ontario

Day by day we work with the teams on these projects from our desks here at our new “old” house in Windham Centre, Ontario. We are grateful to be a part of God’s plan to bring his message to the First Nations communities across northern Canada.

Norma Jean working on her research paper

Bill listening to and editing the Gospel of Luke audio in Plains Cree

Prayer Requests:

As we rejoice over the completion of the Naskapi Exodus first draft, please join us in prayer as we try to connect with just the right translation consultant who will work with  Tshiueten and the team for quality assurance and accuracy.

Pray with us for the Oji-Cree team and the Kingfisher Lake church as many of them will hear these messages in their own language for the first time. Remember Ruth K, Ruth M, Theresa, Jessie and Zipporah.

Remember Gayle and Dolores, the Plains Cree team, working with Ruth, their translation consultant on both the book of Acts in the new Plains Cree translation, and the preparation and review of the old Legacy Cree Bible.

Keep us (Bill and Norma Jean) in prayer as we begin to set up our calendar for our working trips into the communities up north in the months to come, for our interactions with other missions and resource partners for these projects, and that we would stay centered on God’s word in our own lives.

And one more special prayer request: Our son, Nicodemus John, is attending Trinity Western University in Langley British Columbia. He is preparing to spend his Spring Break on a missions trip with dozens of other students from TWU, working on a “Habitat for Humanity” building project. He is in need of funds to support his participation in this missions trip.

You can read about the trip here: http://twu.ca/life/ministries/gps/spring-trips/

He needs to raise nearly $2400 to go on this missions trip, and he just told us this week that he sold his car to a junkyard to help him with some of the costs (he got $140.00 for his car)! If you feel that God would have you support Nicodemus to go on this missions trip, you can get a tax-deductible receipt for your gift if you write your donations payable to “Trinity Western University”, and mail them to:

Allan Kotanen
Student Life Director
Trinity Western University
7600 Glover Road
Langley, BC V2Y 1Y1 CANADA

Be sure to include a note saying it is for:
Nicodemus Jancewicz
Spring Break Missions

Serving with you, Bill and Norma Jean Jancewicz