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Newsletter August 2017

Coordinate Workshop last April Getting in the Zone! 

This story starts way back in October 2015 when Coordinate held a workshop at Riyalla south of Darwin. Since then people have been asking “when will the next workshop be?” These workshops are so valuable, to get people from many different language groups together so that they can network and learn from each other. They are also very expensive to run so they need to have a very strong purpose other than just a social get together. Finally in October last year at the Pitjantjatjara translators conference Ina Scales presented a session called “Getting in the Zone” on how to prepare ourselves for reular disciplined work. We now had a theme for our workshop.


We booked into Riyalla at Noonamah and organised travel by plane, car and bus for twenty-nine translators and Scripture in Use Workers representing eleven different languages; four languages from West Arnhemland, six from East Arnhemland and one from the APY lands in Central Australia. After devotions on the first morning we worked out our kinship relationships and then got down to work.

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Newsletter November 2024

By Louise McDonald • December 18, 2024
Newsletter November 2024

Newsletter May 2024

June 14, 2024
North East Arnhem news 'seeing the big picture'. Partnering to support Indigenous Scripture across Australia, The Australian Bible Translation Collaboration. Nungalinya in Maningrida. Bobo Ngalwangarri - Obituary for H. Hinch. Praise and prayer. From Sydney to Elcho Island. Pitjantjatjarra Children's Art Bible: 'Godaku Tjukurpa', Nami's legacy of love for children. Yanyi and Leviticus.
A woman is cutting a red ribbon to open a door.

Newsletter November 2023

April 19, 2024
Maningrida now has a translation centre and it has been an epic journey! The Kunibídji whose name for this place is Manayingkarírra are the traditional owners. They gave enthusiastic permission for the building of a new Bible Translation Centre down near the beach next to the Church House. There are eleven languages spoken in Maningrida and it is time to have a space where language work can happen. The West Arnhem Area Council of Northern Regional Council of Congress, the UCA church elders of Western Arnhemland, were also enthusiastic supporters of the project.
A group of people are standing outside of a building at night

Maningrida Translation Centre Bookings

April 19, 2024
Maningrida is a large Aboriginal Town where eleven languages are spoken. With support from the Kunibídji Traditional Owners and the Elders of the Maningrida and West Arnhemland Uniting Church, The Maningrida Bible Translation Centre was opened in September 2023.
A group of people are sitting at tables in a room watching a presentation.

Newsletter December 2022

April 19, 2024
Praise God for a very worthwhile workshop last month. Our thanks go to the Finke River Mission for the use of their hall once again. It is a very suitable venue for this type of activity, even though we needed to pack up on two evenings to make way for others. There was the usual challenge of unpredictable participation, but a committed group of four Luritja speakers attended every day. Stanley, Douglas, Monica, and Sonya were joined by Joseph for three of the five days. Yuminiya, a Pitjantjatjara speaker, attended on part of two days. Kerry, an Alyawarr speaker, attended on one day.
Three women are sitting in chairs outside and one of them is wearing a butterfly blanket.

Newsletter August 2022

April 19, 2024
Coordinate was invited by Bible Society Australia and SIL Pacific region to attend an Oceania Gathering in Sydney with the theme ‘What do we need to get the job done?’ They asked us to present on this theme from our local context, so Margaret Miller and I put together a Power Point presentation with stories that Yurrandjil had given us permission to tell.
A group of women standing in front of a sign that says hope peace

Newsletter April 2022

April 19, 2024
This is a story of incredible love, remarkable co-operation and amazing grace. On Friday 8th April (2022) two boxes of recently printed New Testaments were carried into the Yirrkala church with much ceremony. Dozens of Yolŋu men, representing Gupapuyŋu, Madarrpa, Maŋgalili and Gumatj, walked in with the boxes of bibles and sang with great reverence, as rhythm sticks split the air with their sharp ‘crack-crackcrack’ defining the rhythm and tempo of local traditional song. We had gathered with hundreds of Yolŋu at Yirrkala Church to dedicate the reprint of the Gumatj New Testament.
A group of people are sitting on a rug in the grass.

Newsletter December 2021

April 19, 2024
Maningrida is one of the most multilingual places in the world – ten plus completely distinct languages spoken every day amongst a population of 3000 people! Most of those languages didn’t have any published Scripture until now. A few months ago, five different languages spoken in Maningrida translated seven verses of the Christmas story (we’ve written about this workshop in a previous newsletter).
A group of women are standing in front of a microphone.

Newsletter August 2021

April 19, 2024
In the last Coordinate newsletter, Melody from AuSIL (Australian Society for Indigenous Languages) told you about a translators workshop that she was organising in Darwin, for people to work on translating the Christmas story into their languages. I was able to go to this with 6 people from 2 languages—Kuninjku and Njeppena—in Maningrida in West Arnhem land, where I live.
Two women are sitting in chairs talking to each other in a room.

Newsletter April 2021

April 19, 2024
“I was reading through chapter 1 of John to my friend, from my translation draft that you printed for checking. And then I got her to read the next chapter to me. As she was reading, she said to me, 'It is giving me goose bumps!' We were both so happy sitting together and reading God's word in our language.”
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