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People - Creole Bible Translation Project



Our translation Team is made up of three translators, three exegetes, a translation consultant, a linguistic consultant and a translation co-ordinator. Team members collaborate with each other to produce an excellent translation of the Bible into Jamaican Creole.

Bertram Gayle

Translation Co-ordinator
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Tasheney Francis

Translator
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Lloyd Millen

Translator
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Jodianne Scott

Translator
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Rev'd Dr David Kuck

Exegete
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Rev’d Frank Barker

Exegete
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Jamaica Theological Seminary

Exegetical Consultant
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Jamaican Language Unit

Linguistic Consultant
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Ronald Ross

Translation Consultant
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Bertram Gayle

Bertram is a full-time missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators, Caribbean. As an expression of Wycliffe’s partnership with the Bible Society of the West Indies, Bertram was seconded to the Society to serve as Co-ordinator of the Jamaican Creole Translation Project. Bertram studied theology in Jamaica and in the United Kingdom and is presently working toward a postgraduate degree Linguistics at the University of the West Indies, Mona.

For a number of years Bertram, who is also a Bible Translation Consultant in training, has shared Wycliffe’s passion to serve the thousands of people groups around the world who have never heard or read the Bible in the languages that speak to their hearts. His training in Theology and Linguistics are preparing him to better fulfil his passion.

Tasheney Francis

A trained language teacher with a zest for increased knowledge and understanding for herself and those she interacts with, Tasheney Francis pursues post-graduate studies in linguistics and maintains a healthy appetite for language and communication research. As a young Christian attending the Highholborn Street Church of God, it has always been her desire to know more about God’s Word and to understand His precepts. This, coupled with an affinity for Creole translation- having worked in the Bilingual Education Project translating textbooks, led to her partnership with the Bible Society of the West Indies to engage in the Jamaican Creole Translation Project. However, upon actual involvement in this powerful ministry her own eyes were opened to the major impact this project will have on the spiritual consciousness of her fellow Jamaicans, setting a new appreciation for their language and also fostering a greater acceptance and approval of their own identity.

She has sheer passion for the arts and strongly believes in sending positive and uplifting messages through creative and innovative means that will reach people, spark their understanding and enrich their minds; which are in fact some of the founding principles of the Jamaican Creole Translation Project as well.

Lloyd Millen



Church Involvement

Lloyd is pastor of Cumberland Community Church, a branch of the Jamaica Evangelistic Mission founded 1876. Lloyd is also founder-director of Touch of Love Family Fellowship Ltd— a nonprofit religious organization, committed to glorifying God and Jesus Christ and service to humanity, through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Great Commandment of Christ, church planting, equipping and developing Christian leadership in the family, church, community and nation on Christ’s behalf.

Education

Lloyd boasts a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies degree and a Master of Divinity degree from Luther Rice University in Georgia, USA

Vision for Translation:

"My vision is that my fellow Jamaicans at home and in the Diaspora will experience the liberating and life transforming power of the Bible through the exciting and unique medium of our mother tongue. Research has shown that the Bible makes its greatest and most powerful impact on people when they receive it in their mother tongue or heart language. I also believe the translation of the Bible into the Jamaican Patwa will liberate and elevate the language of the masses from the stigma attached to it and thereby truly bring about the emancipation of our people from mental slavery."

Jodianne Scott

Jodianne has a B.A. in Linguistics and is currently an MPhil candidate at the University of the West Indies. Over the past five years she has used her linguistics training to carry out research in Guyana, Surinam, Curacao and Jamaica. A syntactician at heart Jodianne first got involved in translation in the summer of 2004 when she worked with the Jamaica Bilingual Education project and translated primary school textbooks into Jamaica Creole.


A Christian for more than 10 years and a member of the Duhaney Park Gospel Assembly, Jodianne also has a passion for the performing arts ministry. A budding singer/songwriter, Jodianne can quite frequently be seen travelling from church to church with her guitar.

Revrend Dr David Kuck

Called by the Global Mission Unit of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to serve at the United Theological College of the West Indies, on behalf of the Lutheran Church in Guyana. He holds the positions of Lecturer in New Testament and Homiletics, Lutheran Warden, and Coordinator of Graduate Studies at the United Theological College. He is the author of the book Preaching in the Caribbean: Building Up a People for Mission.

Dr Kuck has been married to Mary Kuck for over 26 years. They have two children.

Rev’d Frank Barker

Rev’d Barker is from Barbados and is currently the Moravian Warden at the United Theological College of the West Indies. Rev’d Barker served as Pastor of the First Moravian Church in New York.

Jamaica Theological Seminary

Jamaica Theological Seminary (JTS) is an institution grounded in the Christian community and primarily serving the people of Jamaica and the Caribbean, with a university-level programme of study. The institution was launched in January 1960 to respond to the need in Jamaica and the Caribbean for culturally and contextually sensitive leadership education for the church and the wider society. The need was for the development of evangelical church leaders to respond appropriately to the cultural, educational, economic, and social challenges of the Caribbean.

Jamaican Language Unit

The Jamaican Language Unit (JLU) is a Unit in the Department of Language, Linguistics and Philosophy, UWI, Mona, with effect from September 2002. The Unit is a language planning agency and was set up in an attempt to secure the freedom of Jamaicans from discrimination on the ground of language in the Charter of Rights (Constitutional Amendment Bill).

The Unit deals with issues such as: (1) a standard writing system for Jamaican, (2) the development of technical and administrative terminology in the language for use by officers of the state, (3) the monitoring of state agencies with respect to the non-discriminatory provision of services in the two languages in general use, i.e. English and Jamaican, and (4) public education on the language issue.

The JLU takes advantage of (1) the extensive academic and research material on Jamaican already in existence and available (2) the range of existing expertise in the area of linguistics, much of it accessible within the department itself and on the other UWI campuses.

Ronald Ross

Born in Colorado, Ronald Ross immigrated as a very young man to Costa Rica, where he worked as a translator and graduated from the University. Subsequently completing a Ph. D. in linguistics in the United States, he has taught at the University of Costa Rica for 36 years. For nearly 20 of those years he was a translation consultant with the United Bible Societies and worked with indigenous language translation projects in many parts of Central and South America. In the late 1990s he was granted the special opportunity of working with the Jamaican Language Translation Project, the largest language group in the Americas after Spanish, English, Portuguese and French. He has had an abiding interest in Creole languages and his work with this project –which has continued after retiring from the UBS in 2007-- has become an vital part his life. He looks forward to the day when Jamaicans everywhere will be able to hear –and read—the Bible in the language of their heart.