BARNHOORN, Jono and Janice

Jono was born in Ontario but spent most of his growing up years as a Wycliffe missionary kid in Papua New Guinea. Janice grew up in Southern Ontario. They joined Wycliffe in 2006 while Jono was studying linguistics at the Canada Institute of Linguistics (Wycliffe Canada’s training partner). They now have four children and are serving in Jos, Nigeria.

When the Barnhoorns first moved to Nigeria, Jono started by working with one language of the Koro cluster, Nyankpa. Soon he began managing the four languages, overseeing the activities of the mother-tongue translators in each of the languages and trying to engage the communities to take more ownership of the project. Training and advising were his main tasks. Gradually, as more help became available, the management of the cluster was handed off, and Jono has now been focusing on the Nyankpa language work again. Understanding the grammar of the language helps Jono to ensure a quality translation. Janice has also recently added to her role as a mother to become the human resources director, overseeing the wellbeing of all the staff in Nigeria.

Jono, Janice, Stephen, Samuel, Silas and Esther