As anyone who owns a home or a car knows, the initial purchase is more exciting than the regular maintenance that property will need over the years. Nancy Morse, who GEPC supports in her work with Wycliffe Bible Translators, was reminded of that earlier this year.  In 2018, the money her financial support team, including GEPC, sent to Wycliffe Bible Translators in preference for her ministry was used to pay for an 8-passenger fiber-glass boat and two 40 HP motors. The boat is used by one of Nancy’s translation teams, to travel between the Warao community in the far eastern jungle of Venezuela and Puerto Ordaz, which is farther inland and the location of most of their translation workshops.  Well, this year the boat needed its first repair!  Nancy says “One-third of the generous quarterly gift of $3,000 GEPC sent to Wycliffe last month covered the repair and fuel for the round-trip.  You are vital partners in this ministry to the Warao people!”

     Health issues have also been an issue for the team this year. Nancy herself got a persistent infection in her left (blind) eye on January 15.  Less than two weeks later, her eyeball was soft, the cornea at the point of perforating, and the pressure had dropped to near zero.  But she says “God was gracious to restore all that to normal in 10 days. The symptoms finally cleared up in early February – after 5 doctor appointments and 3 antibiotics.”  Nancy thought the infection had come back a couple weeks later, but fortunately it hadn’t.  However, it left her left cornea rough, which causes pain. “But,” she says, “that is well-controlled by non-prescription dry-eye drops, which I put in when the eye starts to hurt.”  She says she usually uses 3-5 drops a day.  “I can also take Tylenol, but I seldom need to. So I’ve been feeling very well the last few weeks. I thank God for the good health I have.”

     Also, within the last few weeks, Nancy’s associate Diana, who works on the Warao team, and 3 of the 4 Warao translators had Covid with three days of fever.  But, Nancy says “thanks to God they finished translating and back translating the amount that had been designated for the January/February workshop. Also thanks to God their other  symptoms were mild with little or no respiratory involvement.”  At the end of February the team left by river to go to the community to test and revise their translation.  Because of having Covid, Diana didn’t have time to do the initial consultant check of the last 5 chapters (1 Timothy 6 and all of 2 Timothy).  But she hoped to be able to do that by the time she returned, giving Diana and Nancy a chance to communicate about their progress.