Mission of the Month for January

Fred and Bel Carress

with Wycliffe Bible Translators, Philippines

Our missionaries for January are Fred and Bel Carress serving with Wycliffe Bible Translators and SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) in Kalinga Province in the Philippines.  Bel and Fred are  Language Program Coordinators for the Kalinga cluster of six languages. They oversee teams working on each language and are involved in ongoing Bible translation and promotion of literacy. They have been serving there for more than thirty-five years. There are many languages spoken in the Philippines and they are working to translate the Bible–or parts of it–into what Wycliffe calls the “heart language” of the people groups in their area. Because some of the areas are so remote, they do not always have access to Internet or other technology–including motor vehicles! They recently traveled through the mountains on foot to help dedicate the New Testament in the Mangali language. Please pray that the people will desire to read their Mangali New Testament and come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. And pray for Fred and Bel to remain Covid-free and to be able to minister within the restrictions of this pandemic. In their words: “People over 60 years of age are classified by WHO as high risk for Covid infections, so in the Philippines, there is  no driving  and no travel without a waiver from health officials stating you travel at your own risk( for all people 60 and over.) The purpose for travel between towns can be for going to your city or town of residence, a medical emergency or treatment , or government required travel. Work travel is mostly limited to health workers, food delivery,  essential work on communications or the power grid.  Wearing masks, social distancing and body temperature monitoring are required in most places.  Rules change  if we go from lockdown where nobody goes in or out to general  quarantine where travel is relaxed some for our trips.”
Please continue to pray for them.