Willis Gene Ott, 90
Willis Gene Ott, 90, passed into the loving arms of Jesus, February 23, 2022, in Waxhaw, North Carolina.
Willis was a native of Morrill County, Nebraska, born at home on June 20, 1931, sixth in a family of eight children, near Redington, NE, to Leo and Margaret Ott. He gave his life to Jesus as a teen, and in 1947, after hearing of Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT) through a Wycliffe missionary, he sensed God’s call to be a translator.
Willis graduated in 1953 from the Northwestern Bible College with a BA in Missions and Bible. He served as a bi-vocational pastor to a small church in central Minnesota from October 1953 to May 1954.
Willis went to candidacy training to join WBT the summer of 1954, where he met Rebecca Burke, also joining the mission. They were soon engaged and were married on September 24, 1955. Their first assignment was to Bolivia, South America, and they arrived in January of 1956. There they worked as Bible translators among the Ignaciano speaking people, completing the New Testament translation in 1980.
Willis, with Becky, went on to serve with WBT as a translation consultant for translation projects in Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Guatemala, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Angola, Mozambique and Zaire/ DRC until 1998. From 1998 to 2014, Willis worked from the US on translation helps for Mother Tongue translators, but continued to make trips to Africa and India during that time. From 2014 until the end, his fo cus moved to Oral Bible Translation. His passion was always to reach the lost for Jesus by making God’s Word available to those who have never heard it in their native language.
He was preceded in death by his parents, his siblings, and his wife, Rebecca, of 65 years. Willis is survived by his children, Mark (Dorothy), Alice, Jeanine (Ken), and Andrew (Jan); 11 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren.
There will be a Celebration of Life service on Saturday, March 26 at 2 p.m. at Waxhaw Bible Church, 6810 Pleasant Grove Road, Waxhaw, NC, 28173.
The interment will be on May 21 at 11 a.m. at Redington Cemetery in Morrill County, Nebraska.