Missionary Prayer Letter, January 2006

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me"

OUR FAMILY

Our daughters were a little sick because of the weather changes, but they are fine now. Joselito also was a little sick with pain in his throat for a few days. His voice was very strange and funny.

Pray for Anita, she is thinking about getting accreditation of her Christian Education Bachelor with the University and then to begin a Master program. This is something she really wants to do.

Also, please pray for Genesis. She is very intelligent really, but very absent-minded. She has many problems with her English classes. With the others subjects she is doing fine.

CHURCHES & UNIVERSITY BAPTIST CHURCH (Home Church)

We went to visit the New Life Baptist Church in Toachi (first Sunday of this year). It was a nice experience to praise the Lord together. Anita was helping in the Preschool Class in the Sunday School and Joselito was helping with pastoral counseling. This church needs to finish their building and for this they are in the process of collecting many offerings. We are praying that a building group could come from USA this year to finish their construction.

This month we celebrated the 43rd Anniversary of our home church UBC. We had a special service for this purpose. Luis Anda was our guest preacher (Luis was a member of the group with us from Kentucky), special music and the presence of the teachers of our high school in Pifo (30 miles from Quito). Afterwards, we had a special and delicious lunch for all. Praise the Lord...!

Joselito will continue this year as associate pastor at our home church, University Baptist Church, and also help the worship minister at UBC by playing the guitar and piano. He also serves as associate teacher of the young adults' class in Sunday School. Joselito is the Director of the Ministry Training School of UBC.

Joselito recently preached at UBC, about of the corruption in Ecuador (Ezekiel 16:49 cf., Genesis 19).

ECUADORIAN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY & EBC

You know that the Seminary administration is now under the control of the Pichincha Baptist Association. They decided not to reopen the Seminary in Quito until September 2006. The vice-president of this Association told me that reason is: "We don't have a strategic project for this. We named a special commission for this purpose. The goal is to reopen the seminary in September 2006". In my opinion, they just don't have vision in the leadership of the local association. Joselito is the Rector of the seminary, and therefore is the national authority, but he manages academic issues only. The seminary center in Guayaquil continues to function well.

PALM MISSIONARY MINISTRIES-Ecuador

Ecuador's Board of Palm Missionary Ministries had a special meeting for fellowship this month. We also reviewed many administrative and pastoral situations. Please remember to pray for our missionaries around the world.

MISCELLANEOUS

Our first missionary group (an academic group really) of this year was from Kentucky-USA (January 2-11). They were students of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville (masters degree program in various specialties). Their teacher and leader, our major partner David Sills PhD, (Director of the Missiology Doctoral Program, SBTS) came with them. It was a nice experience for all to get to know our country, history, the culture, missions, tribes (Quichua, Tsachilas, Otavalos, and others), and share in various churches. The goal was to research anthropological issues and missiology development in Ecuador. I want to give special thanks to my other partner Ralph Kurtenbach (HCJB Communications Latin America Region) for guiding the special tour of HCJB World Radio and Vozandes Hospital. We visited many wonderful places, museums, historic monuments, Catholic cathedrals, touristy places, volcanoes and many others. We had the special and marvelous experience to attend the Jacchigua Folklore Ballet; this was my first time. It was very interesting and exciting to me to get to know my country much better. I enjoyed this group and discovered, one more time, that my country is the best of the world! If you want to see many beautiful pictures about this trip, please visit the next web site: http://www.flickr.com/groups/ecuador2006/ or www.provocationsandpantings.blogspot.com

PRAYERS REQUEST

Pray especially for my writing on the Commentary on Luke. I am behind on this task and it is very important to me.

Pray for us, because we need to be strong to begin this year in the grace of the Lord. We have many needs. You can see more about that on our little web page.

Please continue praying for our goals for this New Year, to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

"The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me"

Thanks you so much, for your prayers and support for us. God bless you all.

With love in Christ, Joselito & Anita Orellana (Galatians 2:20)

Visit us please in our own web site: www.joselitoorellana.blogspot.com. Pray for us please!

Personal E-mail: chelomg7@hotmail.com Home phone, (593-2) 2827-770 Cell phone, 094-792489

Telefax PMM-Ecuador, (593-2) 2261-661. PO Box, 17-17-987, Quito - Ecuador. www.palmministries.com