© 2002 Urantia Foundation
A monthly News Bulletin from Urantia Foundation to IUA Officers, Foundation Office Managers, Coordinating Committee members, Foundation Representatives, Translators, and other readers for the purpose of disseminating this information to readers in local areas.
Trustees Gard Jameson and Richard Keeler were honored to serve as keynote speakers at Expo Ser y Primer Congreso Mundial del Ser in Mexico City, May 24 through 26, 2002. Expo Ser was an international exposition on topics rela ting to body, mind, and spirit that attracted approximately 15,000 people.
Expo Ser was a highly professional congress and public exhibition covering a wide spectrum of spiritual, health, and scientific pursuits and activities. It comprised conferences, exhibition areas, workshops, and art performances held at Mexico City’s World Trade Center, the premier location for exhibitions in Mexico. One of the first events of its kind in the world, Expo Ser was promoted widely throughout Latin America-from Florida to Argentina-via the Internet, cable TV, radio, magazines, billboards, direct mail, and printed materials placed at schools, health and sport clubs, universities, spas, bookstores, culture centers, and other institutes.
Approximately 350 individuals attended the Urantia Foundation presentations, a number exceeded by only one other presenter. Gard Jameson gave an introduction to El Libro de Urantia and Richard Keeler gave a brief history of the Urantia papers and information about Urantia Foundation’s mission and activities.
In exchange for Gard and Richard’s participation, Urantia Foundation was given a 14 square meter booth with a great location! El Libro de Urantia was available at the Foundation’s booth and at two booths sponsored by our distributor, Random House.
El Libro de Urantia was the single best selling title at the fair. It accounted for 50% of Random House’s total sales.
This was also a wonderful opportunity to get in touch with people interested in El Libra de Urantia. Members of the Asociación Urantia de Mexico, Mexico’s new association of the IUA, helped to set-up the booth and greet visitors. Many, many people stopped to ask about the book, including over one hundred current readers making contact with Urantia Foundation and AUM for the first time.
This event provided an incredible opportunity to plant seeds for the future spread of the Urantia teachings in Latin America. Through contacts made there, a prison book placement program is being initiated in Mexico. Also, the AUM was able to put together several potential new study groups from contacts made at this event. Prayers and support for these fledgling activities are welcomed.
The staff of Urantia Foundation and members of the Greater Lake Michigan Urantia Association (GLMUA) were delighted to host association leaders from around the United States who gathered for the Annual Business Meeting of the United States Urantia Association (USUA) in Chicago June 1, 2002.
We began welcoming visitors early Friday at the Foundation offices. The weekend started with a lively reception on the 3rd floor of Urantia Foundation headquarters on Friday evening. Old and new friends greeted one another and engaged in animated discussions of activities in which they are involved within the United States and abroad. The common bond of service to our fellows and a shared interest in furthering the teachings of The Urantia Book united this diverse group.
We send special thanks to USUA Treasurer Mike Wood and GLMUA member Bill Martin who did so much advance preparation of food and other arrangements for the weekend. Thanks also to Steve and Tonia Baney who opened their home for the reception, prepared food, and created a wonderful atmosphere that made this a memorable experience for all.
USUA Business Meeting
Twenty-seven national officers, committee chairs, and local officers representing twelve local associations were in attendance for the meeting on Saturday, along with ten members who attended as observers. We heard from several active committees who inspired us to greater commitments to these areas of service, including Conference, Education, Membership, and Publications.
From the shelves of these libraries the message of The Urantia Book will be made available to countless numbers of readers who browse the libraries searching for truth. Our thanks to the staff and volunteers who helped with this event.
In May this year Urantia Foundation attended the BookExpoAmerica at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York City. BEA is the largest book trade show in the United States. The Foundation’s consistent attendance over the past thirteen years has afforded us recognition and respect within the publishing industry. Our stature as a small independent publisher has grown parallel with the growth in spiritual and inspirational publishing and the tremendous increase of Spanish titles in the genre.
The opening address at the BEA was delivered by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. All 2000 participants stayed the course, not wavering in their decision to attend despite the atrocity of September 11th, and the Mayor expressed his gratitude and appreciation on behalf of the city.
The interest in electronic publishing resurfaced again, given that Microsoft has apparently standardized its electronic-book platform. Urantia Foundation was featured as an inaugural participant in the launch of Bowkers Books in Print Website and was invited to attend a special luncheon celebrating this accomplishment.
A new Spanish Pavilion was featured, and Urantia Foundation was proactive thanks to the help of volunteer native New Yorkers and Spanish speaking long-time readers, Maria de Aguilera and Hilvania Canela-Adams. They assisted Víctor García-Bory, the Foundation’s Spanish Marketing and Reader Services Representative. Maria was kind enough to fly up from Florida for this event. We send our thanks and appreciation to Maria and Hilvania.
The International Urantia Association now has approximately 1,150 members, over half of whom live outside of the United States. There are now 8 National Associations and 34 Local Associations of IUA. The National Associations are in Australia/New Zealand, Canada, Colombia, Finland, France, Peru, Senegal, and the USA. Of the 33 Local Associations, 25 are in the USA, 3 in Canada, 2 in Colombia, 1 in Estonia, 1 in Mexico, 1 in Spain, and 1 in the Southern Cone of South America.
The most recent associations to be chartered were in Mexico and Alaska. Following is a brief report on their chartering weekends.
Interest in and sales of El Libro de Urantia are approaching that of the English Urantia Book. Readers in the Spanish speaking countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Spain have been spreading the revelation for several years through their Urantia Associations.
Readers in the great country of Mexico have now joined the IUA by forming a local association to help in this work. On April 6, 2002, Asociación Urantia de Mexico was licensed in beautiful Mexico City. This gardensetting meeting was attended by enthusiastic readers from various parts of the country. The IUA’s Administrator, Cathy Jones, and Urantia Foundation’s President, Richard Keeler, participated in launching this new association.
The Governing Board is: PresidentLiza Palm, Vice PresidentEdgar lbarraran, SecretaryMarcia Wiechers, and Treasurer-Miguel Granada. Congratulations to Asociación Urantia de Mexico. We welcome you into the family of IUA and wish you all the very best in your activities for the revelation in Mexico.
The Urantia Association of Alaska was licensed May 19, 2002 in Anchorage, Alaska. May 19th was the symbolic celebration of Pentecost and a timely reminder of the day in which Jesus fulfilled his promise to bestow his spirit upon all mankind after his resurrection. Those in attendance at a meeting room at the large, modernistic Anchorage Public Library reported that, without a doubt, that very spirit surely bonded this group of dedicated Urantia Book readers and believers.
Urantia Foundation’s President, Richard Keeler, and the IUA Administrator, Cathy Jones, represented the International Urantia Association.
The Governing Board of UAA is: President—Carl Ramm, Vice President—Sherie Crosby, Secretary/Treasurer—Susan Alexander.
Fellow USUA leaders had the opportunity to extend their welcome to this new Urantia association when Carl and Susan Ramm represented UAA at the USUA annual meeting in Chicago. We extend a hearty welcome to this new association and send them all good wishes.
The effort to translate The Urantia Book into the Swedish language has been accomplished. In February 2002 the head of the Swedish translation team delivered the disks containing the final text of the work.
Swedish is the official language of Sweden and one of the official languages of Finland. It is spoken by about 9 million people: 8,500,000 in Sweden and 500,000 elsewhere, chiefly in Finland, Norway, and Estonia.
The Swedish project was launched in late 1993, soon after the Finnish Urantia-kirja was published. The reader who became the chief translator for the Swedish translation was one of the first Urantia Book readers in Finland. His enthusiasm and devotion to The Urantia Book has been instrumental in shaping the reader community in Finland. This translator’s native language is Swedish, but his Finnish is impeccably correct also, and his knowledge of the English language is excellent.
Back in 1993 another long-time reader volunteered to help in any way he could. When he called he did not know about the incipient Swedish project. At that time he was teaching Swedish translating in Helsinki University, so he was more than fit to be included in the team. This man was a polyglot person. He was very well versed in the differences and nuances between the two variants of the language, the variant spoken in the Republic of Finland and that spoken in the Kingdom of Sweden. Apart from his native Finnish, he also spoke Swedish, English, Norwegian, Icelandic, Danish, German, some Russian, Hebrew, Spanish, and French.
The arrangement for the translating team was that the chief translator would submit his work to the Foundation’s Manager for Translations (who is also fluent in Swedish) who would compare the chief translator’s renderings with the English text to ensure his understanding matched the English concepts and that nothing had been missed in the Swedish rendering.
The second team member would then read the work again, make linguistic corrections, and check that the work did not come with anything objectionable to Swedish-speakers, like expressions, words, or inflectional forms that would be archaic or outdated in the view of the speakers of this language in Sweden.
Several rounds of refining and editing took place. Many discussions were held in order to solve the innumerable problems. The concept of “bestowal” was the last problem to be solved.
Sadly the second member of the team died unexpectedly last May after a very difficult illness. He had made his corrections only on the paper printouts, and was just about to start entering the corrections into the electronic files when he came to the premature end of his earthly career. After a short delay, however, the work continued with the chief translator himself entering the last round of corrections into the electronic files. The work of the second team member has been of tremendous valuehedida great service for the Swedish people in his short life.
It is our hope that the Swedish translation will be published in the very near future and that our Swedish brothers and sisters will join in the privilege of being able to read The Urantia Book in their native tongue. We welcome all contributions toward the publication and distribution of this work.
Urantia Foundation now provides a Thoughts to Ponder weekly email service. When you subscribe to Thoughts to Ponder, you’ll receive an email once each week containing seven quotations from The Urantia Book. Over the course of a year, you’ll receive 365 selected favorites! To subscribe visit https://www.urantia.org/inset/join-our-mailing-list on the Foundation’s website.
Some readers have found that by receiving quotes in this manner, it provides them with an opportunity to share interesting quotes from The Urantia Book with friends.
One Reader’s Experience…
It happens all the time. You’ve shared The Urantia Book with a family member, friend, or business associate. Maybe you’ve even given them a copy of the book. They’re interested. They’ve promised to read it. But for whatever reason they haven’t started. It can be very frustrating, right?
Here’s a simple way to ‘entice’ them to read a little bit of The Urantia Book. Subscribe to Thoughts to Ponder, and periodically forward them copies of quotations you think will interest them. Or, you could include a favorite selection in your email signature. If you change the quote periodically, your friends will eventually read many of the most significant passages from the book.
Every quote shared has the potential to stimulate the contemplation of spiritual meanings and values and lead to greater heights of understanding. We hope readers will find this service helpful.