© 2004 K. Richard Keeler, Memo Z., Algimantas Jokubenas
© 2004 Urantia Foundation
¶ Permanence In The Presence Of Change
“In spite of all concepts concerning the immutability of Deity, man perceives that he lives in a universe of constant change and experiential growth. Regardless of the realization of the survival of spiritual values, man has ever to reckon with the mathematics and premathematics of force, energy, and power.” UB 104:3.2
Over the last Six months these cycles of experiential growrth have affected Urantia Foundation, for we have experienced significant changes in our leadership and staff. This is normal Change and growth, and the Foundation remains true to its purposes and mission.
¶ Triennial Elections
Every three years the Board of Trustees elects its officers. In April Trustee Seppo Kanerva was elected as the Foundation’s new President, and Georges Michelson-Dupont was re-elected as Vice President. In addition, Mo Siegel and Gard Jameson were re-elected as Secretary and Treasurer respectively.
Richard Keeler, the outgoing President, believed he would serve the Foundation best by standing aside and allowing another Trustee to assume the duties of President. He declined to accept a nomination for re-election but remains on the Board as an active and vigorous Trustee.
Urantia Foundation is grateful to Richard for his leadership, strength, loyalty, and dedication that have helped keep the Foundation on its steady course, and we welcome Seppo as he accepts new challenges and duties.
¶ Respite And Renewal
Richard Keeler became the Foundation’s President in 1997. During his Six years of leadership there have been many notable accomplishments, including a significant increase in the number of translations of The Urantia Book and development of an international network that supports publishing, distribution, and dissemination in many countries. Richard also sought understanding and reconciliation among different groups of Urantia Book readers, and he made many trips to show the Foundation’s interest in activities far and near. As the Foundation’s translation manager and former manager of representatives around the World, Seppo Kanerva made important contributions to produc- ing translations and encouraging broad international interest in the teachings. Like Richard, he is committed to promoting good will among readers and healing old wounds.
¶ Foundation Staff
Former Executive Director Tonia Baney resigned in January in order to retum to her home on Maui, Hawaii with her husband Steve. She had served for seven and a half years, during which she led in creating and implementing a comprehensive business and marketing plan that helped increase book sales and move the Foundation toward a more multinational framework. She steered the staff with sensitivity and skill. Her vision of future possibilities led her to organize the Matthew Project, a team of volunteers who are working to raise the Foundation’s profile among readers and attract the funding that will be needed to make The Urantia Book and its translations available throughout the world.
Mindy Williams served as Office Manager for four years, ably assisting with complicated legal aspects of the Foundation’s work and also assuming many Other duties. Immediately after Tonia’s departure she cheerfully filled in for several months as the senior manager of the Foundation office in Chicago, but in May she decided to return to Florida with her husband Allen.
We will all miss Tonia and Mindy, and we wish them every success in their new — and warmer! — surroundings. On an interim basis, Jay Peregrine will serve as Acting Office Manager until the Trustees choose and appoint a new senior manager.
Outgoing Foundation President K. Richard Keeler (right)
and incoming President Seppo Kanerva
¶ From Seppo Kanerva, Urantia Foundation’s New President
It is with great pleasure that I accept the opportunity to serve the revelation as Urantia Foundation’s new President. I thank my colleagues for their confidence in me and will do my best to fulfil this awesome task. In my first statement as President to the readers of Urantian News, I wish to focus on a few items that I consider essential.
First of all I wish to express my personal gratitude to my predecessor Richard Keeler for his immeasurable contributions to the welfare of the revelation. During Richard’s presidency the expanded activities of the Foundation and the progress of the revelation on all continents became undeniable and irreversible facts. Because of the many translations of The Urantia Book, the international character of the Foundation and the readership movement gained momentum and also became undeniable and irreversible. I know that throughout his term, Richard devotedly worked for many goals that I applaud and share: the welfare of the revelation, implementation of the Declaration of Trust, preparing translations of The Urantia Book into as many languages as possible, protecting the revelation against violations and protecting the copyrights and marks, keeping the text perpetually in print, evolutionary growth and progress of the Foundation’s activities and of the movement as a whole, internationalisation, and the Foundation’s financial solidity and stability.
I will do my best to promote and work for all these goals and objectives - as part of a team and through cooperation with my fellow Trustees, the Foundation’s staff, branch offices and representatives, IUA members, supporters and volunteers, and all other dedicated readers of The Urantia Book. There are also many other essential needs that require our constant and active effort, including further financial stabilisation of Urantia Foundation, strengthening its structure, overcoming divisions among readers of The Urantia Book, and nurturing individual and collective cooperation with our superhuman friends - in order to bring about a spiritual renaissance for all mankind by putting the teachings of the revelation into practice throughout the world.
I hope and desire to do the Father’s will, sharing that wish with all other dedicated believers and religionists. This desire is the basis for our joint efforts. As we go forward, I believe it is the Father’s will that we be of good cheer and always strive to do our best, while remaining firm in our devotion and commitment to the truth. In exercising mercy, forgiveness, tolerance, and justice, we should use our God-given minds to implement and serve the revelation contained in The Urantia Book - an important part of the Father’s plan for human evolution that has so recently illuminated and inspired us.
¶ From Richard Keeler, Urantia Foundation’s Outgoing President
During the six years I served as President, I endeavored to promote spiritual unity. I realize that the revelators also emphasize diversity, imagination, and creative spiritual freedom. But spiritual unity - unity of purpose - does not require uniformity of belief, much less uniformity of institutional arrangements. The Midwayer Commission states that as Jesus and the apostles were passing through northern Galilee, Jesus said:
“The religion of the spirit requires only unity of experience — uniformity of destiny — making full allowance for diversity of belief. The religion of the spirit requires only uniformity of insight, not uniformity of viewpoint and outlook. The religion of the spirit does not demand uniformity of intellectual views, only unity of spirit feeling. The religions of authority crystallize into lifeless creeds; the religion of the spirit grows into the increasing joy and liberty of ennobling deeds of loving service and merciful ministration.” (UB 155:6.9)
Jesus’ emphasis on loving service is a vivid reminder of the challenges that confront the Foundation and all readers of the revelation. Yes, we must continue to carry out the Foundation’s longstanding work of publishing, translating, and preserving the text. But I am convinced that readers of the revelation must also find ways to work together more imaginatively, effectively, and lovingly as we seek to promote spiritual growth throughout the world - broader, deeper, and more sincere respect for the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.
After all, the revelators did not bring forth their teachings just to give business to printers and bookstores. The real challenge is to bring about epochal changes in the ways that men and women think, live, and treat each other. As a Divine Counselor tells us, “The affectionate dedication of the human will to the doing of the Father’s will is man’s choicest gift to God.” (UB 1:1.2) And as the Master said, “If you love your fellows as I have loved you, then shall all men know that you are my disciples.” (UB 102:6.7) This sweeping spiritual upgrade will inspire humanity and help us turn in much overdue homework — important parts of the Father’s plans for Urantia that have been greatly delayed because of the Caligastia betrayal and the default of Adam and Eve.
While I served as President, interest in the revelation expanded substantially in other regions of the world. For example, the International Urantia Association (IUA) now operates in 17 countries, and the Foundation is selling considerably more copies of the six translations it publishes than of the original text in English. The revelation is not quite a global movement, but we are coming close.
Within the next few years, the Foundation will make available seven more translations (Estonian, German, Italian, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Swedish). We have also started working on translations into Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, and six other languages, but it will take considerably longer to complete these projects.
As the Foundation’s President, I sought to expand the circle of committed readers who help with particular tasks and make other invaluable contributions of their time and resources. For example, since 1999 the members of the Matthew Project Committee have been helping the Foundation develop improved plans for raising funds and broadening the Foundation’s base of contributors.
Last September I encouraged the Board of Trustees to increase its storehouse of wisdom and experience by inviting experienced advisors to our quarterly meetings. Since then, the Foundation’s four Associate Trustees (Carolyn Kendall, Jane Ploetz, Nancy Shaffer, and Kathleen Swadling) and two Trustees Emeriti (Patricia Mundelius and Neal Waldrop) have shouldered increasing amounts of the Trustees’ workload, and I look forward to further benefits from their insight and energy in the years to come.
I am not leaving the Board, just shifting to another chair.
Before I make a few personal remarks, I would like to offer hearty congratulations to The Urantia Book Internet School, an innovative endeavor that sprang to life within the last few years because of the initiative and effort of Dorothy Elder. I also take pleasure in commending the insight, dedication, and contributions of Tonia Baney, who served for seven and a half years as the Foundation’s Executive Director and has now returned to a less tumultuous life at her former residence in Hawaii.
In the span of my 62 years on Urantia I have gleaned a few truths from my Amerind ancestors, who belonged to the Cherokee Nation of Native Americans. As I leave the Presidency of Urantia Foundation, two traditions come to mind.
The Central Fire. When Native Americans established a camp or village, they lit a fire in the main lodge and kept it burning night and day, never allowing it to go out. All other fires sprang from that central fire. If a particular campfire went out, the mother of that family would light a torch at the main fire and bring it to their teepee.
In effect, that is what we try to do at Urantia Foundation. In our publications and traditions, we seek to maintain a welcoming fire where everyone can come to warm themselves and renew their devotion to the will of the Great Spirit, our Father in heaven. We all warm ourselves before fires we did not build and drink from wells we did not dig.
The Eagle Feather. Many groups of the red man maintained a tradition that when a chief had completed his term, he would hand his successor an eagle feather to be worn in his hair or headdress.
So now, in spirit, I pass an eagle feather to my friend and colleague Seppo Kanerva, the new President of Urantia Foundation. May he carry it in peace, spiritual serenity, and the love of God and man. May he also hold high the heritage of his predecessors - and may he, when the time comes, pass on to his own successor the symbolic feather of the noble eagle.
¶ Italian Translation Completed!
Memo Z.
Urantia Foundation announces with great pleasure that translators have completed work on Il Libro di Urantia, the Italian translation of The Urantia Book, and that the text is now being formatted to prepare it for publication. Volunteers started the Italian project in 1987, and in 1995 the Foundation endorsed the effort. Four years later the translators finished their first draft, and since then they have been polishing and refining the text.
We extend hearty congratulations to the Italian translation team and thank them for their years of dedication and perseverance. In a very real sense the completed translation is a living memorial to the late Giuseppe Zecchinato, who led early phases of the effort but unfortunately passed away while it was still in progress.
The Italian translators worked out of love for the revelation and entirely without pay, but Urantia Foundation must bear the cost of publication. We appeal for your generous contributions so that the millions of Italian-speaking truth lovers all over the world can read the revelation in their own language.
We now yield to chief translator Memo Z., who tells the story from his perspective line.
¶ Il Libro di Urantia
by Memo Z.
I met Giuseppe Zecchinato some time in the 1980s. He told me about the Urantia Papers and quickly discovered that I was intensely interested in learning more. So he let me do some reading, and I started with “The Life and Teachings of Jesus” from the original French edition.
The stories seemed intriguing, and I felt the urge to buy the complete edition in French. After I read the entire book I decided to translate the text into my own language, Italian. When I finished a few papers, I gave them to Giuseppe and asked for his appraisal.
Sometime later we both decided to try to translate from English. With much toil and after many hardships we managed to translate some forty papers; then the work came to a sudden stop because Giuseppe fell seriously ill. In part, his illness caused him to lose his eyesight almost completely.
After a while I decided to resume the translation effort. I was translating from English but also had the French translation open as a reference tool. I would visit Giuseppe every Saturday and share my work with him. (This was easy to do, for we both lived in Verona.)
I read the new translated text to Giuseppe, who could not read anything because his eyesight had deteriorated. After we discussed what I had read aloud, Giuseppe and I agreed upon any corrections that needed to be made.
This working method was extremely slow. Based on Giuseppe’s impressions of what he was hearing, he formed the belief that the text was good enough for publication and in 1999 told the Foundation that the translation could be published in 2000. I thought we had done a good job but should have the work checked by an expert in English, and I passed along these views to Trustee Georges Michelson-Dupont.
A short while later Giuseppe died. Seppo Kanerva, the Manager for Translations, suggested that I consider accepting Antonella Carrara as my co-worker in revising and polishing the Italian text, since she had volunteered to help. She in turn recruited her friend Salvatore Frustaci, another expert in English.
This was the situation in 2001, and from that time onward Antonella, Salvatore, and I worked together as a team. They sent me their proposals for modifications and improvements, and in general I agreed with their suggestions and was grateful to them both.
I have gone through the Italian text three times, always making corrections here and there and removing imperfections. Finally on May 27, 2004 we considered the work done. The Italian translation really was finished
! I thank God I met Giuseppe Zecchinato. I thank God for inspiring me to work on the translation project using the French and English texts. I thank him especially for having given me the physical and mental energy to persist throughout these many years, overcoming innumerable difficulties that seemed to obstruct the completion of this immense effort. I thank him because now we can see the results, the first edition of Il Libro di Urantia.
¶ The Lithuanian Translation Springs to Life!
Algimantas Jokubenas
Urantia Foundation is delighted that the personal efforts of Algimantas Jokubėnas to pass along the teachings to fellow Lithuanians have now led to a complete translation of The Urantia Book. As you will soon read in his own words, Algimantas started the process in 1994 by giving lectures that summarized selected aspects of the revelation. He soon became dissatisfied with that and began reading page after page of his own handwritten manuscript. At first he had no idea of translating the entire book, but when he neared page 1500 he realized he really could.
Mr. Jokubėnas did most of his work with pen and paper, but in 1998 the Foundation provided a computer—and, from May 1999 to April 2003, a modest monthly stipend. His ten-year journey has been intense and inspiring, and he is clearly delighted that he served God’s purposes. You will sense his enthusiasm as soon as we hand him the microphone. All right, Algimantas, over to you!
¶ The Lithuanian Translation
by Algimantas Jokubėnas
In the early 1990s, I was working for Lithuanian radio and TV as the managing director of its Foreign Relations and Commercial Program Department, and also as a political analyst. While Soviet troops occupied radio and TV headquarters on January 13, 1991, thousands of people stood vigil around the parliament building to defend it from the Soviet tanks. Since I had been actively involved in a political movement that advocated Lithuania’s independence from the former Soviet Union, my family and I were on the list of journalists who would be interned once the Soviet side seized full control.
During this period I was searching very deeply for the causes of everything that was happening in my country, and that led to reflections about spiritual matters instead of just material thoughts. Every year on January 13, people came to the parliament building and assembled around big bonfires to commemorate the 1991 events. On that occasion in 1994, some of the journalists from our TV company were discussing events of the recent past, and I pointed out that there was no use for anyone to occupy TV headquarters or the parliament because these were just material objects. There must be higher things that nobody can destroy, something spiritual. One woman told me that she had a book in English about those things and would be glad to give it to me.
Just a couple of months later I was holding in my hands a copy of The Urantia Book. When I read the very first page I believed every word, for all these statements seemed so obvious and clear. But the next page was a complete confusion: I could not understand anything. I picked out all the unknown words and still could not understand what was meant. After wondering what I should do, I decided to go on reading.
The more I read, the more I came to understand a systematic way to look at reality, and this drove me forward to continue exploring The Urantia Book. Eventually I began to feel that the information it contained was answering the questions I had been posing to different people and that they had not resolved.
When I was almost finished reading the entire book, I began feeling a bit sad that soon there would be no more left to read. I wished there were much more, but I also realized that I had no right to keep all this important information only within me. I visited the editor-in-chief of one journal, showed him The Urantia Book, and offered him a series of articles on it. But he said no. Finally I thought of going to the people themselves and decided to visit the so-called Teachers’ House that was sponsoring cultural functions and a variety of lectures.
I talked with the head of this institution and described my idea of enlightening people. He supported that and provided me a room, but told me I had to find my own audience. As a form of advertising I visited different lectures that others were giving and made brief presentations on The Urantia Book, then invited people to attend my lectures.
I gave my first lecture in mid-February 1995, and in general two or three hundred people were attending my classes. When I was preparing my lectures, I realized that by paraphrasing ideas in my own words I might mislead the audience because I had misunderstood the text. So I decided to take notes and use them during class, but that was not perfect either: My notes might include misinterpretations or mistakes. This reasoning led me to translate some of the passages and read them in the lecture-room.
For the first three or four months, I developed the following work routine: Each week I translated as many passages as I could read within two hours. I had no idea of translating the book as a whole, but after a while I realized that the passages I omitted were just as important as the ones I had read aloud. Thus I decided to translate pages of the text without skipping any paragraphs, and to do just as much as I would need for a two-hour reading. I still had no any idea of translating the whole book, and it would have frightened me even to think of that. I had but a single thought: translate as much each week as I could read in two hours on Friday.
I did not have a computer, so I went through quite a few pens and pencils. After doing about one thousand pages, I started thinking, “It would be good to have the entire Urantia Book in Lithuanian, so that many people could read it in their mother tongue instead of just listening to me read it out loud.” When I came close to fifteen hundred pages, I realized that this work of mine might turn into a full translation. The ocean no longer seemed so wide, and I began to see the other side.
From that point on, I began to feel a very strong leading and assistance from within. This made me remember high school lessons in English when I was balancing between satisfactory and unsatisfactory marks, followed by my own personal efforts during summer vacations. Eventually I enrolled in the university to study English, then joined a newly formed translators’ group that included not only professional training in the theory and practice of translation, but also close study of Lithuanian grammar, syntax, and style.
Looking back on all this, I had no idea what I was doing at the University, for my original plan had been to become a Soviet army officer. But God had other plans for me. Ultimately I became convinced that it was God who was translating The Urantia Book into Lithuanian, and that I was simply his tool, a pen in his hands. And I am delighted to have served him in this way, as in any other. Praise be to God and peace be upon you, with brotherly love from Algimantas.
¶ Update on Spanish Translation Gift Books
The Foundation has made considerable progress in its project of placing over 4,500 copies of the Spanish translation of The Urantia Book in libraries and other key centers of learning in Latin America. (These are books that did not meet required quality standards for retail sale.) As we have previously reported, coordinating this effort has been an enormous endeavor. Urantia Foundation staff, Foundation Representatives, and nearly fifty volunteers in Mexico and Central and South American countries have been working on this project.
As of July a total of 2,500 copies of the Spanish translation have been placed in libraries, universities, colleges, and seminaries. Seven hundred books have been placed in Mexico, 500 in Argentina, 420 in Colombia, 150 in Bolivia, 100 in Uruguay, 130 in Paraguay, 300 in Peru, and 200 in Ecuador.
The members of the Northern Light Urantia Association of Canada (NLUAC) decided to join in sponsoring the project, and we would especially like to thank them. They have been raising funds on an ongoing basis and passing them along to Urantia Foundation, a crucial role that has helped keep the project rolling.
Funds are still urgently needed from other friends of Urantia Foundation and believers in the teachings. The books are in place in yet other countries in Central and South America and are ready to be distributed. Our volunteers are lined up and ready to go, and the Foundation’s field representative is continuing his successful visits to the main centers of learning.
We hope you will join us in ensuring that this project succeeds in sowing seeds of the revelation throughout Latin America. You can send your contributions directly to Urantia Foundation in Chicago or, if you live in Canada, directly to NLUAC at 12 Burley Avenue, Toronto, ON Canada M4K 3Z6, phone: 416-482-7115, website: www.ganid.org. (Donations that Canadian citizens make to the NLUAC are tax deductible in Canada. Be sure to note that you are contributing to the Spanish Translation Gift Book Program.)
Reaching Out to Latin America
Copies of El Libro de Urantia Placed through July 2004
¶ News From International Urantia Association
URANTIA 2004—On July 28 – August 1, this year’s IUA conference, The Mind Arena of Choice, drew more than 250 readers of The Urantia Book from around the world to Dominican University in the beautiful Chicago suburb of River Forest. Hosted by Greater Lake Michigan Urantia Association, attendees were treated to insightful plenary speeches from twelve speakers, the choice of more than 50 workshops, lectures and discussion groups, talented musical entertainment, and lots of friendship cultivation and renewal.
Pre-conference business meetings of the various IUA committees proved very fruitful and offered organizational leaders the opportunity to enrich valuable personal relationships, make important decisions, and discuss ongoing and exciting new service strategies.
More youth and young adult readers showed up than ever before and they added a special dimension to the event. Around 35 of these motivated seekers spent time both in sessions and reversion, learning more about the teachings and getting to know each other and the older generations in attendance.
New Local Association—On Sunday, February 22, 2004 the 26th local association joined the family of the Urantia Association of the United States. Urantia Brotherhood Association of Arizona was licensed in Phoenix, Arizona with twenty-three members. Since that time, two more members have been added and the group has embarked on a service project of library placement for the entire state.
Brazilian Expansion—Earlier this year the Associação Urantia do Brazil outgrew its local status and became a national association. With a current membership of 90 readers, Brazil is one of the most dynamic chapters of IUA.
¶ Booth at Book Expo America
Foundation staff member Christine Bailey (right) greeting a visitor
Urantia Foundation has been publishing The Urantia Book for half a century and has long-standing relationships with leading firms, but the publishing industry has changed dramatically in recent years. To keep those relationships solid and ensure that products bearing Urantia Foundation’s name are of the highest quality and are distributed in the best and most economical ways, Foundation staff attend periodic book fairs such as Book Expo America (June 4-6 at McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago).
Since nearly every major distributor, printer, publisher and manufacturer on the planet attended, the staff spent a busy three days seizing opportunities to further existing relationships and foster new ones. This year’s Urantia Foundation booth enabled us to make many valuable contacts in Latin America that will help expand the growing market for El libro de Urantia. The staff also scouted out several new electronic text formats - some of them quite novel and innovative. One of these days they may be coming to a Urantia Book near you!
¶ UBIS Celebrates Its Fifth Birthday!
News from The Urantia Book Internet School
In June The Urantia Book Internet School (UBIS) completed its fifth year of courses for readers around the world. The first course in English began in July 1999, and through June 2004 there have been a total of 49. In addition, a growing number of readers are now studying in Finnish, French, and Spanish. During the school’s first five years, over eight hundred readers have participated.
For UBIS Board members and the teacher/facilitators who work together to give courses, these five years have been a rewarding opportunity to gather experience and build teamwork. In the last two years, the group has developed teacher-training and mentoring programs, including a handbook for all new teachers and facilitators. In June these dedicated volunteers gathered at Foundation headquarters in Chicago for a weekend of evaluation and planning, and their innovative ideas are already bearing fruit.
On August 30, readers can begin registering for courses that start in September (https://www.urantia.org/education/urantia-book-internet-school-ubis-newsletter). The school invites everyone who shares our strong interest in the teachings to participate in these activities of education, outreach, study, and teacher training.
The true teacher maintains his intellectual integrity by ever remaining a learner. (UB 130:3.7)
¶ The Dollar-A-Day Club
In December 2003, Urantia Foundation began getting in touch with supporters to ask if they would give one dollar a day. If the Foundation received this amount from one-third of the people on its mailing list, it would raise enough money to fund all the work that is currently underway plus some new programs to make The Urantia Book and its teachings available in most regions of the world. The Foundation would have greater resources for dissemination and educational activities, translations, gift book programs, and worldwide distribution. (Less than five percent of the money required to run the Foundation comes from the sales of books. More than ninety five percent, virtually all of the money, comes from contributions.)
Many of you may already have received a call from one of our Board members inviting you to become one of these faithful contributors upon whom we rely to ensure financial stability. In response, a large number of readers have authorized the Foundation to debit their credit cards $30 per month on an ongoing basis, an approach that provides a steady stream of funds that enables the Foundation to continue its work.
Many readers who have joined our Dollar-A-Day club have told us that even though they have limited financial means, they can still afford one dollar a day - especially if they make the effort to put it aside on a daily basis. One person told us that he drops a dollar into a jar when he empties his pockets at the end of each day. Many others have said that this is mainly a matter of making a choice and a commitment to “do their bit” for the revelation, not really a question of financial resources.
If you would like to join our Dollar-A-Day club or be even more generous, please give us a call (1-773-525-3319) or send an E-mail message to urantia@urantia.org. Alternately, you could visit our website (www.urantia.org/contributions.html) or get in touch with any of the Foundation’s branch offices.
¶ Matthew Project Gathering in California
On April 3, The Matthew Project and Urantia Foundation Trustees sponsored a gathering in Santa Monica, California. Sixty readers from the Los Angeles area and other locations ranging from Santa Barbara to San Diego spent an enjoyable afternoon sharing information, fellowship, and refreshments.
Dr. Ralph Zehr, Chairman of The Matthew Project, gave an inspiring talk on “Life’s Greatest Opportunity.” Trustees Gard Jameson and Richard Keeler, as well as Foundation staffer members, then led discussions on topics such as translations, publishing, and outreach. Many of those present said this was their first opportunity to meet other readers. That is always a joyous experience, especially in a format that enables new readers to bring their families with them.
After an informal dinner, thirty-five participants spent an evening in cordial fellowship with their new friends.
¶ Former Trustee, Helena Evans Sprague, 1917 - 2004
Helena Sprague was one of the earliest readers in New England of the newly published Urantia Book. The late William S. Sadler, Jr., then Vice President of Urantia Foundation, and a business contact of her first husband Alexander Wall, found her to be a seeker of truth. Helena became a member-at-large of the Brotherhood in 1966, and in June 1974, she was appointed Field Representative of the Brotherhood. She was a Founder of the Urantia Society of Central Connecticut in 1979.
Helena was elected to the General Council in August 1979, and served six years of a nine-year term on the Council, until her appointment to the Board of Trustees of Urantia Foundation in April 1985. Her tenure on the Board came during a period of growing mistrust between the new president of the Board and the leadership of the Brotherhood. At issue were matters involving the separation of functions of each organization; both sides made incursions into the prerogatives of the other. She resigned in June 1989, along with Trustees, Frank Sgaraglino and Gloriann Harris, precipitating a series of events culminating in the “split” between the Foundation and the Brotherhood.
A native of Washington D.C., Helena was a graduate of Cornell University, with a Masters degree from Columbia. She taught in the Darien and New Britain school systems. The mother of two sons and a daughter from her first marriage, she had two grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. She lived in Hartford with her beloved husband of 30 years, Sidney Sprague. Her death came in Hartford, at the age of 87 after a brief illness.
An admiring friend in the Urantia community, David Glass, offered this farewell message: “Adieu, Helena, and every blessing and happiness be yours in your continuing journey Godward. (W)e also celebrate your admission to the incomparable and indescribably beautiful realms which are far beyond what any of us has yet imagined!”
¶ Opening for Rewarding Position
Urantia Foundation is seeking a qualified applicant to serve as International Office Manager, a full time position at the headquarters office in Chicago,Illino is, USA. This is a once in-a-lifetime opportunity for a motivated lover of the Urantia revelation to make a difference. While this position requires organizational excellence and very hard work, its payoff is in the soul and in the sentiment of being involved in a good cause. Information regarding the responsibilities and necessary qualifications for this position is available at https://www.urantia.org/news_info/iom.html. Applications will be accepted through September 30, 2004.
¶ Reader Comments About The Urantia Book
“Peace is how I describe what I found with The Urantia Book, after so many years of searching.” – Dominican Republic
“I have read the book in its entirety once and I’m almost halfway into my second reading. It gets easier to read and understand the second time around. I have to say that this is the greatest book in all of Nebadon and Orvonton as far as I’m concerned.” – Ontario, Canada
“I am lucky that I found such an interesting book which contains all the truth, beauty, and goodness.” – Rawalpindi, Pakistan
“I first found The Urantia Book at my local library in the late 1960s. I have thought about it often since then, but never owned a copy until recently. It is the only work of this kind that rings true on every level. Thank you for your service. Thank God, our Father and Son, Michael for sharing this truth.”– Wisconsin, USA