It has been a true honor to serve Urantia Association for the last eight years. I have been blessed to help guide this group of global, loving, God-seeking people as they have come together for the common purpose of sharing an epochal revelation.
Right now, I am reminded of a Raymond Carver poem about a spring of water that gradually grows into a river and eventually merges into the ocean. Cathy Jones, one of the key pioneers in the formation of Urantia Association worked tirelessly to unite a scattered group of springs into a stream. Gaetan Charland, our first President, dedicated his efforts into guiding this stream as it grew, and with a leap of faith, he handed that work over and allowed me the joy of shaping this growing global movement. And now I see us racing toward the river ahead and it is with supreme confidence in the future that I am handing the office of President over to Enrique Traver from Brazil.
In The Urantia Book we are told how Christianity became an Occidental religion, and the leaders of the Association have taken note of that and worked hard to ensure that the book and its teachings are not wedded to just one nation, one language, or one culture. The single initiative that I am most proud of over the last eight years has been the rise of the continental coordination program. This has allowed for regional leadership training, a dramatic increase in continental conferences and service projects, and has elevated Africa, Europe, Latin America, and North America as equal and balancing centers of education and influence for our global Urantia community.
The International Service Board is filled with dedicated men and women who volunteer extraordinary energy and time to the revelation we all love. Our continental and national leaders are the captains of this ship who make the ultimate decisions on which programs we will use to share these teachings with the world. And the Local Association and study group leaders are the beating heart of the Urantia community. I am deeply grateful to each and every person who has stepped forward to help us “lift together.”
A wise Urantia Book student once told me that throughout our ascension careers we will be working together in teams, and so an important lesson in life is to find the people who we work best with and to form a team and accomplish something. As I visited Urantia Associations throughout the world, I witnessed these pockets of diverse personalities who have come together in teams. As long as these morontia lessons continue to be taught in the material world, the Urantia community will succeed in preparing the world for the day when men and women will be willing to seek truth and righteousness.
The future is bright! Urantia Foundation continues to prepare new and exciting translations of The Urantia Book and revise the translations already in print. The internet has torn down barriers to book distribution. And as these new communities find the teachings, they will inevitably want to band together with their neighbors and join the dynamic teams that make up Urantia Association in our service to the world. “The act is ours; the consequences God’s.” (Paper 48: 7, page 556)
It’s been an honor to serve and build on the work of Cathy Jones and Gaetan Charland; a joy to spend these short, short years in service to a revelation. I am forever indebted to Urantia Association International.
Thank you,
Chris Wood