A Fond Farewell to the Finnish Branch Office
A Fond Farewell to the Finnish Branch Office
By Urantia Foundation Staff
Long before the age of the internet, Foundation staff relied on written and telephonic correspondence with contacts around the world. It wasn’t until the early 1990s that most offices began taking advantage of the World Wide Web, which made accessing information and connecting online much more user friendly for the average person.
During this same time period, new translations of The Urantia Book were becoming available. International book distribution was tricky and best left to regional centers. In the early 1990s it made sense for Urantia Foundation to create branch offices for book sales and distribution. The Foundation saw its role as being that of a facilitator and coordinator, for “that state is best which co-ordinates most while governing least.” 71:3.9 (803:09)
The first of five regional offices was established in Australia in 1992, managed by Trevor and Kathleen Swadling. The following year, an office was opened in England. Chris and Tina Moseley worked closely with bookstores to ensure a ready supply of Urantia Books to readers throughout the United Kingdom.
In 1993, the Finnish branch office was established in Helsinki to serve readers in Finland, Sweden, and Estonia, later adding Norway and Denmark. It was managed by Seppo Kanerva and Seppo Niskanen.
The final two regional offices were opened in 1999 to serve the Canadian provinces. The Vancouver office was managed by Nathen and Kassandra Jansen, and the Quebec City office, managed by Richard Dore and Colette Peltier, handled business for French-speaking readers.
For various reasons, the regional offices closed down one by one, but the Finnish office remained open until now. Over the years management shifted to Kristina and Pekka Siikala, then Kalevi Eklöf and his wife Marja-Leena, and then Tapio Pulli. Their work extended to far more than book sales and distribution. It sounds glib to say it’s the end of an era, but in the case of the Finnish regional office it is true.
Here is a personal message from Tapio:
“I have been a reader of The Urantia Book since 1987. As a young man I participated in the process of starting the Finnish Urantia Association and served on its governing board, mostly as the treasurer. I well remember an earlier visit by a group of readers from the United States who promoted The Urantia Book. The most sympathetic and distinctive of them was Richard Keeler. In later years we would enjoy his banjo playing and singing. He even managed to get us timid Finnish readers to sing along with him. And that is a lot!
“For the last 10 years, I ran the Finnish branch office of Urantia Foundation by selling books, mostly the Finnish translation. Now that the second edition has been printed, the book has a new distributor, Ultra-lehti.
“It has been a valuable experience for me to know the first Finnish readers who were reading the book since the middle of the 1960s. We humans usually admire and appreciate pioneers, but I assume that based on future historic perspectives, we will all be considered pioneers. The message of the book is still taking its baby steps.
“Recently I have been thinking about the glad tidings in the gospel of Jesus. We are all partners in the great plan that is to be as perfect as our Creator. Our task is to find higher values through our own experience. In this plan we even are potential co-creators. What a message of joy for us all to share!”