By Christian Ruch, Dattwil, Switzerland
Around 20 German-speaking readers of The Urantia Book met for the second time in Frankfurt, Germany. We met for the first time last year when we learned more about the history of The Urantia Book and the challenges of translating it from English into German. This time, the main topic of discussion was “Personality – in this Life and after Death,” and Paper 112 was the focus of our study.
It was gratifying to participate in a stimulating discussion of personality and to observe a deep understanding of the teachings. I think that everyone went home with an enhanced understanding of personality and with satisfaction that they had come to Frankfurt. Among the participants was Rita Schaad from Newcastle, Australia, secretary of ANZURA, the Australian-New Zealand Urantia Readers Association. She was warmly welcomed! Rita, who was born in Switzerland and whose first language is Swiss-German, was in the “neighborhood” visiting family and decided to take advantage of the opportunity to meet with German -speaking Urantia Book readers. She also participates in the German-speaking Urantia Book newsgroup which exists on the internet.
Another highlight of the Frankfurt meeting was the presentation of the German audio version. Reinhard Schneider, a Swiss reader, put the text of the German translation into MP3 format for people who want to listen to the Urantia Revelation. He received a loud applause for this work.
Everybody is looking forward to next year’s meeting which will also be in Frankfurt. Our topic of study will be the Lucifer rebellion.