By Mo Siegel, President, Urantia Foundation, Colorado, USA
By the account of most people living in the United States, 2008 will be remembered as the beginning of a serious economic recession. For those at Urantia Foundation, we’ll remember 2008 as the year where you, the readers and believers, generously gave to the work of the revelation in spite of your own financial hardships. As we entered into the last part of 2008, Urantia Foundation investments had taken a set back and income from our funds had shrunk. Yet the work of Urantia Foundation increased to a new and exhilarating level. We needed your help to get through a very tough year and your help was forthcoming.
In Nov. 2008, four donors generously gave $100,000 toward a matching fund. Readers were told of the match and the growing financial needs of Urantia Foundation. By the end of December over $200,000 in donations poured in to match the fund. 808 donors gave in 2008, the second highest number of contributors on record. Thanks to your generous outpouring of support, we ended the year with this positive outcome enabling us to start 2009 without cutting too deeply into vital programs. We humbly thank you for your goodwill, your financial support, and your love of the Revelation. Without your encouragement and help, we could not do this work. Believers in this Revelation are truly kind and generous souls.
2009 will be another challenging year, and we’ll need your help again. We’re proceeding with financial caution as we prioritize the work at hand. The “nice” to have will give way to the “need” to have as, out of necessity, our budgets have been reduced by nearly 20%. This will be a year where we must do more with less. On the docket we have 5 translations coming to completion and the work of improving our website taking center stage. Books need selling, the building needs upkeep, and the education initiative needs to move forward. In spite of short term economic difficulties, The Urantia Book project must and will proceed. These are the times we’ll look back on from the Mansion Worlds and be thankful we had the opportunity to participate. These are invigorating times that bring out the best within us and between us. As in sports, resistance builds muscle. Says the Revelation, “The Creators are possessed of full power to make Urantia a veritable paradise, but such an Eden would not contribute to the development of those strong, noble, and experienced characters which the Gods are so surely forging out on your world between the anvils of necessity and the hammers of anguish. Your anxieties and sorrows, your trials and disappointments, are just as much a part of the divine plan on your sphere as are the exquisite perfection and infinite adaptation of all things to their supreme purpose on the worlds of the central and perfect universe.” (23:2:5)
Thanks again for all your volunteer efforts and your financial and moral support.
Upward and inward.
Mo