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This past year has been a time for exploring vistas and taking new direction in the IFC. The challenge was given by Steve Dreier last year at IC-93 in St. Hyacinthe, Canada. Offering the Urantia Book to the world will be the task for the near future. Subsequently the Executive Committee voted to pledge more resources to embark on the journey to achieve this goal. These funds are being used for mailing Urantia Books and secondary works overseas, to help travel expenses for our members attending international meetings, and to help bring some of our international friends to the United States who wish to attend our conferences. 

The annual IFC Meeting was held January 7-9 in Houston, Texas. This meeting was hosted by the Houston society where a wide range of topics were discussed. We decided to strengthen the ties with our Latin American friends. A separate subcommittee chaired by Douglas Fraser will coordinate our efforts. We will continue to facilitate the distribution of books to Central and South America. Dialogue regarding affiliation has been initiated with groups in Bogota, Columbia by Avi Dogim on behalf of the Charter Committee. After our initial trip last September, we plan to return again over the Thanksgiving holidays this year. We plan to take a larger group, to join in a mini-conference in Columbia, and to also visit Argentina for the first time. 

We also established a subcommittee chaired by Lila Dogim to further develop our Russian and Eastern European friendships. Other members of this subcommittee include Marta Elders, Bobbie Dreier, and David Kantor. In October 1993, Steve Dreier led a delegation to Eastern Europe and Moscow for the Second Urania Conference organized by Tatiana Antonyan. On the way to Moscow, the group stopped in Vilnius, Lithuania and met with a group led by Svetlana Braziene. These two meetings were reported in greater detail at the midyear General Council meeting. The third Urania Conference will again be held in the Moscow area near September 25. We plan to also attend this meeting and to further strengthen the bond between our two organizations. Tatiana and Svetlana will be attending Scientific Symposium II in Oklahoma City. 

At the midyear General Council meeting, I addressed the group and offered as a goal that we should give the Urantia Book to all the world's major cultures by the turn of the century. As this idea has been further discussed, we realize some more homework is needed before we present the Urantia Book to the Islamic and Asian cultures. We have decided to pursue interfaith activities in preparation for this task. David Kantor produced a valuable analysis in preparation for the Russian trip last year. This may serve as a model to prepare ourselves as we present the Urantia Book to other cultures. Stevie Shafer has established a dialogue with a Moslem in her study group. Together they are working to develop an interfaith product. In this way we hope to offer the Urantia Book to very diverse cultures beginning from a place of common spiritual ground.

The trip to Israel celebrating the 2000th birthday of Jesus is coming up very soon. Following this event I will be traveling to South Africa to visit our reader community there in Johannesburg. The Summer Days gathering of Finnish readers will be in June. As already stated the Third Urania Conference will be at the end of September near Moscow. And the Australian Conference will be held in Melbourne from September 30 through October 3. We plan to have representatives from the Fellowship at each of these gatherings. 

During this past year, the Foundation has sponsored the birth and development of the International Urantia Association (IUA.) This offers us a challenge as we undertake our international work. It is my belief that as long as the tension between our two organizations remains, it will be communicated consciously or unconsciously in our international efforts. Thus the IUA and the Fellowship will be viewed as competing organizations. The Urantia Book offers us the tools to help unify planetary spiritual life, but we find ourselves embroiled in sectarian strife. In the Supreme sense, it may be through this experience we add value to the meaning of unity. For our international efforts to be effective, I believe we must work with the Foundation. Each organization has a part to play, and I have noticed the shortcomings when each works alone. The world situation has offered us a window of opportunity to disseminate the Urantia Book and its teachings, and if we are to be successful we must someday see the Revelation to be larger than our differences. 

Respectfully submitted,

John Lange

Chairman, International Fellowship Committee