39 Urantia Books

The Portland Body, Mind and Spirit Expo Report

I attended the Portland Expo on Nov 2-3, 2013.

The weekend started with Andrea Barnes giving an introduction to the Urantia Book Friday evening at the New Renaissance Book Store. We had several readers and one new person in attendance. Andrea did a great job with her introduction.

We had not originally planned to do the fall Portland Expo as we had applied to do another Portland event. When that event canceled we decided to do the expo and are glad we did. My old theory that it is not good to do the same expo multiple times as the same people will come was proven wrong once again. There were many new faces and the Urantia Book was well received. We sold 39 books and gifted one for a total of 40 books distributed plus 2 sold to local volunteers. We also collected contact information for 31 new readers.

We gave out 40 to 50 free-book cards and expect that ten or so will be sent in for redemption. For those that wonder why and when we hand out these cards, since our goal is to sell books, I will explain. If a person stops and talks to us for a while, shows sufficient interest, and makes ready to leave with no solid indication they will be back to buy a book, we then hand them a Free-book card and suggest they look the Urantia Book up on the internet and if they find it interesting, just send the card in for a free book.

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Some people tell us they have so many books to read and the Urantia Book is so big. We know they love books so they may decide to learn more about the UB and will look it up on the web as the notion of getting a free copy has also stimulated their interest.

At this expo when I add up the total expenses & income and divide by the number of books sold ($870/42) we come up with $20.71 as the cost per book, which is not bad at all. If ten Free-book cards come in the cost goes down even more – by $.71 per book for an expo average cost per book of $20.00 per book distributed from the expo. It costs the office $17 to send out a free book with postage and office time. This lower cost of office distribution in turn brings the overall average cost per book down for the expo.

Please let myself, or the office, know if you can use some Free-book cards for outreaching to people you meet, and we will mail you some.

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As usual there were many wonderful conversations at the booth that the helpers and I much enjoyed. I also take time to meet the other people working a booth at the expo. One gal that had a booth with Mother Mary artwork (because she had a visitation by Mary when she was down and out) came over and brought 2 books and came back later to gift the booth workers with some beautiful lockets with a great Jesus picture in them. After several in depth conversations the lady at the booth diagonally across from us bought a book and was glowing with anticipation and most appreciative knowing what she had in her hands.

The Portland area readers did a fine job of manning the booth. Every year we get it down better as we learn how best to share the revelation. Doug Parker and Nancy Votrain came up from Corvallis to help as well. My sister, Janet, and I went down to visit them after the expo and our conversations led to making plans to get into the Oregon Country Fair near Eugene, that has 55,000 attend each summer.

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Many thanks to Cristina Hutchins for lining up the volunteers and helping with set up and tear down. Our other volunteers were Esther, Aaron, Eric, Dave, and Savuth.

Thank you as well to all who support the Fellowship to make this work possible. Know that because of your generosity many lives were touched at the Portland Body, Mind & Spirit Expo the weekend of Nov. 2 & 3. Cristina just informed me that two people that bought books are already attending study group. My sister is also joining the local study group. Yes, another Orjala has read the UB. Don’t know what took her so long as I told her about it in 1973. Being a librarian, maybe she had too many books to read.

The actions are ours, the consequences Gods

Thomas Orjala Outreach Committee

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5 thoughts on “39 Urantia Books”

  1. This is awesome! If you guys keep tabs on these types of events, maybe you can send word to different areas when the next ones in town and we can organize as individuals or as societies. That’ll make the cost even cheaper !

  2. Yes, doing these booths is a real joy – the thrill of loving service indeed!

    Geoff, we are currently booking expo’s for next year so if you can find one in your area, let us know. We will be doing the San Jose Expo this year which isn’t too far from you.

    We are getting better at getting the cost per book distributed down. It helps to have well trained booth people that are willing to reach out to the passers-by. Many that would have walked on by wind up getting a book because we drew them into the booth and shared with them the blessings of the UB.

    The Outreach Committee looks for new areas to go into so let us know if we have not been to your area yet or recently.

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