The story begins…
2014
I woke up one morning in 2014 with a vivid mental picture of the Sea of Galilee (the Kinneret, in Hebrew), and then this quote came to mind:
And it was from these old memories of Nazareth, Capernaum, Mount Hermon, and of the sunrise and sunset on the shimmering Sea of Galilee, that he soothed himself as he made his human heart strong and ready to encounter the traitor who should so soon betray him. 182:3.10
What to do with this, I had no clue.
A couple of months later, a friend came from Switzerland and asked me to take her sightseeing around the Sea of Galilee. While hiking around the Mount of Beatitudes, we came up on a little hill. I looked down and I saw the amazing vista pictured above.
To be honest, I still had no clue what to do with this.
A couple of weeks later, my good friend Diane Labrecque came to lead her first spiritual retreat for Urantia Book students to follow in the footsteps of the Master. Among some of that group shown in the picture below, you’ll see (left to right) Rick Lyon, Maramis Choufani, Diane Labrecque, Jeff Wattles, and me (Gabriel Rymberg). We spent many hours talking about Jesus and in those conversations the idea came to build a retreat center for pilgrims.
During the retreat we told the group about this idea and later we did a group prayer on top of the same hill. Rick Lyon, a Center for Unity’s executive team member, prayed there with us on that hill. Rick’s recollections of that day are as follows:
I remember standing there when this photo was taken. You can barely see me in the red striped shirt on the left. Gabriel Rymberg was helping Diane Labrecque guide our Urantia group tour. As we stood on this hilltop overlooking the beautiful Sea of Galilee, Gabriel shared his desire for a Urantia retreat on that very spot. As a way for Diane to keep track of us in a crowd we all carried a small Urantia banner to wave in case we got separated. Inspired by Gabriel’s vision, I suggested a prayer and that we plant one of the little Urantia flags and claim the location for Urantia. What for me began as a prayer and a little ceremony that day has grown from a grand vision of what could be into a grand project of what will be. Our Center for Unity’s four projects are growing in both potential and actuality. – Rick Lyon
Back in 2014, I (Gabriel) was still fully engaged with the translation of The Urantia Book to Hebrew. I was still in Part II, so I pretty much set aside the retreat center for later.
