Prophetic Start


At the end of 1984 a conference was held in Örebro, Sweden, with the theme "Big Brother or the Kingdom of God?" This conference, with Intercessors International, became the platform from which Gunnar shared for the first time his vision and dream of an International Christian Chamber of Commerce. "I had carried the vision for several years, but now the Lord showed me that the time had come to take a bold step and dress the vision in words. Close to the time of the conference, and full of fear about making a mistake, I cried out to the Lord for a sign. The Lord answered my heart's cry and encouraged me, through an American businessman who called from Paris and wanted to see me at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm. He would fly in just over lunch-time and return later the same day. When meeting him at the airport he said, "Now is the time to speak what you have in your heart. And this shall be your sign!" When I asked him "what are you talking about?" he answered, "I don't know." As he spoke, he reached into his briefcase and handed over 2,000 lapel pins. This is today the ICCC symbol."

This was the first in a series of prophetic confirmations which led to the initiation of the ICCC. "The Bible tells us that we are His workmanship, created for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. I experienced the truth of these words; everything was prepared beforehand" Gunnar says.  In the same supernatural way God led Gunnar to each of the five other founding members of the ICCC. 

Among these was Dr Willard Cantelon of Washington DC, who was chairman that year of the Congressional Prayer Breakfast in the USA.  "What you have initiated has much greater dimensions than you can now appreciate and understand..." Dr. Willard Cantelon spoke thorugh the phone from Washington; Gunnar had only met him once before at a luncheon for several hundred businessmen in Brussels two years earlier. In spite of the fact that the two did not know each other, Dr Cantelon had at that time, shocked Gunnar by saying, "We will have much to do with each other in the future." After that luncheon they had no other contact until the telephone conversation during the dinner with Dr Ladenius.
"To this day I cannot understand what happened in any other way than that my steps were directed in detail in a supernatural way" Gunnar says.