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An ongoing process of action, reflection, consultation, study and the application of those learnings through further action is marking efforts nationwide to share the vision and teachings of Baha’u’llah with friends and neighbors. Witness these three recent examples shared with The American Baha’i: Guidance translates to action Baha’is serving the King Estates neighborhood of south [...]
As we build our capacities to serve God and humanity, Nichole Agarwal of Riverside, California, commends to our attention the example of Kathryn Kim. A newly registered Baha’i who was raised in a nonreligious home, Kim has told Agarwal that through the Faith she found her channel to serve humanity. Indeed, she spends many hours doing [...]
There’s a reason Nwandi Lawson titled her workshop at the recent Rabbani Trust Conference in Orlando, Florida, “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” She hopes each of us becomes the kind of neighbor the late Fred Rogers was to generations of young television viewers and their parents. “Doesn’t he just epitomize neighborhood?” asks Lawson. [...]
Cynthia Davis was at a crossroads in her Baha’i service when she arrived in Orlando, Florida, for the Rabbani Trust Conference and the development seminar that preceded it. Circumstances rendered her “life path … an open chapter” when she lost her job as an educator. And the toll from heavy involvement in her cluster’s activities [...]
Keith Dahl, a career accountant, moved to American Samoa in 1975 to help consolidate the newly expanded Baha’i community, and he served the Faith there for 37 years, teaching children’s classes nearly all that time. To locals he was best known as “Kifi,” whose trusty camera documented virtually every major civic and social event on [...]
You’re taking a year off from college and trekking to sunny, tropical French Guiana in service to the Baha’i community for 10 months. Imagine the adventures. Photo Gallery Anisa Norris leads a children’s class at the Baha’i center in Acarouany village, French Guiana. Photo courtesy of Anisa and Jasmine Norris Click to enlarge and browse [...]
Photo Gallery Some members of a New York City junior youth group pose with groceries they collected. Photo courtesy of Lev Rickards Click to enlarge and browse a gallery of related photos. It’s easy to see why efforts by Baha’is to build community where they live revolve around the core activities of children’s classes, junior [...]
Recent growth of the Baha’i Faith in the Triangle cluster of North Carolina is closely tied to the evolution of the Spiritual Assembly serving one of its communities, Carrboro. Photo Gallery Several members of the Spiritual Assembly of Carrboro are among those pictured at a local Holy Day celebration. Photo courtesy of Nathan Shepherd Click [...]
All ages are learning together in the Creighton neighborhood of Phoenix, Arizona. Photo Gallery Collecting cell photos before her Jr. Youth Group is an effective way to keep distractions at a minimum. Photo courtesy of Marilyn Sanchez Click to enlarge and browse a gallery of related photos. The children are refining their character. The junior [...]
Summer service project offers spiritual solutions. Photo by Harry Ortgies Relationships planted the seeds for Baha’i core activities at a homeless shelter on Long Island, New York. Relationships helped them sprout, too. And service by the youths of a Baha’i summer project helped nurture them to full flower. It all started when April Lowry was [...]
Baha’is were there for Brett Emmons when he expressed interest in the Baha’i Faith, undertook its study, and took training courses aimed at increasing his ability to serve humanity. Now, still accompanied by others, he is sharing the teachings with others and sparking in them a flame of love. Hundreds of miles away, Ibrahim Sillah [...]
Julie Heath and her husband lived and served the Baha’i Faith in Central Asia as pioneers for two stretches of several years each, starting in 1999. Both times she was able to start children’s classes and junior youth groups, using capacities built through Ruhi Institute training. In one neighborhood she brought in a group of [...]
There’s been something new learned — and something new to try the next time — with every children’s class session offered by Baha’is in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Fairfax County East, Virginia, in the NoVA East cluster. The results haven’t been spectacular, but slow and steady is how you build a sustainable core activity. [...]
Need, meet opportunity. Photo Gallery An intensive Book 3 coincides with children’s camp in Oregon. Photo courtesy of Marcia Veach Click to enlarge and browse a gallery of related photos. Participants in a Portland, Oregon-area intensive study of Book 3 (Teaching Children’s Classes: Grade 1) of the Ruhi Institute training sequence found an ideal venue [...]
It’s a good cluster reflection gathering when attendees are able to discover the reality of a situation, identify solutions and resources, and agree on a plan of action. That’s what Baha’is in the New Hampshire cluster of Baha’i communities did when they consulted about the needs of junior youths in the city of Manchester. Discussion [...]
This is a story without a happy ending. Yet. Photo Gallery A neighborhood children’s class gathers in a Littleton, Colorado park. Photo by Douglas Allen Click to enlarge and browse a gallery of related photos. Unless you count the solid spiritual muscle the Spiritual Assembly of Littleton, Colorado, packed on over the past year. A [...]
It’s a tantalizing paradox: “The mystery of sacrifice is that there is no sacrifice.” An early American Baha’i coined that maxim in reflecting on the wisdom of ‘Abdu’l-Baha. And it was an assurance that an anxious Cher Gupta-Fletcher heard from Judi Behrendt when the two were preparing in early 2011 to spend most of a [...]
By Christina Wright You may often think to yourself, “That happens to other people’s kids, but not mine.” But bullying isn’t just something that happens to some kids you don’t know in some small corner pocket of where you live. Bullying is happening to 60 to 80 percent of our children all over the country [...]
Photo Gallery A “cutting of the bread” ceremony in Jimma, Ethiopia. Photo courtesy of Doug and Bahereh Smith Click to enlarge and browse a gallery of related photos. You’re a Texas couple who have arisen to serve the Bahá’í Faith as pioneers abroad. You’ve settled in a mid-size city in southwestern Ethiopia where only a [...]
Life in Baltimore, Maryland, a city of row houses, centers on people’s front stoops. So when Baha’is began sharing the Faith’s teachings in the Collington Square neighborhood three years ago, all eyes were on them. They’d have to demonstrate to residents of one of the city’s poorest areas their love and sincerity. The catalyst, Tod [...]
Like Baha’is the world over, the believers in Laos are focusing a lot of attention on young people as they work to build and develop local communities. Photo Gallery Prayer time at a children’s class in Ban Haht village, Laos. Click to enlarge and browse a gallery of related photos. In fact, in the past [...]
Betty Chong-Gerbracht of Bothell, Washington, Bahá’í children’s class coordinator for her cluster of local communities, shares how a thriving children’s class in an apartment complex began and what she has learned from the experience. After months of [visiting] parents and children [and inviting them] to start children’s classes in their homes, and a couple of [...]
This time it was different. This time a mother in the neighborhood reached out to other moms in her Vienna, Virginia, neighborhood. That’s how a Baha’i children’s class with seven children formed this fall in a Vienna apartment complex and has thrived. Visits to the neighborhood by Baha’is from Vienna and other Fairfax County towns [...]
“Apartments. Kids. Children’s classes!” That was the progression of Elyce Nasseri’s thoughts as the Missouri City, Texas, Baha’i retrieved her beagle from the people who had found Jasmine-dog wandering. The complex was one where the Baha’is had wished to make friends. Management had not allowed them to visit door to door, but now a golden [...]
A process of community building is playing out in the first year of a new planning and action cycle
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