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No. 471

BAHA’I YEAR 127

JUNE, 1970

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Riḍván Message

from the

Universal House of Justice

BAHAI WORLD COMMUNITY ENTERING SEVENTH YEAR NINE YEAR PLAN HAS AMPLY DEMONSTRATED ABILITY SCALE HEIGHTS DEVOTION SACRIFICE WIN ASTONISHING VICTORIES WORLD REDEEMING WORLD HEALING WORLD UNITING FAITH STOP AT THIS RIDVAN EXTEND LOVING WELCOME ELEVEN NEW NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLIES NOW FORMING SEVEN IN AFRICA ONE IN AMERICAS ONE IN ASIA TWO IN AUSTRALASIA RAISING TO NINETYFOUR NUMBER SUPPORTING PILLARS UNIVERSAL HOUSE JUSTICE STOP MOVED PAY LOVING TRIBUTE HANDS CAUSE GOD THEIR BRILLIANT SERVICES BLAZING TEACHING TRAILS SURFACE PLANET UPLIFTING ADVISING ASSEMBLIES FRIENDS ALL CONTINENTS STOP IN VIEW EFFECTIVE REINFORCEMENT THIS NOBLE WORK BY ABLE DEDICATED CONTINENTAL BOARDS COUNSELLORS THEIR AUXILIARY BOARDS TOGETHER WITH GROWING NEED AND EXPANSION WORLD COMMUNITY ANNOUNCE AUGMENTATION VITAL INSTITUTION THROUGH APPOINTMENT THREE ADDITIONAL COUNSELLORS IRAJ AYMAN WESTERN ASIA ANNELIESE BOPP BETTY REED EUROPE AND AUTHORIZATION APPOINTMENT FORTYFIVE ADDITIONAL AUXILIARY BOARD MEMBERS NINE AFRICA SIXTEEN ASIA TWO AUSTRALASIA EIGHTEEN WESTERN HEMISPHERE STOP CALLING FORMATION FOUR NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLIES RIDVAN 1971 LESOTHO SEAT MASERU IVORY COAST MALI AND UPPER VOLTA SEAT ABIDJAN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO SEAT PORT OF SPAIN SOLOMON ISLANDS SEAT HONIARA STOP NINE YEAR PLAN ALREADY MARKED GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS PIONEERING PROCLAMATION RECOGNITION FAITH UPSURGE YOUTH ACQUISITION PROPERTIES COMMENCEMENT CONSTRUCTION PANAMA TEMPLE DEVELOPMENTS WORLD CENTRE STOP URGENT IMMEDIATE

[Page 2] VITAL NEED CONCENTRATE ATTENTION INCREASE NUMBER LOCALITIES LOCAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLIES BELIEVERS FILL REMAINING PIONEER POSTS STOP LAST RIDVAN CALL RAISED SEVENHUNDRED AND THIRTYTHREE PIONEERS MINIMUM REQUIREMENT STOP FOURHUNDRED AND SEVENTYNINE SPECIFIC POSTS STILL UNFILLED STOP TOTAL VICTORY REQUIRES MORE PIONEERS MORE FUNDS MORE NEW BELIEVERS STOP HANDS CAUSE COUNSELLORS BOARD MEMBERS NATIONAL LOCAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLIES EVERY SINGLE FOLLOWER BAHAULLAH SUMMONED UTMOST EFFORT REMAINING YEARS NINE YEAR PLAN STOP ACHIEVEMENT THIS STEP MASTERS DIVINE PLAN WILL ENDOW COMMUNITY CAPACITY ADMINISTRATIVE AGENCIES UNDERTAKE NEXT STAGE IMPLEMENTATION SUPREME PURPOSE BAHAULLAHS REVELATION UNIFICATION MANKIND ESTABLISHMENT LONG PROMISED KINGDOM GOD THIS EARTH STOP ASSURE ARDENT LOVING PRAYERS HOLY SHRINES.

—THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE

Tribute to Pioneer Teacher

Mamie L. Seto

GRIEVED LEARN PASSING DEVOTED MAIDSERVANT MAMIE SETO. HER EXEMPLARY SERVICE CAUSE GOD SPANNING MORE THAN HALF CENTURY MARKED BY EFFECTIVE CONTRIBUTIONS NATIONAL, LOCAL ADMINISTRATIVE INSTITUTIONS DISTINGUISHED BY HIGHLY FRUITFUL TEACHING AMERICA AND PIONEERING WITH HUSBAND ASIA. PRAY RICH REWARD ABHA KINGDOM.

—Universal House of Justice

Mrs. Mamie Loretta Seto passed away April 15, 1970, in Detroit, Michigan, a few days after her eighty-fifth birthday anniversary, following a few months of hospitalization.

The foregoing cablegram from the Universal House of Justice pays beautiful tribute to the half century of Mrs. Seto’s services to the Bahá’í Faith in teaching, traveling, serving on local Spiritual Assemblies and National Committees, pioneering, and membership on the National Spiritual Assembly for approximately two years. She resigned from the latter institution in 1953 to pioneer with her husband, Anthony Y. Seto, in Hong Kong during the Ten Year Crusade. In 1956 Mrs. Seto had the bounty of pilgrimage to the Bahá’í World Center.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Seto participated in the first Convention of the Bahá’ís of North East Asia in Tokyo in 1957, where Mr. Seto passed away suddenly a few days later. Mrs. Seto returned to Hong Kong, where she remained until 1963.

Returning to California, Mrs. Seto resumed her active teaching and service in the Faith until failing health intervened. Many are the Bahá’ís in the United States, Hawaii, and throughout the world who will long remember her exemplary devotion to the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh from the moment of her acceptance in 1916 in Hawaii.

Finland

Finland achieved another of its Nine Year Plan goals with the enrollment on January 25 of Mr. Valde Nyman and Mrs. Tuula Nyman. Mr. Nyman is the only Gypsy Bahá’í in Finland; Mrs. Nyman is Finnish born.

Panama Temple

Inside wall forms, showing all bracing necessary to keep alignment.

[Page 3] Hands of the Cause of God Amatu’l-Bahá and Dr. Muhájir, and Board of Counsellors member Dr. Mihdí Samandarí, at a reception in the home of Board of Counsellors member ‘Azíz Yazdí in Nairobi, Kenya.

Children at the new Givogi Bahá’í Center, Kenya, singing for and cheering Amatu’l-Bahá.

Six Thousand Miles Across Africa

The great trek from East to West Africa began on January 1, when Amatu’l-Bahá drove her Land Rover away from the Banání home, where she had been a guest for some weeks, and accompanied by Mr. Oloro Epyeru, member of the Board of Counsellors for Central and East Africa, and me, she turned her car towards the Congo.

On March 2 we reached Accra, Ghana, after successfully — but far from uneventfully — traversing 6000 miles of jungle, burning savannas, parched bush country, and the steaming tropical coast of West Africa. This achievement, though far from unique, is certainly a rare one; and I believe it must be the longest single overland journey to date undertaken by any Bahá’í — let alone a Hand of the Cause of God — in this continent.

Many times in Haifa, when we pored over the map of Africa, Rúḥíyyih Khánum would say, “It is so big, how are we ever going to do it? Well, maybe if we bite it off, piece by piece, we can get there ...” This can be truly said to have been our method, because almost no information, especially of a detailed nature, is available on one side of Africa about the other side. For instance, two days before our departure we discovered that the car insurance, which we thought was for all Africa, carried us no farther than the frontiers of East Africa! With great difficulty we got it to cover the Congo; but from there to the capital of the Central African Republic we rolled many hundreds of miles with no coverage, hoping and praying no catastrophe would occur until we could obtain a new policy.

We were told there were rebels in the Congo, bandits in Chad; that there was fighting along the frontiers; that the great danger was theft of the car by rebels or regular army; that we might be attacked or murdered; that the insects were going to be terrible — we already knew about the diseases! But we suffered from none of these things.

No one ever said much of a specific nature about the roads. Rúḥíyyih Khánum says if she had known what they were like she does not think she would have had the courage to do it. Before leaving, we were given a condensed course (an hour and a half) by one of the

Amatu’l-Bahá, Mrs. Soraya Yazdí, and Mrs. Violette Nakhjavání with friends at Siaya, Kenya. Auxiliary Board member Samuel Obura, tallest, center back.

Rabbani African Safari, January 1970. (Left to right) Mrs. Violette Nakhjavání, Rene Jean Baptiste (Haitian pioneer), Amatu’l-Bahá, Selma Mughrabi, Board of Counsellors member Oloro Epyeru, Mrs. Janet Mughrabi, secretary of National Teaching Committee of Central Africa.

[Page 4] National Teaching Committee for Central African Republic, Congo (Brazzaville), Gabon, and Chad, November 1969. Standing, left to right: Bernard Igwe (Gabon); D. Morgan (Chad), chairman; J. Mughrabi (R.C.A.), secretary; Oumar Beecham (R.C.A.); Isaac Ezukuwi (Gabon); R. Jean Baptiste (R.C.A.), treasurer. Seated: Gh. Azemikhah.

pioneers on how to replace various parts of the car from our large supply of spares — if we broke down. Rúḥíyyih Khánum wrote it all down, but it was a good three weeks before she discovered where she had put her notes! In any case, it is unlikely the two of us could even lift one of the heavy wheels into position to change a tire. We soon discovered, however, that the average African truck driver is extremely courteous and helpful on the road, and we now feel we could always get help, providing, of course, a truck happened to come along.

We Face Nine Frontiers

On January 3 we crossed into the Congo. All the warnings we had received of how difficult this would be — everything examined, everything needing to be unloaded and reloaded in a car full of suitcases, camping equipment, provisions, water cans, cameras, tape recorders, and so on — turned out, in our case, to be untrue. In fact, crossing nine international frontiers, we never suffered (with one memorable exception) the slightest inconvenience. We were checked in and out with great ease; the main delay often being caused by our having to explain to minor customs or immigration officials (who seldom see a foreigner) where to stamp our passports and automobile Carnet de Passages, the latter being much the hardest problem. It was not the officials who caused us inconvenience; usually it was the impossibility of finding the frontier, which in Central Africa never seems to be marked in any precise way.

We knew that if we once reached West Africa travel conditions would be much easier, roads better, and dangers less. The problem was to get any information about the Congo and what route to take. By chance, at a wedding in Kampala, I met a Greek trader from Beni. He gave us the only information we ever received about roads; however, he neither described their condition nor forewarned us that some of them had practically ceased to exist. We looked him up when we reached Beni, our first night in the Congo, and he advised us which road was open to Kisangani (formerly Stanleyville). As the rainy season was not entirely over, many roads were still wet, and one section of the usual route had become wholly impassable. What was just a normal course of events to men such as these turned out to be a nightmare for us. The distance between Beni and Kisangani could not be traversed by anything but a truck or four-wheel drive vehicle such as the Land Rover, and then only if it had a first-class driver; and ours was the best, with the whole Supreme Concourse watching over her!

On Becoming Roadbuilders

We drove ten and a half hours that day, encountering the most terrible road conditions of our entire trip. I have asked Rúḥíyyih Khánum to let me copy her own description of them.

“I don’t think any photograph or any words could possibly describe what we were up against. Only huge trucks, I mean trucks with eight tires and sixteen tires, huge, huge things for transportation ... can make it through these potholes and this mud; and, of course, what it amounts to is that (with their weight) they churn up the road, when it is muddy, to a degree that makes it almost impossible for anything in the world to go through it except one of themselves.

“We came to potholes that were often four feet deep and full of mud and water, and everything as slippery as possible. In theory, one might be able to straddle by going on the hump that stands up in the middle of the road between the ground-in tracks of the trucks and the verge of the road, but it is so extremely slippery.... You cannot control the car. If you begin, for the first fifty feet, straddling this huge channel cut by the wheels of the trucks, then, in a second, you find you have slipped down into the pothole, and of course the danger is of hanging up your car on this great hump between the two tracks; and I was absolutely petrified! ...

“I have had plates riveted onto the bottom of the car to protect its intestines, so to speak, from coming down with a terrible crash onto a stone and ripping out the insides ... But, even so, there is a limit to what a car can stand... I was appalled! Well, I managed in four-wheel drive, going very slowly, to get through the first of these bad patches ... We went along, and we came to places where the holes were so deep that I was afraid that my wheels, as I say, would not touch the bottom to get a grip without my being suspended on the hump in the middle. So Violette and Oloro and I got out and put in some branches of trees and some stones that we found on the side of the road ... we just built the road as we went along.

We continued this, and finally we came to an even worse place that day, which was about a quarter of a kilometer of, without any doubt, the most appalling sight I have ever laid eyes on; and I did not know how I was going to get through ... I eased my way along the first hundred meters of it and managed to get about half way through ... along came a huge truck in the opposite direction and he sailed right straight in till we were almost nose to nose ... I said, ‘Wait, and let me get out, and you back up. I’ll try and get through, and then you come through.’ Well, he would hear nothing of it whatsoever. He was just about as mean and disagreeable as he could be. He was the only really tough, nasty customer we found.

[Page 5] The hotel in Nya Nya, in the Congo, where the Guardian and Rúḥíyyih Khánum spent a night in 1940 when they crossed Africa.

“But it shows that you could be completely at the mercy of people. You are in a jungle; you are hundreds of miles from anywhere; you are in the middle of the most ghastly road in creation; you are stuck! And along comes a truck with perhaps ten or fifteen Africans on it, and if they are not cooperative ... well, that is just too bad, you better look out for yourself. He said, ‘I’m coming through. Get out of the road!’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I can’t, and I have worked my way up here. Go back and at least let me see if I can get forward and out.’

No Rocks, Please

“One of the things we discovered — naturally you have to learn these things — is that it infuriates all of the drivers if you put stones in the road.... Now I understand the reason for it. When the trucks come along, their big wheels throw up these boulders which can ruin the insides of their machines. They would rather dig themselves through the mud, knowing there are no rocks for them to hit, than to have any rocks around. That is why you see, all along the worst parts of the road, great piles of stones they have taken out of the road.... We, of course, had no way of knowing this, and no experience, and this made the truck driver mad, too.... They all got out, all these men, and [took] all the nice rocks which we had put in the next hole that I was going to drive through and chucked them indignantly to the side of the road. What had broken Violette’s and my back and Oloro’s, they just tossed aside as if they were straws: and this fellow said, ‘I’m coming through. Get out of the road.’

The Stanley Hotel in Kisangani, formerly Stanleyville, where Shoghi Effendi and Rúḥíyyih Khánum stayed a few days.

Counsellor Oloro Epyeru, Rúḥíyyih Khánum, and Violette Nakhjavání leaving the Banání home in Kampala, Uganda, on January 1.

Potholes and Prayers

“I realized that if I did not somehow manage to scramble out of his way with my car (which weighed about three tons) he would literally just push me out as if I were a match box.... With a great deal of prayer — I have done a tremendous amount of urgent praying on these potholes — I succeeded in getting up onto the side, hoping that when he tore through the tracks in the center of the road he would clear me. He went through like a knife through cheese; and if I had been in the way, I would have been tossed aside just like something thrown away by a bulldozer. Well, he got by me; and then one of the men said, ‘Don’t worry, he’ll come back and drive you out.’

“I had about one hundred and twenty yards more to go to get out of this ghastly situation, and I could not see the depth of the thing in front of me at all. It was just a lake on either side of a vast hump of mud; and I thought I was sure to hit a rock or sure to get hung up on the mud and just sit there; and I looked at it. And then I thought of the alternative: of this extremely brutal truck driver coming and taking charge of my lovely new Land Rover and forcing her, if he could, through this sea of mud; and the thought electrified me.

So I began to pray. I said, ‘Yá Bahá’u’l-Abhá’ about a thousand times during the period I got from one end of this morass to the other. I just lit out ... I flew through the mud, from one end to the other! You have to do things like this to understand what it is like....

The car roars, she sputters, she flounces from side to side like a fish out on a bank, she hits things on the bottom and you think, ‘There it is, the whole works

Some of the Kisangani Bahá’ís in front of Molisso Michel’s home, January 8.

[Page 6] Amatu’l-Bahá and Molisso Michel at Bobama, Congo, January 9.

Counsellor Oloro Epyeru surveys a minor problem on the road through the Congo.

Rúḥíyyih Khánum in the dugout canoe that took us over to Bangassou to find an extra battery for the ferry.

New believers and friends at the Bobama meeting.

The long walk to Bangassou Customs; Rúḥíyyih Khánum and canoe boatman who acted as our guide.

[Page 7] have come out, they’ve been ripped out of the middle of the machine and I’m done for, this is the end of the whole thing; there go my shock absorbers; there goes the under part of the car ...’ Somehow, I really believe mostly through prayer, I found myself (shaking, and the car shaking under me) on the other end of that horrible, horrible stretch of road. I had gotten out of the mud, but my arms felt as if they had been torn out of their sockets.”

The Christian Missionaries

For our second night in the Congo we slept at an American Baptist Mission, quite a large one, at Lolwa. We had been on the road from Beni ten and a half hours. The great problem on a trip such as this is to find a place to sleep at night. We had been told that the missionaries sometimes have facilities and will put one up, but we found that any extra room is really for the accommodation of their own people when traveling; but out of real Christian charity these kind people took us in. The wife of the older couple, we learned, had been born there, the child of missionaries. She had returned to her birthplace with her husband to serve her church; she had spent forty years in the Congo, teaching. Rúḥíyyih Khánum many times said she wished the Bahá’ís had this spirit of utter dedication and self-sacrifice that so many of these Christian missionaries bring to the work of their Faith. She admired the way, in spite of the lifeless philosophy of a narrow sectarianism, they bring up their children to follow in their footsteps, to go back and continue the service of their parents. These people had been fortunate to escape the massacres of 1965, and, as soon as the disturbances were over, returned to their Mission.

The following night we slept in another Mission, of the same church, where only an African pastor was left. The Mission — a large and enterprising one — had been looted and overrun and was half deserted, the buildings in ruins. The African pastor alone had lost eleven members of his family, and two women and four men of the white missionaries had been killed.

The aftereffects of the political uprisings and riots had left their mark everywhere in this part of the Congo. But the people are the same wonderful, open, receptive, and friendly people that I came to know and love sixteen years ago when my husband and I crossed through the Congo with three African pioneers from Uganda. These three had been among the first to respond to the call of the beloved Guardian for pioneers during the Ten Year Crusade. Two of them became Knights of Bahá’u’lláh; one, Mr. Enoch Olinga, was later elevated to the rank of Hand of the Cause of God.

Nya Nya and Kisangani

As we continued on our way, encountering many bad spots in the road, we entered the tiny town of Nya Nya. What were the emotions of Amatu’l-Bahá when she suddenly saw, at a turn in the road, that same hotel she and the beloved Guardian had passed a night in when they crossed Africa during the war, in 1940? It stood deserted and falling into ruin, with the jungle slowly closing in upon it. Indeed, all through the Congo one sees the scars of the civil war: abandoned Missions, filling stations, road construction equipment, burned-out automobiles, mud villages from which the inhabitants fled to the deep forest; a pattern of desolation that underlines the urgent need for that peace and unity that are the cardinal tenets of Bahá’u’lláh’s Faith.

We arrived in Kisangani on January 6. This town, the third largest in the Congo, held many memories for Rúḥíyyih Khánum as she and the beloved Guardian had spent some days there, in the Stanley Hotel, when they passed through the Congo. Strangely enough, ‘Alí and I had also stayed there. Though still operating, it wore an air of ill repute, and we went to the newer hotel. With the greatest difficulty, after tracing down his home address through his post office box and wasting a day in fruitless efforts to find him, we met Mr. Molisso Michel. He had never received the telegram sent him ten days earlier, and only learned we might be in Kisangani through a letter from a friend. He is one of the old and staunch Bahá’í teachers of the Central African area, having been a believer for over fifteen years. A Congolese who accepted the Faith in Bujumbura, he is now living in Kisangani, his home area, and has succeeded in building up an active local Assembly and community there. In his home we were able to meet the Kisangani Bahá’ís, and Molisso sent one of them, by truck with his bicycle, ahead to the village of Bobama, about 115 miles away, to arrange for Rúḥíyyih Khánum to visit the friends there and spend the night. In practice, this means that one catches a ride on a truck, paying for one’s fare, goes as far as possible, and the rest of the way one cycles; on a side road like the one to this village, this can easily be the entire distance. Although this was in the general direction we were going, it took us over seventy miles out of our way to meet these new Bahá’ís; along the road there are three groups in different villages; and Bobama has its own local Spiritual Assembly, including a very active woman who serves as treasurer.

The nephew of Molisso, although he had had less than twenty-four hours’ notice of our coming, had prepared a room for us in his home, decorated the approaches of his house with palm fronds, built thatched walls of green leaves to enclose a new toilet and separate place for a bath, placed a generous supply of fresh water in big basins for our ablutions (in a place where all water must be brought some distance on the heads of the women), and prepared a delicious dinner for his guests — the first Bahá’ís, other than their teacher Molisso

Amatu’l-Bahá (at far end of the jerry) rearranges some loose planks so the Land Rover can safely come on board.

[Page 8] Michel, whom any of them had ever met. Over seventy-five people gathered that night to listen to Amatu’l-Bahá and Oloro Epyeru, and the meeting went on until very late. The next morning, early, even more came to listen and ask questions of their beloved guest of honor, and it was with great difficulty that we tore ourselves away from our new friends; but the ever-present necessity of reaching a place where we could find shelter for the night obliged us to depart.

These meetings in Kisangani and in the deep jungle were the source of great joy to Amatu’l-Bahá. She was happy to go through all the dangers and hardship of traveling through the Congo in order to meet these dear Bahá’ís who never have visitors from outside. She also felt that the fact that Counsellor Oloro Epyeru was able to visit this area of the Congo was not only a great inspiration to the friends but that it would enable the Board of Counsellors to see the needs and teaching possibilities from his first-hand experience.

Bahá’í meeting in Ounngo, near Bangui, Central African Republic, January 21.

Bahá’í meeting in Kolongo, near Bangui, January 23. The objects in the foreground are mud bricks.

A group of mostly half-caste Pygmies (near Bangui) whom the pioneers are interesting in the Faith.

Ferryboats and Batteries

Among all the other hazards of travel in this section of the Congo were the ferryboats. No one ever tells you these things; and we were appalled, on reaching a big river, to discover that the government ferryboat, although it has a diesel motor that runs, has no battery to spark the engine! This means that the motorist is expected to supply twenty-four volts of battery power. The Land Rover carries a twelve-volt battery — maybe huge trucks carry a twenty-four volt one — but unless the full charge is available you sit and watch the river until something, by the grace of God, comes along! As no six-volt car, in its right mind, would ever tackle one of these roads, we never found out what the fate of a small automobile might be. Rúḥíyyih Khánum, being very reluctant to have her new battery removed from the car to provide half of the necessary power, went to see a number of local officials in the village where the ferry crossed. She finally succeeded in getting a truck to bring the ferryboat over from the other side; then, as the motor was running, we could make the trip back to the other bank. All this took at least two hours in the stifling midday heat, but it gave us time to see the local memorial, “Place des Martyrs,” commemorating the massacre of thirty white people during the rebel disturbances.

We managed, with luck, to cross another ferry by someone else’s batteries, and at a third ferry were poled across by manpower, a highly reassuring method. But when the day came for us to cross the Mbomou River, which is the frontier between the Congo and the Central African Republic at Bangassou, we found ourselves really caught.

A Bahá’í group in Fort Lamy, Chad, February 1970.

There are so many believers in Fort Lamy that meetings are held in different areas of the city, often in local Bahá’í centers, such as this.

[Page 9]

Questionable Accommodations

On the first night, after leaving the clean and hospitable home of our Bahá’í villagers, we slept in an empty government dispensary, still in existence but without medicines or equipment, where the ever friendly and helpful Congolese had given us permission to put up our camp beds and cook our dinner. When we got up at dawn we were horrified to see the filthy, stained walls and floor of the room; the light of a candle the night before had not revealed its true condition — fortunately, for us, for the idea of the sick patients that had been treated and probably died in it was far from reassuring!

For the second night the customs official at Ndu (the Congo frontier) allowed us to use the abandoned Immigration Office, the active one having been moved over thirty-five miles inland. We would have gone right by it had not a missionary warned us where it was! What one must remember is that there are no places to stay; every hut, however hospitable its owner may be, is crowded with people all over the floor. The single-track roads are so narrow one cannot draw the car off the road to park, as the jungle forms a thick, impenetrable wall on either side. There was no place in the fully loaded car for us to sleep. Oloro managed on some nights to stretch out on the front seat, but that was the only possibility; so we had to find shelter.

After we had unpacked our equipment and cooked our dinner, we invited the exceedingly nice customs official to have coffee with us. He, and the corporal in charge of the handful of soldiers stationed on the frontier, sat and chatted with us. We not only told them a great deal about the Bahá’í Faith, but we gained still further insight into the miserable conditions prevailing

Bahá’ís of Gassi, outside Fort Lamy, February 2. A new Spiritual Assembly is being formed this year, and the friends are building their local center.

Bahá’í group of Djari, near Fort Lamy, February 1.

in this part of the Congo, where such men are never relieved, rarely paid, no one visits them to inspect or to hear their problems; but in spite of this they perform their duties, slight as they are, with cheerful good will, an example more people in the world would do well to follow. We learned that the frontier — the main road between the two countries for hundreds of miles — had been closed for many months to everyone but the very occasional international tourist because of the political situation.

The next day, January 13, was the first day of a new entente between their respective presidents, and it seemed an auspicious one for Rúḥíyyih Khánum’s African safari to cross over — but not without a five-hour delay while she and I went over by dugout canoe; borrowed a twelve-volt battery from a friendly Baptist missionary two miles out of town; brought it back; found its charge, in conjunction with the Land Rover’s, was too weak to spark the ferry motor; returned the same way by boat and on foot; were again driven around by a friendly customs official in the car we had paid for petrol for, and, after long delay, succeeded in borrowing another battery from a truck; and finally got across the river. From then on we never faced the same difficulties.

A Bahá’í school master and his family at Farrey, Niger, February 19.

A meeting in the village of Gabagura, on the outskirts of Niamey, Niger, February 14.

[Page 10]

We Leave the Forest

As we drove northwest towards Bangui, we left, with sad hearts, the beautiful forest behind us. For eleven days we had traversed its heart. It is one of the greatest belts of jungle in the whole world. And as each day passed, the air became hotter and drier as we entered the great savannas south of the Sahara desert. Often the temperature was 112° Fahrenheit in the car, and we would arrive, at the end of an eight- or ten-hour journey, caked with the fine dust of the roads: Oloro’s and my black hair and eyebrows dyed red with it; the entire contents of the car silted over with it; our lungs so coated with it that even ten days in a large town was not sufficient to clear them of it, and we still coughed up traces of dust!

We found the Central African Republic much more prosperous in every respect, and the progress being made in all fields was obvious. However, we missed the wonderful, friendly, spiritually receptive people of the Congo very much, and we long to go back there. The first night we spent with a dear Swiss family of Pentacostal missionaries. They took us into their home with great kindness when they found us at their door in the dark asking for a place where we could just put up our beds under cover.

The following evening we arrived in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. There are two pioneer families in this town; one of them from the far-off island of Haiti in the Western Hemisphere. Both are devoted and very active, and the results of their services are clearly seen in the firm and active communities they have established.

We stayed ten days in Bangui, and were able to meet the friends there a number of times as well as to visit several Bahá’í communities in the neighboring villages. In Tete Source, Ounngo, and Kolongo, Amatu’l-Bahá met many of the Bahá’ís, addressing them in French and answering their questions. One morning, to her delight, she was taken to a village where there are some Pygmies the pioneers hope to teach: men, women, and many children came to hear the message of Bahá’u’lláh. Rúḥíyyih Khánum’s talk had to be translated into the local language, and as the power of concentration of these people is not very strong, she could not speak more than a little at a time. The important lesson that Amatu’l-Bahá taught us all was her deep insight in singling out one older woman from amongst all the people present. She saw the intelligence and the capacity for leadership in this woman, and she directed her talk to her; telling the pioneers that if they wanted to establish the Cause there, they should teach her first, and through her teach the others.

These Pygmies are very poor and terribly neglected; you could see hardly a child who was free from some kind of infection or open wounds. A little girl of seven or eight particularly caught Rúḥíyyih Khánum’s attention, as her toes were almost eaten off by the awful affliction caused by jiggers, a fly that lays its egg under the skin. When these eggs hatch, if the larvae (grubs) are not removed from under the skin, open sores and infection develop. Most Africans know how to do this very well, but in the unhygienic conditions these Pygmies live in the infection literally eats the flesh raw and further infections develop. This child was obviously

In this all-Muslim village of Tondibia, near Niamey, the chief and some of his people have accepted Bahá’u’lláh. We visited them on the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice, February 17.

in great pain, and Amatu’l-Bahá was so moved by this that she told the older woman we would come back with medicine in a few days to treat her. When one of the pioneers and I returned with the medicine, we found that Rúḥíyyih Khánum’s insight was very true. This older Pygmy woman proved to be dependable and kindhearted and took the responsibility of this poor orphan child upon herself, promising to go on treating her toes with the medicine.

The teaching possibilities in these countries are very great: but when one travels by car one comes to appreciate the hardships and difficulties involved, the vast distances to be covered, the constant barrier of different languages necessitating a proper translator, who is more than likely not available. When one adds to this that many of the pioneers have jobs, one gets a slight idea of how very great are the victories being won in these remote and difficult countries by these dedicated and selfless souls who have arisen to serve Bahá’u’lláh and plant His Banner among the peoples of all nations.

When we arrived in Fort Lamy, the capital of Chad, the second night after leaving Bangui, we felt as if we carried with us half the dust of the desert. Ten hours of driving, day after day, through the heat and the dust is extremely exhausting. The bush, consisting mostly of grass and small shrubs, is constantly being burned off, which turns the wilderness into miles and miles of smoking fields. It seemed very symbolic that it was only in the blackened, ash-strewn ground that a fragrant, delicate, yellow flower grew, with a very short stem and no leaves — it seemed to push itself up right after the flames had passed.

In Fort Lamy we were constantly with the three Bahá’í pioneers, visiting the many believers in different areas of the town as well as several nearby villages. Our visit coincided with the very gay and ‎eloborate elaborate‎ celebration of the tenth anniversary of Chad’s independence. For a whole week tribesmen from all parts of the country, decked out in their beautiful costumes, often mounted on horses and camels equally colorful in their rich harnesses, were to be seen in the streets, while men and women sang and danced everywhere. Ten heads of State from the neighboring countries attended this celebration. While this was for us a

[Page 11] unique experience, very beautiful and interesting to see, it distracted the people from any serious interest in religious meetings and discussions! However, through the devoted services of the pioneers in Fort Lamy, the Cause is progressing very rapidly in Chad. I am sure greater victories will be achieved as the result of Amatu’l-Bahá’s two weeks’ visit in that country.

In Fort Lamy we parted, with regret, from our dear brother and traveling companion, Oloro, who had to return to Uganda. The five weeks we had been together, under such difficult circumstances, left us all with a never-to-be-forgotten memory of companionship in the service of the Faith, and with an even deeper friendship than before.

A Frontier Confrontation

We were a little hesitant about starting out on the next lap of our journey all alone — over 2000 miles, passing through the Cameroons and Nigeria to visit the Bahá’ís in Niger, Dahomey, and Togo before leaving the Land Rover in Accra, Ghana. However, after seeing that no danger threatened us from the Africans, who, far from ever being vicious and dangerous, as are so many people today in the more “civilized” regions of the world, are decent, friendly, helpful, and honest, we decided that, as the countries ahead of us had no rebel activity or bandits, we could risk going on by ourselves.

Although we had the most dangerous and exciting incident of our trip the first day we started out alone, nevertheless it was providential that we had no man with us, particularly an African. In order to understand what happened, one must realize that in this area of Africa the frontiers are so poorly marked that no human being can recognize one. There are no signs saying, “You are now leaving the Congo,” or “Welcome to the Cameroons,” or even “Frontier — halt.” In theory, there is a wooden pole across the road and, presumably, somewhere near it a customs, an immigration, and a police check post; but, in fact, there are no signs to indicate any such thing is about, the road is the same dusty track, and the bar, more often than not, is up.

To understand the difficulties of the traveler, one must remember that all through these states, in many places on many roads, there are such barriers, which are either to check the big trucks going through the country or are what they call “rain barriers.” When the rains are heavy and the roads flooded — often for a hundred-mile stretch — these poles bar the way to protect the unwary motorist from going forward into a swamp or from just sinking down hopelessly into the lakes formed by floods. One gets used to them, and there is always a well-worn track passing beside them. One is waved on, so as not to waste time in a line of trucks being checked, or everyone just ignores the rain barrier because it is the dry season and the pole is still down. Having done this dozens of times through the Central African Republic and Chad, we were use to it.

We checked into the Cameroons, and the guard at the frontier told us to be sure to check out at a place called Fotokol; as we were only traversing the narrow top of the Cameroons to reach Nigeria, we knew it could not be too many hours’ drive away. Over and over again, when our mileage indicated we must be getting there, we stopped, and Rúḥíyyih Khánum would ask in

His Excellency Diori Hamani, President of Niger, and Amatu’l-Bahá, at his residence, February 15.

French, “Where is Fotokol?” We were always moved ahead up the road. After some time we came to a car driving towards us on what, to him, would be the left side of the road; in other words, we were both on the same side of the road. Rúḥíyyih Khánum said, “That man can have an accident; he does not remember he is in the Cameroons and should keep to the right!” She drove on, and a number of cars kept coming at us on our side of the road; so she changed over to the left side too. I vouchsafed the explanation that this must be the British Cameroons and that they still kept to the left. We went on and on; the road was terrible, full of holes and loose dust; the heat was terrible too, and as Rúḥíyyih Khánum had been driving since morning she asked me to take the wheel. We jogged along about thirty-five miles an hour, getting more and more puzzled as to where the frontier and Fotokol could be. I will let her describe in her own words what happened to us:

“Suddenly a police Land Rover pickup came racing alongside, simply bristling, through every crack in the canvas, with men’s hands holding guns. I told Violette to quickly get on the side and stop. The Land Rover passed us in the best Hollywood Western tradition, with a great skid and a cloud of dust, barricading the road in front of us; and armed men poured out, their rifles trained on us, and began to approach. I realized that something was very wrong indeed and hastened to get out and walk towards the man who appeared to be in charge, and slightly older than the rest. He was a policeman and very furious, fairly spluttering with rage. He asked me what I thought I was doing; how dared we break the laws of Nigeria, enter the country by force, not stop at the frontier, or check with anyone at all! I was very surprised and explained we were looking for Fotokol, the Cameroon frontier; that we had no idea we were in Nigeria, had had no intention of breaking into the country, had seen no signs, no check posts, no guards, nothing! He continued to bawl me out, and the three policemen and four young soldiers in army uniform trained their rifles on me, and some went ahead and ordered Violette out of the car at the point of their guns. It was all very tense; we were excited and confused. As I spoke to the officer I looked down and saw he had a revolver about five inches away from

[Page 12] The pioneers of Niger with Rúḥíyyih Khánum in the Niamey Museum garden. Four of the five children who accompanied them are shown with their parents.

my heart. It could have been very dangerous if this man had not been a British-trained — a well-trained — police officer.

“He used his head! Gradually he began to listen to my explanations, sized us up as a couple of probably very foolish women, and with some sharp orders got the younger men to stand back. He said we would have to go back to the check post and be investigated. I said I not only had to do that; I had to go back to the Cameroons and check us and my car papers out of that country. I said some of his men should come in front with us (as if we were not really under arrest, as if he had any intention of letting us drive alone!). First one policeman got in and then another, but he called them out and put a soldier in instead, next to Violette, who sat in the middle. The soldier boy looked as if he might be seventeen; he had some trouble getting his long rifle in, and I found the muzzle about an inch from my nose; I suggested he rest it on the floor between his legs, which he obediently did. Because of this mishap, and because it was getting on towards sunset, I was worried over where we would sleep. So I drove about fifty miles an hour back to the town that had the honor of being the frontier. It was rough going, and to our consternation our young ‎solider soldier‎ informed us we were thirty-five miles inside Nigeria. Gradually the boy relaxed and answered a few questions, and I realized he had been very frightened.

Live Ammunition

“I could not understand why it had taken them thirty-five miles and about one hour to catch up with us because, of course, they could easily go at least fifty miles an hour (as I was now doing). But when we got back to the police and immigration post — a building like any other, off the road inside a courtyard and a fence — the first thing the officer did was to have everyone unload their guns and revolvers, and he counted all the ammunition. He also unloaded his own revolver. Then I realized the delay had been due to organizing this great expedition to capture the dangerous people who had broken into the country; the necessity to issue ammunition, pick up soldiers as well as police, and no doubt decide what to do to meet this unprecedented emergency. Violette was amused to see two pairs of handcuffs also turned in!

“For security reasons they searched every single thing in the car; an interminable process which must have been a liberal education to the many bystanders as to what two women tourists considered necessary for a safari, including many African baskets, jars, and mats! At one point one of the men thought he had really caught us red-handed. He asked Violette what we were doing with a surveying instrument. ‘What surveying instrument?’ she asked, puzzled. He then pointed to our huge jack, and she had some trouble convincing him what it was and why we needed one that size.

“Finally, it was all over, amicably, and with one of the policemen telling us he ‘pitied’ us. Well he might! And they let us go back to the Cameroon frontier where the various officials, although they had closed their offices for the night and gone home, came back and checked us out, not only with courtesy but with kindly commiseration for our troubles!

“As we went back over the river bridge that separates the two countries, we put the strong headlights on a large green sign by the roadside; barely legible, like ghost writing, was the word, ‘Nigeria’; in the daylight it had been completely invisible. We called this to the attention of the various officials, who then checked us into Nigeria, and they all freely admitted there was no sign stating one had entered the country. In addition to this, the pole barrier on the other end of the bridge had been up as we went through the first time. There was no pole on the Cameroon side! We had been very lucky indeed, as one police officer pointed out, that it was the police, with the military, who had come after us. Otherwise it might have ended very differently. After all, they had just finished a civil war of many years’ duration.

“Long after dark we started to retrace our way on that fateful road where ‘Fotokol,’ we had been repeatedly assured, was just ahead. We stopped, shaken and exhausted, and made ourselves some strong tea. It was then we realized that, under such circumstances, a strange African from another country accompanying us could have made the situation much worse, and Oloro might have been in real danger.”

All the details of this incident (and the two following nights and days when we stopped over in Kano) cannot be included here. We hope, however, when we go back to Nigeria, on our return to continue our safari in

[Page 13] Teaching Institute, Agoué, Dahomey, February 22.

Africa, that we will have a happier impression than the last time.

Niger, and Pioneers

Niger was the next country on our list, a vast and arid land, with its northern part on the edge of the Sahara desert. We were there during the cooler season, and yet it was often above 105° F. in the shade. It took us two days to reach Niamey, the capital of Niger, from Kano. There are two Persian pioneer families who have lived in Niger about five years. The story of these devoted souls is so moving that I think it can be of great encouragement to other pioneers.

Two housewives from Tihrán, with the encouragement and approval of their husbands, left Persia for Niger. The men were to follow them shortly, as soon as they disposed of various business matters. These women had five children between them, ranging from two years old to ten years old. They could speak no French and were not well informed about Africa. Within a week of their arrival everyone of them was ill with malaria, and three weeks later the oldest child of one of them, a boy of five, died from a severe case of cerebral malaria. This terrible shock, far from driving them from the pioneer field, strengthened their resolution to remain at their post and teach the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh. The mother of this child, a young woman in her early thirties, when Amatu’l-Bahá visited the grave of their beloved child, said with a radiant face, “We hope and pray that Bahá’u’lláh may accept our offering for Niger and enable us to remain here and serve.”

The husbands, who joined their families soon after this tragedy, were unable until recently to obtain any kind of employment, and these two courageous women kept their families in the field by earning their living through dressmaking, which has now become their profession. During Amatu’l-Bahá’s one-week stay in Niamey, the Cause was befittingly proclaimed far and wide. She was received by His Excellency Diori Hamani, the President of the Republic, and had a very cordial and friendly discussion with him for over twenty minutes. This President is one of Africa’s outstanding leaders, very much loved by his people and respected abroad.

Rúḥíyyih Khánum also had a long and animated interview with the representative of Radio Niger, which was later broadcast in full. The pioneers wrote me that when they saw this man to request him to give them a copy of the tape he said, “There was one question I forgot to ask Madame Rabbani. How does one become a Bahá’í?” He is now studying the Faith.

In a public meeting, attended by over seventy people (despite the fact that it was on the eve of a very important Muslim Feast), the entire talk by Rúḥíyyih Khánum, in French, was recorded by Radio Niger to be broadcast later on. Niger is primarily a Muslim country, and both the teaching work and the response of the people is different from neighboring countries. We were deeply impressed by the depth of the new believers and their knowledge of the Faith. The people are receptive, and the future appears very bright. The visit of Amatu’l-Bahá will no doubt open a new chapter in the unfoldment of the Faith in that country.

On our way to Dahomey we made a special point of visiting the Bahá’ís in Dosso, 140 kilometers from Niamey. The dear pioneers accompanied us this far, and we said good-by with regret at parting. Rúḥíyyih Khánum said she firmly believes one reason the Cause is progressing so well there is because of the complete love and unity between these two families.

In spite of the terrible heat, we went out of our way to call on an isolated but devoted believer, who is the headmaster of a government school in a small village. I shall never forget this man’s face when he realized who Rúḥíyyih Khánum was. His face lit up; he got up and came over, and once again shook hands with her

A meeting in Dohoua, February 23; the first village where the Faith was taught in Dahomey.

[Page 14] A Bahá’í meeting, Porto Novo, Dahomey, February 24.

with such joy and pride! These jewels of Bahá’u’lláh, hidden away in such remote places, are to me a never-ending revelation of the greatness of this Cause. Often I have heard Rúḥíyyih Khánum say that the reason she undertakes such trips as this is to be able to reach these dear Bahá’ís who live so far away from the capital cities, where most of the visitors tend to go, and to encourage them and give them her love.

Dahomey, and Pioneers

The next country in Amatu’l-Bahá’s program was the Republic of Dahomey. This is to be the seat of the new Regional National Spiritual Assembly of Niger, Dahomey, and Togo. The dear Haitian pioneer family, who have been teaching the Faith in this country for the last five years, have laid a firm foundation. A pioneer from France had recently joined them, and there was much activity in preparing the way for the Convention soon to be held in Cotonou.

A one-day deepening and teaching conference at the village of Agoue was attended by over thirty adults, and many more children. Amatu’l-Bahá was happy it coincided with her visit and that she could take part. In the course of the meeting, many different aspects of the Faith were taught.

The Bahá’ís of the village of Dohoua, not far from Port Novo, organized a special meeting for Rúḥíyyih Khánum. This is the first village in Dahomey where the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh was accepted. They have a very active local Spiritual Assembly, are building their own Bahá’í Center, and regularly send contributions to the National Fund. In addition to this, their Assembly is paying the school fees of a young believer whose family has no means of educating him. He is a very devoted believer, and not only helps others to read and write but acts as translator in the Bahá’í meetings. What impressed us more than anything else in this village was the number of active Bahá’í women; ‎Amutu’l-Bahá Amatu’l-Bahá‎ especially praised their services, and told them the words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá about the station of women, and that the first and the most important educator of man is the mother. She said an enlightened, honest, God-fearing mother will bring up enlightened, honest, God-fearing children who will, in turn, influence society.

Amatu’l-Bahá also met with the believers of Porto Novo and Cotonou in their respective Bahá’í Centers. These were both very stimulating meetings, and Rúḥíyyih Khánum enjoyed answering their remarkably deep and penetrating questions. Indeed, in Niger, Dahomey, and Togo many young men who are new believers asked questions of a nature that greatly impressed us. Amatu’l-Bahá said she could not remember ever having had more interesting and stimulating discussions in any meetings, anywhere.

High Entertainment

In the small fishing village of Hiye over a hundred people, Bahá’ís and friends, received Amatu’l-Bahá with great warmth, and entertained her with a very special exhibition of dancing and acrobatics. The Bahá’ís have erected a small center, where Rúḥíyyih Khánum spoke to them. The Chief and local dignitaries also attended the meeting, which lasted about an hour. Afterwards, we were invited to move to an open space by the wall of the village where the entertainment took place. A narrow wood pole, about 10 meters high, had been erected in the sand; the village orchestra played very exciting music on drums, and three young Bahá’í men, dressed as women, danced. The highlight of the entertainment was when one of these young men climbed up the pole — to the dramatic beat of the drums — and for more than twenty minutes exhibited his skill as an acrobat, finally balancing on the top of the pole on his stomach and waving his arms and legs in the air. The atmosphere of excitement and suspense was sustained and augmented most skillfully by the orchestra, and all of the spectators held their breath during the more dangerous movements of the acrobat. Rúḥíyyih Khánum enjoyed the performance very much, and was deeply touched by a song the villagers had composed in her honor in which they referred to her as “Holy Mother.”

During the four days we spent in Togo, Amatu’l-Bahá was able to see some of the Bahá’ís in the capital, Lome, and also to hold meetings in the villages of Ahepe, Dzafi, and Zowla. In Zowla, where a one-day teaching conference had previously been scheduled to take place, we were especially impressed by the quality of the Bahá’ís. They were mostly middle-aged men of deep understanding, firm and devoted believers. The two American pioneer ladies in Togo are very active in serving the Faith, and results of their efforts are becoming increasingly manifest. A half-hour radio interview on the national station was arranged, in which Amatu’l-Bahá was able to fully expound the tenets of our Faith. This was all in French, which Rúḥíyyih Khánum finds more of a strain than interviews in English. Indeed, by the end of our two months spent in French-speaking territories, she was worn out; not from physical hardships of this 6000 miles overland

[Page 15] trip, but from mental fatigue after giving so many talks, mostly in a language which, although she speaks it fluently, she says she feels requires so much more effort and concentration on her part than when she can talk in her own language.

After 12,000 Miles —

On March 2 we arrived in Accra and drove up to the beautiful National Bahá’í Headquarters, which had been recently purchased and redecorated — one of the nicest and most spacious we have seen in Africa — and were greeted with a warm welcome by the young American man who is one of the pioneers at present residing in Ghana. Although Rúḥíyyih Khánum gave three lectures and a television interview over the national station, this was not her formal visit to Ghana; that will take place when we return from the Western Hemisphere in the autumn, pick up the Land Rover, and finish the West African part of our safari.

Looking at the map of the gigantic continent of Africa, I realize that so far our journey has covered perhaps a quarter of the distance we intend to travel — yet already we have 12,000 miles behind us, for two-thirds of which Rúḥíyyih Khánum herself has driven her car. The challenge presented by Africa, which attracted men such as Livingston and Stanley a century ago, is still there, only in a new form. Its many new nations, developing at an astonishing rate, should receive, at this critical stage in their progress, the glad tidings of the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. Its youth, awaking to the new age they are living in, need to have the divine civilization of this world-redeeming Faith brought to them before they become engulfed in the materialism and godlessness of a dying order. More and more pioneers and traveling teachers are urgently needed to follow in the footsteps of our beloved Amatu’l-Bahá. If she can do it, surely they can do it too!

— VIOLETTE NAKHJAVÁNÍ

Panama City
April 9, 1970

A Bahá’í Center meeting, Cotonou, Dahomey, February 25.

The meeting in the local Bahá’í Center in the fisherman’s village of Hiye, Dahomey, February 26.

A Bahá’í meeting in the village of Ahepe, Togo, February 28.

The Bahá’í chief of the village of Hiye, with Amatu’l-Bahá and Violette Nakhjavání.

Some of the believers attending the Teaching Institute in Zowla, Togo, March 1.

[Page 16]

Vietnam

Two Thousand Attend Naw-Rúz Celebration

A Naw-Rúz gathering on March 22 of two thousand believers in the city of Pleiku, for the celebration of the new year, climaxed the tremendous enrollment of more than 15,000 during the months of February and March. A major portion of the enrollments was from the Mountagnard race, the ethnic minority of Vietnam. The gathering testifies to the rising power of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh to unite the people from historically antagonistic backgrounds. The photos shown here are of friends from various communities in the Province of Pleiku. One photo (with table) shows the National Spiritual Assembly’s vice-chairman and treasurer welcoming the friends; while another shows the chairman of the Teaching Committee for zone Vinh Quang (Glory) speaking into a “mike”. His speech was translated into the Mountagnard dialect.

[Page 17]

Panama Temple Progress Report

An April 8 report from the National Spiritual Assembly of Panama indicates that all concrete and backfill operations below ground level were completed March 25. Concrete for the far ends of the wing walls, to final elevation, was to be completed by April 22.

Work is progressing satisfactorily on the construction of the forms for the dome ribs. This is time-consuming work because of the difficult angles and curves which must be maintained to a very high degree of accuracy. The reinforcing steel for these ribs is being shaped and fabricated so that they will be at hand when the forms are ready. The plan is to start pouring parts of the first set of ribs near the end of April. Construction and placing of forms for the balcony floor will begin at the middle of April.

It appears that a “Shotcrete” system will be used in making the concrete dome; and the necessary machinery and equipment for this work has been purchased by the contractors. Care is being taken that the aggregates available in Panama are suitable for this most critical operation.

Careful consideration is being given to lighting fixtures for both exterior and interior illumination, with drawings and information having been sent to the States to engineering departments of several large manufacturers who have shown an interest in this project.

The accompanying pictures show the tremendous complexity of placing the reinforcing rods and bracing their surrounding forms before the concrete is poured.

A crane lifts buckets of concrete for pouring into forms.

One of the wing walls with reinforcement in place, showing geometric pattern.

Constructing forms for dome ribs.

Wing wall section ready for putting on outside forms.

Finishing reinforcement for one wing wall.

[Page 18] Naw-Rúz gathering of Bahá’ís of Esmeraldas, Ecuador.

Ecuador Wins Thousands for Bahá’u’lláh

[The following, reported (in part) to the United States Bahá’ís in the National Bahá’í Review for April on behalf of the U.S. International Goals Committee, is reported here as follow-up to the article in Bahá’í News, December 1969, as an indication of the tremendous achievements of traveling teachers in Ecuador following the mobilization for teaching after last August’s conference in Quito.]

In the 16th Century, a slave ship en route to Peru from Africa was wrecked by a storm and spilled its human cargo into the sea off the coast of what is now Esmeraldas, Ecuador. These people had been marked for a lifetime of slavery, but they escaped into the coastal jungles and established their own villages in the new world.

They often maintained their customs and way of life from Africa, but they adopted a dialect of Spanish as their language when they stayed in their own groups. In varying degrees they became integrated socially and genetically with the Latins who lived in the cities.

Quito Accepts Goal

José Lucas, who had been a Christian from childhood, learned of the Faith from Dorothy Campbell in Otavalo, Ecuador. Dorothy is a veteran pioneer in Latin America, is now a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of Ecuador. Sr. Lucas began teaching the Faith immediately, although his enrollment came about a year and a half later. In the meantime he returned to his home in Esmeraldas and tried to teach the Faith. Finally a Quito believer, Gabriel Jijón, visited him and found an enthusiastic group of inquirers. A few of Latin descent were enrolled. Then the Spiritual Assembly of Quito took on Esmeraldas as its goal city; then began a series of visits by other Bahá’ís. It was with the purer African type in Esmeraldas and surrounding villages that mass conversion was attempted and found to be successful.

It was a delightfully easy experience finding waiting souls walking along the narrow mud lane of “El Pampon,” a barrio, that first Saturday morning. The first enrollment was that of a tall, dignified, white-haired gentleman, and this was closely followed by a houseful of about eleven that Dr. Laverne Johnson and Jerry Bagley had gathered together.

The traveling teachers returned on Sunday evening, announced a street meeting from house to house, collected about fifty adults and youth, and as many children, taught them to sing “O God, guide me, protect me, illumine the lamp of my heart and make me a brilliant star....” There were many enrollments.

March 28. New believers in front of schoolhouse used for proclamation and teaching at Las Piedras, Ecuador, with teachers. Bruce Suttles, pioneer from United States, fifth from left at rear.

[Page 19]

Then Same and Muisne

Then came the village of Same, following up on an introduction a weekend previous by Fausto Maldonado, a visiting teacher from Quito. A few weekends later, another teaching group achieved practically a complete enrollment of this village.

Later, teachers visited the village of Muisne, traveling by car and canoe, sometimes having to wade the river and push to reach the village. Dr. Johnson lost his shoes; everyone had a hilarious time; and enough enrollments were achieved to form a local spiritual assembly.

These were the beginnings; and they were followed by hundreds of enrollments in another barrio called “La Isla de Piedad” (the Island of Piety) and in “El Pampón,” both in Esmeraldas.

The news of the enrollment of Negro believers soon reached the mountain areas of Ecuador where the population is dominantly of the Indian race, but where, to the north, there are a few cities to which the descendants of the survivors of that slave ship have migrated. Rufino Gualavisí, Indigenous member of the National Spiritual Assembly, and Lauro Céllerí, resident national pioneer, found over thirty new believers in Ibarra, capital city of the Province of Imbabura. Later, farther north, in an area called Chota, where the villagers are of African descent, another 150 believers were enrolled, opening up an entirely new area to the Faith.

A few of these believers attended the First District Convention of the year, held in Otavalo at the recently purchased National Institute, and one of these believers was elected a delegate to the National Convention. Newly enrolled believers attending the Fourth District Convention in Esmeraldas were also elected as delegates. These delegates will be joined by delegates of Indian and Spanish descent elected at the Fifth District Convention, held in the Institute in Otavalo, and from the Second and Third District Conventions, held in Riobamba and Cuenca.

2000

The report from Ecuador is headlined: 2000 believers of African descent enrolled....

Teaching new believers in Las Piedras village.

Virginia Cabeza makes a point at Las Piedras, while Bruce Suttles listens.

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Editorial Staff Change

After nineteen years of service on the editorial staff of Bahá’í News, Mrs. Eunice Braun has asked that she be relieved of this “extra” duty. Initially appointed in 1951, Mrs. Braun shortly thereafter became managing editor; later, she was designated as the international news editor.

In her letter to the National Spiritual Assembly, Mrs. Braun commented, “The work of Bahá’í News has always been very close to my heart....” She has spoken often of the close relationship afforded during her editorship with those who, on becoming pioneers in other countries during the Ten Year Crusade and the Nine Year Plan, later became official correspondents for their National Spiritual Assemblies. Many correspondents have maintained a friendly, heartwarming correspondence with her in making their reports.

For the time being, the official correspondents may address their reports to Bahá’í News Editorial Committee, 112 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois 60091.

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Norway

The Winter School in Svolvaer, above the Arctic Circle, was an attempt to help those who, because of the great distance, have not been able to attend a school session. There were over twenty present, and it was gratifying to hear of the enthusiasm over the courses and over a successful public meeting addressed by one of the Norwegian youth. Two of the youth were invited to speak to the students at the high school. It was possible to be as a large family at the School, and the bonds of love and affection strengthened to an extent that the Northern Island must be affected by it.

Jazz musician “Dizzy” Gillespie visited Oslo in March. In an interview with a journalist from Norway’s largest newspaper, Gillespie spoke freely of the Faith.

Norway’s Convention will be held May 1 and 2, with a teaching conference on May 3.

[Page 20] Intercalary Day picnic, February 29, San Salvador.

EL SALVADOR

The San Salvador Bahá’í Community Intercalary Days activities included a party for a children’s hospital ward; a costume party, which attracted many interested youth, at the home of pioneers Jeanne and Tim Farrand; and a Sunday outing for nearly one hundred at a beautiful park (see photo above) some distance from San Salvador. Jan Dreyer and Naomi Knoppow prepared the food ahead of time, and Tim Farrand and Marvin Dreyer rigged up a grill for the warm-up. Bahá’í love and unity prevailed throughout the events.

Intercalary party, San Salvador, February 27.

Germany	Switzerland
Luxembourg	Austria

Successful Teaching Conference

Some one hundred and fifty Bahá’ís met in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt on February 14-15 for consultation on achieving goals of the Nine Year Plan and to hear reports of accomplishments. Stress was placed on the need for mutual help among the four German-speaking nations represented at the conference, as well as for cooperation with other countries. “The great hope in all countries is the youth. Where youth are active, the Nine Year Plan can be ... fulfilled ... (and) non-Bahá’ís are very fond of visiting the winter schools of Bahá’í youth. They become, in some way, representatives of a new culture.”

“Dawn-Breakers”

The gathering heard of successful Bahá’í Weeks in many German towns, such as, Marburg, Nuernberg, Wiesbaden, Lübeck, Augsburg, and Ulm. But the most important event was the establishment of two groups — “Dawn-Breakers” — with sixty Bahá’ís ready to participate, to tour all over Europe: England, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, eastern France, Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, and northern Italy.

The Bahá’í Publishing Trust in Frankfurt is very active, striving to fill the need for Bahá’í books in German. An improved edition of Gleanings has been printed; and a supplementary prayer book and Nabil’s narrative, The Dawn-Breakers, will soon be available. Financing of the latter book has been made possible by special contributions from the friends.

Among those addressing the conference: Miss Anneliese Bopp welcomed the friends; Erik Blumenthal spoke on aspects of mutual assistance; Mrs. Anna Grossman talked about the need for living the Bahá’í life every day, for making use of our liberty to proclaim the Cause. Mrs. Ursula Mühlschlegel commented that life is a one way street, that occasions never come back, and that we should be strengthened by our daily prayers.

Mr. René Steiner’s call for pioneer work points out that the principal way of teaching requires renunciation of old customs and putting one’s self under the protection of Bahá’u’lláh. His call, coupled with the enthusiasm generated by the consultation, bore fruit: there will be a pioneer for Zambia, three other pioneers, twelve Bahá’í teachers, sixteen new home circles, and DM 10,000.00 for the House of Worship in Panama.

[Page 21] Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt Teaching Conference, February 14-15.

Bolivia

Briefly, the Santa Cruz community has worked with its handful of faithful souls for years without seeing visible signs of progress. Then, to their joy, twenty-four youth entered the Faith this March. With enthusiasm and dedication the youth are saying, “Before, we were lost; now we have found Bahá’u’lláh!” and are constantly together studying the Teachings several times a week. They say they are preparing themselves to go into the “campo” to do Indian teaching. They have also set such goals as doubling their number ...

The enrollment of youth in the cities of Bolivia is taking on a new impetus.

International Briefs

From Johannesburg, South Africa, comes word that a local magazine, Personality, recently printed an article about opera singer Norman Bailey. The article tells something about the Faith and identifies Mr. and Mrs. Bailey as members.

From the National Bahá’í News bulletin committee for the Leeward, Windward and Virgin Islands: The island of Martinique, French West Indies, has its “first Bahá’í family.”

Norway: Extracted from a cable to the Universal House of Justice, “LOVING GREETINGS JOYOUS FIRST WINTERSCHOOL NORTH ARCTIC CIRCLE ...”

Venezuela

Two teaching projects evolved from a March weekend Caracas deepening conference sponsored by the Continental Board of Counsellors. In addition to special activities, singing, discussion, and films, the program included talks by Board of Counsellors member Donald Witzel, Auxiliary Board members Peter McLaren and Habib Rezvani, and National Spiritual Assembly members Weldon Woodard and Yolanda Rodriguez.

Both teaching projects entered fields previously untried. The youth volunteered to make a trip to Bolívar, a state some twelve hours distant from where they live, for the express purpose of applying mass teaching techniques to the city of Puerto Ordaz.

The day after the conference, the second project began when Mr. Rezvani, accompanied by members of the Caracas community, demonstrated the mass teaching techniques in one of the districts of that city. Within a week, two new believers were enrolled, and a third quickly followed. The first to declare, a woman, is already out teaching.

Venezuela Deepening Conference, March 1970.

Music for the Venezuela Deepening Conference, March 1970.

[Page 22] Bahá’ís and friends celebrating Naw-Rúz in Greater Cleveland, Ohio.

Children singing at Greater Cleveland’s Naw-Rúz celebration.

Ohio

Naw-Rúz Celebration

With the East Cleveland Spiritual Assembly as sponsor, Bahá’ís and friends in the Greater Cleveland area (involving four Assemblies and two intercommunity group committees) gathered in downtown Cleveland for a lively and varied program in celebration of Naw-Rúz 127.

Meeting at 5:30 p.m. on March 21, we were slightly overwhelmed, but pleased, when some two hundred and fifty were present. Following the dinner and a recitation of the Naw-Rúz prayer, about twenty-five children sang Bahá’í songs, ending with, “If You’re Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands.” The audience caught on and clapped as the children sang.

Mr. Terrance Kramer of Euclid gave a short address on the meaning of Naw-Rúz, finishing his talk on the note that “A New World Is Comin’ — Just Around the Bend.” This is the title of a new song; the words of the song were passed out, and the friends all joined in singing it.

A five-act talent show, prepared by Mrs. Florence Kibby of Euclid, brought the evening to a close. All were pleased that the happiest day of the Bahá’í Year had been observed together with friends and children.

South Carolina

The Naw-Rúz conference sponsored by the Deep South Teaching Committee for the states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana brought forth a tremendous impetus for teaching in those five states. It is felt that mass teaching and large-scale enrollments will be the immediate result of this inspiring conference.

An attentive audience at Frogmore, South Carolina, Conference.

Colorado

The Pueblo Community has been given ground and a nice building, a fine two-level Administration Office and Center, centrally located in the city, about two hundred feet from the Arkansas River and across from a lovely small park.

The Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Pueblo, Colorado, achieved incorporation in January. Front row: Mary Burke, William C. Hudson, Jack E. Stiffler, Jack L. Roath; back row: Dr. Walter O. Petersen Jr., vice-chairman, Mariette E. Peterson, treasurer, Walter Tihonovich, chairman, Claudia Plymell, secretary. Insert, Elizabeth Treacy.

[Page 23]

61st National Convention

Wilmette, Illinois

(A detailed report for the American Community of this Convention and its recommendations will appear in the July National Bahá’í Review.)

Most of the delegates arrived in time for the opening of this Convention on Thursday evening, April 30. One hundred and fifty-six of the possible 171 delegates registered before the closing ceremonies on Sunday, May 3.

Hand of the Cause of God John Robarts, addressing the meetings, stressed both prayer and the time in history in which we now find ourselves. Recorded messages from Hand of the Cause of God William Sears and the late Hand of the Cause of God Dorothy Baker emphasized the need for fulfilling our goal responsibilities and achieving our spiritual destinies. Although the tape by Dorothy Baker had been recorded during the Ten Year Crusade effort, its message was still pertinent.

Members of the Continental Board of Counsellors and Auxiliary Board gave valuable commentaries on the Faith’s development and the need for unfaltering effort and complete dedication in this “terrifyingly urgent” Bahá’í task of helping a distracted and distressed society find its way to unity.

Some fifteen hundred delegates and visitors heard strong appeals from the National Spiritual Assembly and its committees for a completion of our goals for the Nine Year Plan by Riḍván 1971. They were stirred to give serious consideration to the need for teaching “the waiting multitudes”; they were saddened by word that two Bahá’í Persian students from Louisiana, striving to reach the Convention, had been in a tragic automobile accident, and that three other students had been injured in the same accident.

The newly-elected Assembly met before the Convention closed. Its members are: Dr. Firuz Kazemzadeh, chairman; Dr. Daniel Jordan, vice-chairman; Mr. Glenford E. Mitchell, secretary; Miss Charlotte M. Linfoot, assistant secretary; Dr. Dwight W. Allen, treasurer; Mr. Franklin Kahn; Mr. Jack McCants; Dr. Dorothy Nelson; Dr. Sarah M. Pereira.

The convention sent the following cable to the Universal House of Justice:

ENTIRE CONVENTION STIRRED URGENCY YOUR MESSAGE UNPRECEDENTED OPPORTUNITIES COMING YEAR. DIMMING LIGHTS OLD ORDER BRIGHTENING FLAME MASS CONVERSION SOUTHERN STATES GENERATED NEW SPIRIT SELF-SACRIFICE FELT THROUGHOUT AMERICAN BAHA'I COMMUNITY. PLANS MADE COMPLETE REMAINING NINE YEAR PLAN GOALS THIS COMING YEAR. NEW SPIRITUAL ORIENTATION FUND ASSURES ATTAINMENT TWO MILLION DOLLAR BUDGET. INSPIRED PRESENCE HAND CAUSE JOHN ROBARTS COUNSELLOR EDNA TRUE. PRAY FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE SHALL RELY YOUR INFALLIBLE GUIDANCE YEARS REMAINING WHICH SHALL BOTH CHALLENGE REWARD US. SHALL LAY COMPLETE VICTORY YOUR FEET AND FEET BELOVED GUARDIAN. WARMEST BAHA'I GREETINGS.

Hand of the Cause John Robarts and part of the Sunday morning non-delegate attendance.

The Universal House of Justice responded with a night letter dated May 7:

DEEPLY MOVED HEARTWARMING MESSAGE DELEGATES ASSEMBLED 61ST CONVENTION CONFIDENT INSPIRATION RECEIVED HAND CAUSE COUNSELLOR AIDED BY HIGH SPIRIT SACRIFICE VIBRANT DETERMINATION WIN REMAINING GOALS COMING YEAR ATTAIN UNPRECEDENTED BUDGET WILL ENABLE STALWART AMERICAN COMMUNITY ACHIEVE LONGED FOR VICTORIES STOP FERVENTLY PRAYING SHRINES EXCITING PROGRESS CAUSE HEART SOUTHLAND MAY STIR SPIRITUALLY DORMANT MULTITUDES TO EMBRACE FAITH BAHA'U'LLAH. LOVING GREETINGS.

The National Spiritual Assembly on May 4 cabled the Universal House of Justice, in part: “... 1500 DELEGATES VISITORS HAILED ATTAINMENT 519 LOCAL ASSEMBLIES 2779 LOCALITIES.”

The delegates and visitors strove to eliminate the budget deficit, and in the same spirit voted an ever larger budget for the new year, including a special budget amount for the Panama Temple Fund.

Challenged by the International Goals Committee to fill all our assigned pioneer posts and, when possible, to help other nations achieve their goals; inspired by

A delegate (Thomas Varner) makes a comment to fellow delegates.

[Page 24] John Cook, William Harrison, Barney Baiz, and Reynaldo Cruz Jr. entertain the Convention.

representatives of the National Teaching Committee to vigorously support the teaching of the minorities (Negroes, Spanish-Americans, Indians, Oriental Americans), the delegates and visitors felt they had a clear directive to go forth and “learn from the people, live with them, stay with them.”

The Convention afforded the National Spiritual Assembly an opportunity to explain the internal administrative operations at the National Center, as well as to how the agendas for the periodic Assembly meetings are prepared and acted upon after sub-committees within the Assembly have made in-depth studies and reported details for the Assembly’s consideration and action.

Delegates noticed the emphasis on youth and their capacity for achievement; and commented: “... we are beginning to appreciate what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá meant when he said, in 1912, that black was beautiful. We saw before our eyes how a true Assembly should be united with love for one another and love for God ... the reality of this Faith is Victory ... the complete wholesomeness and power of the Faith ... a serious Convention punctuated with humor ... the miracle of the adoption of the budget ...”

Mississippi

Youth Conference at Tougaloo College

The Southern Bahá’í Youth Committee held its first regional conference at Tougaloo College during the weekend of March 27-29. Meeting under the theme, “Mass Conversion Imminent,” the youth sought to realize the reality of mass conversion in the South and to formulate plans for action in Bahá’u’lláh’s service.

There were nine declarations.

This conference was made possible by the hospitality extended by the Jackson Bahá’í Community. And the conference contributed $504.19 to the National Youth Fund; including many personal and valuable items.

The youth planned a long list of projects for immediate action. The list included projected visits to many communities throughout Mississippi and Louisiana, with firesides, interracial group activities, deepening sessions, striving to strengthen Bahá’í groups, proclamation on college campuses and initiation of new Bahá’í Clubs, placing posters and displays, circuit teaching in the homes of handicapped persons; these are only a few of the activities scheduled.

By the end of the gathering, a spirit of confidence and dedication had enveloped all. With renewed vigor, both youth and adult resolved to set out under the guidance of the Institutions of the Faith to conquer the goals of the Nine Year Plan: to surpass these goals, to send His Word among the masses, to swell His army by thousands.

First Regional Youth Conference. Tougaloo College, Jackson, Mississippi, March 27-29.

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