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Bahá’í News

April 1976

Bahá’í Year 133

A Love Which Does Not Wait

[Page 0] Universal House of Justice message

The passing of dedicated pioneer Edward Bode

SADDENED PASSING DEDICATED BELIEVER EDWARD BODE HIS FIRM DETERMINATION REMAIN POST MADEIRA EXEMPLIFIED SPIRIT DEVOTION CAUSE HE SERVED FOR MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS AS PIONEER AMERICAS EUROPE. OFFERING PRAYERS HOLY THRESHOLD PROGRESS HIS SOUL.

THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE

March 15, 1976

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Contents

A love which does not wait	2
How a dedicated band of workers spread the Faith
Around the world	13
Alaska, Australia, Cameroon Republic, Canada, El Salvador, Guyana, Surinam and French Guiana, India, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Rhodesia, Uganda, United States, Venezuela, Zaire

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page 19

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On the cover: A dedicated band of workers who spread the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh. From left to right, top row: Keith Ransom-Kehler, Lua Getsinger, and Martha Root; middle row: Dorothy Baker, Hyde and Clara Dunn, and Susan Moody; bottom row: ELLA Bailey, May Maxwell, and Marion Jack.

Bahá’í News is published monthly for circulation among Bahá’ís only by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, as a news organ reporting current activities of the Bahá’í world community. Manuscripts submitted should be typewritten and double spaced throughout; any footnotes should appear at the end. The contributor should keep a carbon copy. Send materials to: Bahá’í News Editorial Office, 112 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, IL 60091, U.S.A.

Change of address should be reported directly to Office of Membership and Records, National Bahá’í Center, 112 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, IL 60091, U.S.A Please attach mailing label.

Subscription rates: one year, US $8; two years, US $15.

Second class postage paid at Wilmette, Illinois 60091.

Copyright ® 1976, National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. World Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.

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A Love Which Does Not Wait

[Page 3] By Janet Schoen

When pioneer Marion Jack died in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1954, the beloved Guardian cabled, “This triumphant soul now, gathered distinguished band co-workers in the Abha Kingdom: Martha Root, Lua Getsinger, May Maxwell, Hyde Dunn, Susan Moody, Keith Ransom-Kehler, Ella Bailey, Dorothy Baker, whose remains, lying in such widely scattered areas globe as Honolulu, Cairo, Buenos Aires, Sidney, Tihran, Isfahan, Tripoli, depths of Mediterranean attest the magnificent pioneer services rendered North American Bahá’í Community Apostolic Formative Ages Bahá’í Dispensation.”¹

What was the triumph of these souls, and who were they? Each of them, except Dorothy Baker, whose body was lost in the sea, have memorials erected by the Guardian. How did they attain such honor?

The great-hearted apostle

Martha Root, Shoghi Effendi said, was the “foremost Hand which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s will has raised up” in the first Bahá’í century.²

She was a school-teacher turned journalist who learned of the Faith in a restaurant in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Subsequently, she arranged a press conference for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá when He stopped in Pittsburgh during his 1912 Western journey. After reading the Tablets of the Divine Plan in 1918, Martha arose. She was moved by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s own yearning: “O that I could travel, even though on foot and in the utmost poverty, to these regions, and, raising the call of ‘Yá-Bahá’u’l-Abhá’ in cities, villages, mountains, deserts and oceans, promote the Divine teachings! This, alas, I cannot do. How intensely I deplore it! Please God, ye may achieve it.”³

She wrote to Him of her desire to sow the seeds of His own love, and He answered that she would witness “wide-reaching consequences” and “extraordinary confirmations,” and that much as He desired that she visit Him in the Holy Land, “teaching stands above everything else, and if thou deemest it advisable, engage thou in the spreading of it throughout the regions of the world.”⁴

She began with a journey to South America in 1919 and for the next 20 years traveled and taught continuously, circling the globe four times. Riding on trains, ships, mules; in cars and carriages; and on foot, she toured China, India, Australia, Africa, Europe, Iran, Turkey, Japan, Hawaii, South America, and the United States. She took the Message to kings, queens, presidents, prime ministers, newspaper editors and reporters, priests, poets, artists, dervishes, maharajahs, scholars, farmers, merchants, laborers, princes and princesses. She exemplified the universal, non-possessive

---

The beloved Guardian referred to these Bahá’í teachers as a dedicated band of workers whose pioneer services were an inspiration to all. From left to right: Martha Root, Marion Jack, Lua Getsinger, May Maxwell, Hyde Dunn, Clara Dunn, Susan Moody, Keith ‎Ranson Ransom‎-Kehler, Ella Bailey, and Dorothy Baker.

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‘If you want to give the Message to anyone, love them, and if you love them, they will listen.’ —Martha Root.

love of the Master; no one was too lofty or too low for her; all were souls in need of the healing Message of Bahá’u’lláh. She was “the embodiment of a love which does not wait but which goes forth with a wholehearted reckless spending of personality, of time, of strength.”⁵

This “unique and great-hearted apostle of Bahá’u’lláh,”⁶ as the Guardian described her, was middle-aged when she began her journeys and nearly 70 when she died in Hawaii. She was a small, frail woman with tender blue eyes. She supported herself with journalism and kept the strictest economy, traveling third class, eating minimally, dressing plainly. Her face, radiant with warmth and love, was a face of welcome. “If you want to give the Message to anyone,” she said, “love them, and if you love them, they will listen ...”⁷ She made every meeting an occasion, for she felt “we live in moments, not in years.”⁸ “Give something always,” she said, “if only a flower, some candy, or fruit. Pray that they will accept from you the Greater Gift.”⁹

On her rigorous journeys, she was often ill, but she said anyone would be ill on such voyages and it didn’t matter “if we have faithfully sowed the seeds for a divine civilization.”¹⁰ The words and prayers of the Tablets of the Divine Plan were her healing, she said.

Her traveling teaching experiences began with a talk on shipboard going to South America; as she spoke the ship pitched so that she had to hold on to a pillar with one hand. In South America, she joined a line of people and packmules to travel over the Andes; on the treacherous, slim trails etched into the sides of the gigantic mountains, which she called “minarets of God,” she prayed the Greatest Name.

She was ever the same, loving Martha, as comforting to the people who shared with her that hazardous journey as she later was to Queen Marie of Rumania, who became a Bahá’í in 1926 through Martha’s teaching. Queen Marie was the first Sovereign to embrace the Faith, and her open, fearless tributes to it brought great joy to the Guardian. He once wrote her, “I assure you, that but for your letters I would feel completely broken-down and exhausted ...”¹¹ She was his “dearest Martha,” and was his chosen representative to Esperanto and other international congresses. At his request, she had Bahá’í literature, especially Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, which he called the textbook of the Faith, translated into numerous languages.

Martha spoke in huge meetings, intimate interviews, royal receptions, radio broadcasts. She proclaimed the Faith with newspaper articles wherever she went, though she often lacked even the few cents to buy the papers which contained her articles. She illumined her every experience with praise, describing the spiritual beauty of the dignitaries she met, and the distinctive, fine qualities of each nation. The enthusiastic blue glow of her eyes, which seemed to see through a glass of perfection, illumines her letters. “My friends, I love you! I pray for you constantly! You are all going to China — it is not just one going! And I shall be with you in spirit, in your work.”¹² And she encouraged them to harvest the seeds she sowed. “When you come over you will find some beautiful friends. How you will love these people!”¹³

Martha greatly admired Ṭáhirih, that Dawn-breaker who unveiled her face and fearlessly taught the new Day until her martyrdom in 1852. Martha went to Iran and researched the life of Ṭáhirih, interviewing members of her family and others. Her book Ṭáhirih the Pure, Iran’s Greatest Woman, was published in India, and she was responsible for the publication of the only existing collection of Ṭáhirih’s poems: a slim green volume lithographed in Karachi. After these and other triumphs, friends wrote: “Martha Root has opened the whole of India for us.”¹⁴

The grave of Martha Root in Honolulu, Hawaii.

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The Guardian felt that the friends should know of, and turn their gaze to, Marion Jack.

She then went to Australia, and, hastening to the United States to assist the unfoldment of the first Seven Year Plan, passed away in Honolulu. Her last year had been one of burning physical pain. “I am so near the shore of eternity ... she wrote in September 1939. “I thank you each and every one for all that you will do to help me, and I thank you for your love.”

The shining example

Marion Jack, said the Guardian, was surpassed in “constancy, dedication, self-abnegation, fearlessness” by none except the “incomparable Martha Root.”¹⁵ Her open, joyous nature caused friends to call her “Jackie;” her steadfast constancy endeared her to the Master, who called her “General Jack.” She was a Canadian who became a Bahá’í while studying art in Paris. Continental Counsellor Edna True, who, as a child, knew Marion, recalls: “We all thought she was so much fun.” She taught English to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s grandchildren in the Holy Land in 1908; she accompanied Martha Root to Adrianople in 1933, and Martha wrote that there the children loved to gather around Marion and watch her paint and sketch, while their mothers would pat her on the shoulders and say “Áferin! Áferin!” (“Bravo! Bravo!”)

When the Divine Plan was revealed, Marion Jack pioneered to Alaska. She also taught in various parts of Canada; and at Green Acre Bahá’í School in Eliot, Maine, she taught and painted. The friends loved to visit her studio there; welcomed by her luminous eyes and beautiful smile, they talked with her and admired her paintings of Green Acre and the Holy Land.

Marion pioneered to Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1930. One of her spiritual children, who met her in Sofia in 1938, recalled that her room “was a museum, full of pictures, books and papers all over. We sat wherever there was someplace — on the chair, the bed, on the floor, and she always had some refreshments for her guests...”¹⁶ She had no literature in Bulgarian, and, because of the political situation, had to teach cautiously.

World War II began, and the Guardian wired her: “Advise return Canada.” She replied, “How about Switzerland,” and assured him of her obedience. But when he wired “Approve Switzerland,”¹⁷ she wired back her plea that he allow her to stay at her post, for “her one desire was to remain with her spiritual children.”¹⁸ He granted her request.

She was not rich, and when the leaden walls of war closed around Bulgaria, her small pension did not reach her. She had an enlarged heart and other ailments, and she suffered cold, hunger, and homelessness. When Sofia was bombed, she went with other refugees to the country. After the war, she returned. All but one of her spiritual children had survived. Marion Jack was nearly 80 when she wrote friends in the states, “Interest in the Cause continues in spite of our inability to reorganize.”¹⁹ The Guardian instructed the National Spiritual Assembly to send her funds: “She is a heroic soul,” his secretary wrote on November 8, 1949, “the finest example of the pioneer spirit which we have anywhere in the world, and the Guardian feels deeply indebted to her, and loves her very dearly.”²⁰

She died and was buried in Sofia. The Guardian said that her tomb will one day be a national shrine. He cabled that she was a “shining example pioneers of present and future generations East West,”²¹ and a letter written on his behalf said “He thinks that every Bahá’í, and most particularly those who left their homes and gone to serve in foreign fields, should know of, and turn their gaze to, Marion Jack.”²²

The grave of Marion Jack in Sofia, Bulgaria.

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Lua Getsinger took the gift of eloquence that the Master gave her and lost herself in teaching.

The Herald of the Covenant

Lua Getsinger was in the first group of Western Bahá’ís to visit the Master; they touched the shore of ‘Akká December 10, 1898. That was the beginning of Lua’s life. She had been an actress, studying in Chicago when she became one of the first Bahá’ís of the West. Her passionate, dramatic nature made her incomprehensible to many of the friends, but the Master trained her in the passion of Divine love. “I have given you the power to speak and loosened your tongue,”²³ He told her. May Maxwell, one of Lua’s many spiritual children, wrote that Lua “broke the path through the untrod forest; she cast her soul and body into the stream and perished making the bridge by which we cross.”‎ ‎²⁴

Lua inhaled the fragrance of the martyr-spirit from the Master. He told her to be like Ṭáhirih, who, He said, “had chosen her path and knew her goal.” Lua must pierce “the impenetrable darkness of the night, the howling winds, the raging storms,” and see “the glorious Light” beckoning her forward.²⁵ He sent her on a delicate mission to Muẓaffarí’d-Din Sháh of Iran, which caused some decrease in the persecution of Persian Bahá’ís. He sent her teaching throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, and India. He called her Livá, the Banner, and named her the Herald of the Covenant; like a flame, her love for Him, the Center of the Covenant, consumed her. Her candle-self softened and melted away. Her husband, with her on some of her travels, wrote, “... she never spared herself. Time and time again, I have seen her in a state of utter exhaustion, yet she would pull herself together by sheer willpower to keep her appointments ... She knew but little rest, for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, ‘Day and night thou must engage in spreading the Message. Nothing else will avail thee.’ ”²⁶

When Lua suffered a severe heart attack, the Master said, “I told the angel of death to stay away.” But after her service in India, as she traveled, following His instructions, to America, her health collapsed. She died in Cairo, Egypt, May 1, 1916, at the age of 45. She had written, during that last year on earth, “Please say to all the friends that I love them all, and I am ready to meet them in the spirit of the Center of God’s holy Covenant which is naught save pure, spiritual divine love! I wish everybody success in the service of His Great Cause and ask them to pray for me — the least and most unworthy of all His faithful servants ...”²⁷

The Guardian had the remains of the great Bahá’í teacher of the East, Mirza Abu’l-Fad’l, interred with Lua’s in two adjoining tombs, one facing East and one facing West, at the Bahá’í cemetery in Cairo in 1946. “The immortal Lua,” he called her, “mother-teacher of the American Bahá’í community, herald of the dawn of the Day of the Covenant ...”²⁸ She took the gift of eloquence that the Master gave her and lost herself in teaching.

The tomb of Lua Getsinger in Cairo, Egypt.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s beloved handmaid

May Maxwell learned of the Faith through Lua in Paris, and she accompanied that first group of pilgrims to ‘Akká. She told of their exalting meeting with the Master in her book An Early Pilgrimage. She had been an invalid for much of her life, but when she met the Master, He told her, “Now your troubles are ended and you must wipe away your tears.”²⁹ He wrote to her mother in Paris, “She has been human, but now she is divine; earthly, but now heavenly;” ‎ ‎³⁰and He sent her back to Paris to establish the Bahá’í community there.

From 1899 to 1902, many were drawn to the Faith through her

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May Maxwell was a wonderful teacher of the Faith because she inspired love.

in Paris, including the first French Bahá’í, Hippolyte Dreyfus, and the first English Bahá’í, Thomas Breakwell. May’s friend Juliet Thompson wrote that May possessed a “personal fascination... so fragile, so luminous... and the most delicate, perfect beauty, flower-like and star-like.”³¹

May became engaged to Sutherland Maxwell, a young architecture student, in Paris; but when he returned to his home in Montreal, she, ever obedient to the Master, remained in Paris for two more years. Then she was married in London in 1902 and moved to Montreal, where her husband became the first Canadian Bahá’í. He was followed by many others. The Maxwell home was a center of love; it was blessed with the presence of the Master in 1912. The Maxwell’s daughter became Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum, the wife of the beloved Guardian and a Hand of the Cause of God. Sutherland Maxwell designed the superstructure of the Shrine of the Báb and was also made a Hand of the Cause; and May, with her selfless devotion, won a martyr’s crown.

“I have not two lives but one,” she wrote in 1934, “the inner life of the Cause to which every outer thing and circumstance must adjust itself.”³² She saw the hidden virtues of every person and radiated an unquenchable joy. She was a wonderful teacher of the Faith because she inspired love. To her friends, she seemed ephemeral, unattached to earth. “The mortal cage is nothing;” she wrote, “the soul’s motion in relation to the Beloved is the unfoldment of all the meaning of life.”³³

After establishing the Cause in Paris and Canada; serving on the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada, the Spiritual Assembly of Montreal, and numerous national committees; leading many civic activities in Montreal and starting a Montessori school in her home; traveling teaching in Canada, the United States, and Europe; and seeing the marriage of her only child with the beloved Guardian of the Cause of God; May Maxwell undertook, at the age of 70, a teaching trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Fired by her unfailing love for the Cause, quickened by her devotion to the Guardian, and captivated with the possibilities of spiritual harvest in South America, she hastened to Argentina. Accompanied by her niece, she taught constantly. Arriving in Buenos Aires, her niece said, May “leaned out of the taxi and exclaimed words of delight.”³⁴ The next morning she suffered a severe pain in her heart; that afternoon, she passed away. “To the sacred tie her signal services had forged,” cabled the Guardian, alluding to His own marriage, “priceless honor martyr’s death now added.”³⁵

Her tomb in Quilmes, Argentina, was designed by her husband and erected by the Guardian, who said it would become a historic center for Bahá’í activity. The precious recording of the Master’s voice was played at her interment. She was “ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s beloved handmaid, distinguished disciple,”³⁶ of whom He wrote, “May Maxwell is really a Bahá’í ... Her company uplifts and develops the soul.”³⁷

The grave of May Maxwell in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Spiritual conquerors of a continent

“It was all very simple—a wave that came into our lives, possessing us and satisfying every desire to serve our beloved Cause, the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh and His glorious Covenant,” wrote Hyde Dunn of his and Clara Dunn’s decision to pioneer to Australia in 1918. “Mother (he always called his wife Mother, and she called him Father, and thus they were known to the friends) was reading ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s ... call to the United States and Canada, and His appeal was so penetrating and thrilling, it

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How ‘Mother’ and ‘Father’ Dunn conquered the continent of Australasia.

pierced our hearts ... Mother looked up and said, ‘Shall we go Father?’ ‘Yes,’ was my reply ... after a few months, my resignation to my firm was sent, everything given up, and arrangements made for our prompt sailing.”³⁸

On board ship to Australia, Mrs. Dunn met a man who had been the manager of a firm in the United States which she had represented. He offered her a job in Australia. This was a wonderful blessing, especially because Mr. Dunn was ill when they arrived. After about six months, he found a job which required him to travel all over Australia and New Zealand. Mrs. Dunn left her job and traveled with him. She set up house in the capital cities. During the week she met people and arranged weekend meetings, and Mr. Dunn addressed the meetings. “Interest in the Cause continually increased and people ... came at all times to see us. There was no breathing space at all. It was an incessant plowing ahead,” wrote the Dunns.³⁹

Mrs. Dunn often recalled her first meeting with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in California. She had learned of the Faith from Father, but they were not considering marriage when she sat at the dinner table with the Master, and He told a wonderful story, His voice ringing with laughter. “Oh, His smile was so beautiful,” said Mrs. Dunn.⁴⁰ And it was not until she and Mr. Dunn reached Australia that she realized the Master had been telling their story, their glorious destiny.

Mr. Dunn saw the formation of the first National Spiritual Assembly of Australia and New Zealand before his death in 1941 when the Guardian cabled that “beloved Father Dunn” was a “veteran warrior” of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh whose “magnificent career” reflected the “purest luster world historic mission conferred American community by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.”⁴¹

Mrs. Dunn lived until 1960. The Guardian named her a Hand of the Cause of God in 1952 when Mr. Dunn was posthumously elevated to the same station. She saw the formation of separate National Assemblies for Australia and New Zealand. She saw pioneers go forth from Australia and witnessed the fruit of their efforts in the establishment of the Regional Spiritual Assembly of the South Pacific Islands. And at the Guardian’s request, she placed plaster from one of the Báb’s prisons, the Castle of Mah-Ku, in the foundation of the Mother Temple of the Antipodes during the Australian Intercontinental Conference in 1958.

In the Dunns’ tomb in Sydney lies the mingled dust of two Hands of the Cause of God, spiritual conquerors of a continent.

The graves of Hyde and Clara Dunn in Sydney, Australia.

The handmaid of the Most High

Susan I. Moody had studied art in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Paris, but an irresistible urge impelled her to study medicine in Chicago. There, she became a Bahá’í in 1903 and taught Bahá’í children’s classes. Then, in 1908, word came from the Master: would Dr. Moody go to Iran to help her oppressed sisters there? “I knew then,” she later remarked, “why I felt the urge so strongly to study medicine.”⁴²

On her way to Iran, she spent three days in the Holy Land with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Those three days, she said, were her whole life. She made a vow: “All that I have, and all that I hope to have, I dedicate to Thee, O God.”⁴³ The Master named her ‘Amatu’l-A’lá, the Handmaid of the Most High.

For 15 years, she served in Iran, often praying for the patience advised by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and remembering his promise that, whether living or dead, He would always be with her. She became fluent in Persian and established a medical practice. She helped start a Bahá’í hospital and a school for girls. “I cannot describe to

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Susan Moody forged the first link in uniting the spiritual destinies of the cradle of the Faith and the defenders of the Cause.

you how they are deprived,” she wrote of the Persian women.⁴⁴ And during a disastrous famine and influenza epidemic she wrote, “Oh, what a mercy that we are alive and awakened and trying to serve in the Kingdom of Abha.”⁴⁵

She was in the United States from 1925 to 1928, and she poured her energy into traveling teaching. She also raised funds for the girls’ school and lauded the services of other Bahá’í women who had served with her in Iran: Elizabeth Stewart; Sarah A. Clock; and Lillian Kappes, who died there.

At the Guardian’s request, she returned to Iran at the age of 77. During her last years, she received many visitors and spoke Persian by preference, even to American friends. Asked for some statement regarding her meritorious life she only said, “Let it go, let it pass into the infinite.”⁴⁶

But when she died in Ṭihrán in October 1934, the Guardian cabled that “through her indomitable spirit, ceaseless services,” she “forged the first link chain uniting spiritual destinies cradle of our Faith and community stalwart defenders in great American Republic.”⁴⁷

The funeral of Dr. Susan Moody in 1934 in Ṭihrán, Iran.

The first American martyr

‘Abdu’l-Bahá raised up Susan Moody to aid the Persian friends. Shoghi Effendi, during another bleak time for the Faith in Iran, sent Keith Ransom-Kehler to cheer and defend them.

Keith had been part of Chicago’s elite society world when she became a Bahá’í. She had also been a Christian minister and was an excellent speaker. She taught all over the United States, Europe, India, and Australia, where she met the chief of the Maoris.

Keith gave up her social station for the Cause, and she must have suffered. In 1923, probably in the early part of her life as a Bahá’í, she wrote to May Maxwell, “Pray for me, May, it is my only refuge ... Through this bitter storm of trial in which every attribute of light is obscure or withdrawn, you still stand, a

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How Keith Ransom-Kehler pleaded for liberty and justice in the land of Bahá’u’lláh.

dazzling presence on the further shore toward which I struggle, a gift and evidence lent me by the Master ...”⁴⁸

The suffering of the Guardian deeply touched her. She was in Haifa in 1926, only five years after the passing of the blessed Master. She wrote about the Guardian to the 18th Annual United States Bahá’í Convention: “...this youth under thirty, laboring day and night for us, sacrificing every human desire and tendency to further our efforts ... with no more personal life than a graven image, no more thought of self than a breeze or a flower, just a hollow reed for the divine melody. Any one of us is ready to die for him, but can we conscientiously number ourselves among those who are willing to live for him?”⁴⁹

In 1932, Keith was again in Haifa, where the Guardian personally trained her. The Guardian’s secretary informed the National Spiritual Assembly that “she rendered wonderful services in both Australia and India and Shoghi Effendi trusts that she will do the same in Persia.”⁵⁰ He asked her to obtain permission from the authorities to bring Bahá’í literature into Persia.

The heartbreak of this task, which seemed a constant round of meetings with suave, pleasant, but hypocritical officials, was somewhat softened by her many meetings with the Persian Bahá’ís, who dearly loved her, and whom she was able to encourage and strengthen. For a year, she pursued her mission. “How strange the ways of God,” she wrote, “that I, a poor, feeble old woman from the distant west, should be pleading for liberty and justice in the land of Bahá’u’lláh ...”⁵¹

Exhausted by her work, she died during a smallpox epidemic in October 1933. A month before her death, she had addressed a gathering in honor of the Anniversary of the Declaration of the Báb, pointing out that the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are the only solution to the world’s problems.

“Keith’s precious life,” cabled the Guardian, “offered up in sacrifice to the beloved Cause in Bahá’u’lláh’s native land.” He named her a Hand of the Cause of God, and the first American martyr, and mourned his “earthly separation” from her, his “invaluable collaborator,” “unfailing counsellor,” and “esteemed and faithful friend.”⁵²

“... I have fallen,” Keith wrote during that year of trial, “... though I never faltered. Months of effort with nothing accomplished is the record that confronts me. If anyone in the future should be interested in this thwarted adventure of mine, he alone can say whether near or far from the seemingly impregnable heights of complaisance and indifference my tired old body fell. The smoke and din of battle are today too dense for me to ascertain whether I moved forward or was slain in my tracks.

“Nothing in the world is meaningless, suffering least of all. Sacrifice with its attendant agony is a germ, an organism. Man cannot blight its fruition as he can the seeds of earth. Once sown, it blooms, I think forever, in the sweet fields of eternity. Mine will be a very modest flower, perhaps like the single, tiny forget-me-not, watered by the blood of Quddus, that I plucked in the Sabz-i-Maydán of Bárfurúsh; should it ever catch the eye, may one who seems to be struggling in vain garner it in the name of Shoghi Effendi and cherish it for his dear remembrance.”⁵³

The tomb of Keith Ransom-Kehler in Isfahán, Iran.

Valiant, exemplary pioneer

Another whose flower of sacrifice must be cherished for Shoghi Effendi’s sake was the pioneer Ella Bailey. She pioneered in Tripoli from July 20, 1953, to August 26, 1953. She left the United States at the age of 89, following a bout with pneumonia that had necessitated her entering a nursing home. “I do not find it

[Page 11] such a great sacrifice,” she smiled, “to give up living in a rest home.”⁵⁴

Ella Bailey heard the Bahá’í Message from Lua Getsinger. She met the Master in Chicago in 1912; He looked off into space and kept repeating her name: “Oh, Ella Bailey, Ella Bailey! ...” And, she explained, “He put into my name every possible emotion. That was the wonder of it.” She felt that during those moments He gave her “all the emotions of a lifetime. He gave me suffering but with it He gave me faith and strength. This made me feel His spiritual power and His truth.”⁵⁵

Ella taught school in Berkeley, California, until she retired in 1924, at the age of 60, because of ill health. At that time, the principal wrote her a special letter of appreciation for her “courage and faith.”

She was the first chairman of the Berkeley Spiritual Assembly, and she was elected annually to that body for over 20 years. She constantly taught, but preferred anonymity; a long-time friend had never seen her on a public platform. She gave fireside-dinners for people who did not realize that she herself often had little more to eat than tea and toast. Her small room in the Berkeley Woman’s Club was a haven for many distressed souls.

In her 88th year, when the Guardian asked her friends, Robert and Bahia Gulick. to pioneer in Africa, Ella secretly wished that she could go with them. But she did not speak of it. How happy she was then, when they invited her to come! However, she was afraid she would be a burden; the Gulicks cabled the Guardian, who replied: “Approve Bailey accompany you.”⁵⁶

The Gulicks planned to go to Africa after the Jubilee celebration and dedication of the Mother Temple of the West in May, 1953. So Ella went to Wilmette. There she saw the Temple of Light which had been built on the bare ground she had seen in 1912. She became ill after returning to Berkeley, but in July she left. She was ill when she arrived in Tripoli, and her condition worsened; she was gently nursed by the friends, and was always happy to have the Gulicks’ son, then two years old, in her room. When she died, friends gathered at her bedside and prayed in Arabic and English. An Egyptian Bahá’í, weeping, kissed her forehead saying “Good-bye, Miss Bailey.”

She was buried on the shores of Tripoli. Her memorial was a gift of the Guardian, who cabled that her death sanctified the irresistibly unfolding 10 Year Crusade, elevated her to the ranks of the martyrs of the Faith, shed further luster on the American Bahá’í community, and consecrated the soil of the fast awakening African continent.⁵⁷ And on one of his maps, he put a gold star on the place where Ella Bailey died.

The martyr pilgrim

The heroine who has no tomb, no epitaph carved in stone, is Dorothy Baker.

Her grandmother took her to see ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in New York in 1912; Dorothy was 14 years old. Too shy to speak, she sat beside Him as He invited her to do, and she prayed He would not speak to her. He smiled, and continued addressing others. She never could recall what He said that day, but she became a Bahá’í. His image was permanently engraved on her mind. She wrote to him, saying she wished to serve the Faith. He answered that He would pray God grant her desire. She did not know then that He had called her grandmother to Him and told her, “... your grand-daughter is My own daughter. You must train her for Me.”⁵⁸

The girl who was too shy to speak grew into one of the most eloquent Bahá’í teachers that ever lived. She steeped herself in the teachings as if her life depended “on her being filled to overflowing with the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh.” She felt sure that her duty was to give forth “thoughts that breathe.”⁵⁹ She gave her first public talk during a Riḍván celebration in 1929, in Foundation Hall of the Bahá’í House of Worship. Miss True, who served with Dorothy Baker on the National Spiritual Assembly, recalls that Dorothy was a natural speaker who, after long preparation for each talk, never used notes. She remembers how beautiful Dorothy looked in a long white gown as she spoke during the Bahá’í Centenary observance in 1944. Another who knew Dorothy said that hers was the only radiance she ever saw which compared with that of Lua Getsinger.

Dorothy relied on prayer and taught its worth to others. She had immense gifts as an administrator, and served as the first woman chairman of the National Spiritual Assembly. She also was on many national committees and taught throughout the country; in one two-year period she spoke at over 90 colleges. She loved working with youth, and was a tender wife and mother. She visited Latin America several times on assignments from the National Spiritual Assembly, and the people called her “Sumamente sympatica y muy querida” (Full of grace — or understanding — and much beloved). She often said, “My heart is in Latin America.”⁶⁰

When the first European teaching campaign began, she assisted there. “Dorothy was good for people,” said Miss True, “Always optimistic, joyous; there was no negativism in Dorothy.” In Europe, she was a European; in Latin America, an Indian; she did not impose her own experiences upon others. In reports written by her of her work during her travels, she says nothing of herself but praises the cleverness of others. And the reports written by the others speak of nothing but Mrs. Baker, and how much she helped them.

The Guardian named Dorothy Baker a Hand of the Cause of God in 1951; she traveled at his bidding to Intercontinental Conferences in Africa, India, and Europe during the Year of the Most Great Jubilee, 1953. That last year of her life was also illumined by a pilgrimage.

“Welcome, a thousand welcomes my martyr pilgrim,” were the Guardian’s first words to her. “Why martyr, beloved Guardian?” she asked; her voice, which the Hand of the Cause of God A.Q. Faizí describes as soft and penetrating, must have sounded more poignant than ever. “Because you asked three times to come on pilgrimage, and three times I sent you to different fields of teaching and you accepted the missions with radiant acquiescence,” the Guardian explained.⁶¹

Of her pilgrimage, she wrote, “I would not attempt to write the real things, the things of the heart, but I can say this, that the Glory of the Cause, its grandeur, shines like the sun; and as for our beloved Guardian; he is at times a servant, and again a king; and he is at once the point of all joy and again the nerve center of suffering. One does not accept part of him and refuse part. He is, alas, a ransom; we are his beneficiaries. He suffers the grief of the Prophets, and yet is the ‘true brother.’ And as he casts himself into the sea of sacrifice, he is willing to cast us, one and all, into that shining sea also. America is the lead horse. He drives a chariot that must win over the combined forces of the world. He cracks the whip over the lead horse, not the others. Do not the friends realize this? The pilgrimage begins when you take his hand, and ends when you last look upon his face, and in between you kneel at the Shrines and ask for divine direction to serve him. And when your prayer is answered, there is no doubt about it at all; a thousand mercies circle around such an answer, and the Guardian is in the center of them all.”⁶²

[Page 12] At the Guardian’s request, she toured India for two months, teaching, after the New Delhi Conference. She then left for Grenada, to join her husband, Frank, at their pioneering post. Her plane burst into flames over the Isle of Elba and plummeted into the Mediterranean Sea. The news of the explosion flashed around the world, with much publicity given to the Bahá’í Faith and Dorothy Baker. The Guardian, when he heard the news, could not believe it. He felt it must be a mistake. Then he sent a cable, honoring her long record of outstanding service which, he said, “enriched annals concluding years heroic opening epoch Formative Age Bahá’í Dispensation.” She was, he said, an “eloquent exponent” of the Teachings of the Faith, “indefatigable supporter of its institutions, valiant defender of its precepts.” She had rendered “imperishable services.”⁶³

“I want you to see Him as a person slight of build, fine of feature,” she once said, in an address about the Báb, “He bore a tranquility and kingliness unlike common men and was recognized wherever He went as One Who was different. Through His mild influence, raising His hand in quiet and natural worship He seems to send forth an almost worldless power at first that, like a sea of light, begins to transform His native land ...”⁶⁴ She spoke as if she had seen Him. That was her gift. “Her influence in Central America is most powerful, and at the same time mysterious,” wrote Counsellor Artemus Lamb, who was then a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of Central America, “for in reality she spent only a few days here on several occasions; yet all loved her deeply and feel dependent on her like children to a mother. After her passing, many have written to say that her influence is seen and felt more powerfully than ever ...”⁶⁵

On January 18, 1954, Bahá’ís read prayers for Dorothy from the deck of a ship and threw handfuls of carnations into the water. The Mediterranean had been searched for remains after the crash, but only traces of the passengers had been found. Of Dorothy, there was the small book, An Early Pilgrimage, by May Maxwell; it was shown to a newspaperman who cast it back into the sea.

* * *

Bahá’u’lláh promises, “They that have forsaken their country for the purpose of teaching Our Cause — these shall the Faithful Spirit strengthen through Its power. A company of Our chosen angels shall go forth with them, as bidden by Him Who is the Almighty, the All-Wise.”⁶⁶

That company of chosen angels is the essence of such as Martha Root, Marion Jack, Lua Getsinger, May Maxwell, Hyde and Clara Dunn, Susan Moody, Keith Ransom-Kehler, Ella Bailey, Dorothy Baker. It is the essence of those martyrs, the Dawn-breakers, who wrote “with that crimson ink ...”⁶⁷

“Look at Me and be as I am; ye must die to yourselves and to the world, so shall ye be born again and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”⁶⁸ That is what the Master told them, and that is what they did. And that is God’s gift of immortality to each soul who takes it and goes forth with a love which does not wait.

References

1. “In Memoriam: Marion Jack,” The Bahá’í World, Vol. XII, 1950-1954. p. 674.
2. Doris McKay, “In Memoriam: Martha L. Root,” The Bahá’í World, Vol. VIII, 1938-1940, p. 646.
3. Barbara Casterline, “Martha Root, ‘Herald of the Kingdom,’ ” Bahá’í News, No. 496, July 1972, page 2.
4. Ibid.
5. Doris McKay, The Bahá’í World, Vol. VIII, p. 645.
6. Bahá’í News, No. 14, Nov. 1926, p. 5.
7. Mr. and Mrs. Harry E. Ford, “Pioneer,” (selections from Martha Root’s letters and diary), Bahá’í News, No. 207, May 1948, p. 6.
8. Ibid.
9. The Bahá’í World, Vol. VIII, p. 644.
10. Ford, “Pioneer,” Bahá’í News, No. 201, Nov. 1947, p. 8.
11. Rúḥíyyih Rabbaní, The Priceless Pearl, (London, Eng.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1969), p. 103.
12. Ford, “Pioneer,” Bahá’í News, No. 201, Nov. 1947, p. 7.
13. Ibid, p. 8.
14. Bahá’í World, Vol. VIII, p. 646.
15. The Bahá’í World, Vol. XII, p. 674.
16. Ibid, p. 676.
17. The Priceless Pearl, p. 126-127.
18. The Bahá’í World, Vol. XII, p. 677.
19. Bahá’í News, No. 182, April 1946, p. 8
20. Bahá’í News, No. 216, Feb. 1949, p. 1
21. Bahá’í World, Vol. XII, p. 674.
22. Ibid, p. 677.
23. Amine De Mille, “Lua Getsinger — Herald of the Covenant,” Bahá’í News, No. 489, Dec. 1971, p. 2.
24. May Maxwell, “A Tribute to Lua Getsinger,” The Bahá’í World, Vol. VIII, p. 643.
25. Bahá’í News, No. 489, p. 2
26. Ibid, p. 4.
27. Star of the West, Vol. VI, No. 2, October 16, 1915, p. 2.
28. William Sears and Robert Quigley, The Flame, (Oxford, England: George Ronald, 1972), p. 136.
29. May Maxwell, An Early Pilgrimage, (George Ronald, 1969), p. 13.
30. Marion Holley, “In Memoriam: May Ellis Maxwell,” The Bahá’í World, Vol. VIII. p. 634.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid, p. 635.
33. Ibid, p. 636.
34. Ibid, p. 642.
35. Ibid, p. 631.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid, p. 638.
38. National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Australia and New Zealand, “In Memoriam: John Henry Hyde Dunn,” The Bahá’í World, Vol. IX, 1940-1944, p. 594.
39. Ibid, p. 595.
40. National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Australia, “In Memoriam: Clara Dunn,” The Bahá’í World, Vol. XIII, 1954-1963, p. 859.
41. Bahá’í News, No. 142, Mar. 1941, p. 1.
42. Jessie E. Revell, “In Memoriam: A Bahá’í Pioneer of East and West, Doctor Susan I. Moody,” The Bahá’í World, Vol. VI, 1934-1936, p. 483.
43. Ibid, p. 484.
44. Star of the West, Vol. I, No. 2, April 9, 1910, p. 3.
45. The Bahá’í World, Vol. VI, p. 485.
46. Ibid. p. 486.
47. Ibid.
48. The Bahá’í World, Vol. VIII, p. 638.
49. Bahá’í News, No. 13, Sept. 1926, p. 3.
50. Bahá’í News, No. 67, Oct. 1932, p. 4.
51. “In Memoriam: Keith Ransom-Kehler,” Part II, The Bahá’í World, Vol. V, 1932-1934, p. 402.
52. “The Unity of East and West,” Bahá’í News, No. 80, Jan. 1934. p. 14.
53. The Bahá’í World, Vol. V. p. 409.
54. Robert L. Gulick, Jr., “In Memoriam: Ella M. Bailey.” The Bahá’í World, Vol. XII, p. 687.
55. Ibid, p. 685.
56. Ibid, p. 685.
57. Ibid, p. 688.
58. Miriam Haney, “In Memoriam: Dorothy Beecher Baker,” The Bahá’í World, Vol. XII, p. 671.
59. Ibid.
60. “Memorial Meeting for Dorothy Beecher Baker,” Bahá’í News, No. 277, Mar. 1954, p. 2.
61. A.Q. Faizi, “Tributes to Heroic Sacrifice,” Bahá’í News, No. 513, May 1974, p. 13.
62. The Bahá’í World, Vol. XII, p. 674.
63. Ibid. p. 670.
64. Bahá’í News, No. 234, Aug. 1950, p. 6.
65. The Bahá’í World, Vol. XII, p. 673.
66. Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1952), p. 334.
67. Bahá’u’lláh, The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1954), p. 21.
68. An Early Pilgrimage, p. 42.

[Page 13]

Around the world

Alaska

Assembly formed in the land of Eskimos

The northernmost Local Spiritual Assembly in the Bahá’í world was formed in Barrow, Alaska, on January 10. ASSURE PRAYERS SHRINES THEIR GUIDANCE CONFIRMATIONS TEACHING INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, cabled The Universal House of Justice. The majority of Barrow Assembly members are Eskimos, natives of Barrow.

Nell Golden, a staff member at the World Center who visited Barrow with Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum in 1973, sent a copy of Wellspring of Guidance, which was signed by the members of The Universal House of Justice.

Rúḥíyyih Khánum’s visit was the first by a Hand of the Cause of God to Barrow. She addressed about 20 seekers and enjoyed food brought by them: pickled maktak and dried seal meat in seal oil.

Many other traveling teachers have assisted in Barrow since Frances Wells introduced the Faith there in 1955. She had moved from California to establish the first Assembly of Alaska in Anchorage. When the Guardian told the Anchorage Bahá’ís in 1954 that Barrow was a “highly meritorious field” and that there was a “great significance to having believers serving so far north,” Miss Wells decided to go. She was a fastidious, fashionable woman who took a job as a clerk in a coal mine office and lived under primitive conditions in the harsh climate for nearly three years until she was able to buy a house. Her first opportunity to teach openly came in 1956 when she was asked, in a store, about her religious work. As a result, she was able to give literature to an Eskimo leader. When she bought her house, an Eskimo girl lived with her; the girl declared in 1960. The Eskimos called Miss Wells’ house Koumatikavik, which means the house from which comes the Power of the Light. They honored Miss Wells by asking her to vote in an Eskimo council meeting, which she was attending as an observer.

The first Barrow Bahá’í Group was formed in 1957 when Margaret Pirkey settled there. But Miss Pirkey died that same year. Mable Amidon then left her home in Fairbanks and settled in Barrow. She had pioneered in Alaska at the beginning of the Ten Year Crusade and helped establish the first Local Spiritual Assembly of the Tanana Valley in 1955.

Miss Wells and Mrs. Amidon established a Bahá’í Center in Barrow with a library that contained 67 books and pamphlets. Soon after, Miss Wells had to leave because of poor health. She subsequently pioneered to Luxembourg and died at her post in 1960.

Mrs. Amidon remained in Barrow, running Sunday morning devotional services and children’s classes. Tom and Dottie Baumgartner answered a call for a married couple to pioneer to Barrow in 1959, and Mrs. Amidon settled in a goal area of the U.S. The Baumgartners stayed in Barrow for a year, when inadequate schooling for their four sons forced them to leave. However, two people declared during their stay.

Ten years later, David Baumgartner, one of their sons, returned with his wife, Carolyn. They are now members of the first Spiritual Assembly of Barrow.

Teaching encouraged by Dr. Muhájir

The Hand of the Cause of God Raḥmatu’lláh Muhájir conferred with the National Spiritual Assembly and spent an evening with Alaskan believers on January 4. He encouraged energetic teaching before the International Conference in Anchorage on July 23-25 so that a mass of new believers could take part in the exciting teaching activities during and after the conference.

The National Assembly reported that Dr. Muhájir encouraged the Alaskan Bahá’ís to form teams that would pray, consult, and teach together with the goal of bringing whole families into the Faith.

Dr. Muhájir spoke to the believers of the supreme effort of the beloved Guardian, who, through Divine guidance, planned the expansion of the Faith throughout the world. In the beginning of the Ten Year Crusade, for instance, 2,000 localities were open to the Faith. When the Guardian passed away, even before the Crusade ended, there were 4,000. And the Guardian’s vision began the enrollment of indigenous people in the Faith. For example, in 1957 there were pioneers in Indonesia but no native believers. Indonesia had 11,000 believers in 1963.

Now the Five-Year plan calls for even greater victories than past plans. The Faith has doubled in numbers every five years, but this Plan calls for more than doubling of numbers. It requires enrollment by troops. And during this plan, The Universal House of Justice has begun to build the Seat of The Universal House of Justice on the Arc on Mount Carmel. That is the second of five structures to rise on the Arc; the five will be completed concurrent with the establishment of the Lesser Peace.

The Cause of Bahá’u’lláh, Dr. Muhájir said, is very great, and very simple. It is so great that Bahá’u’lláh tells us that the Tablet of Carmel is only half fulfilled. And it is simple “if you look at everything with the Eye of God, not with your own eyes,” said the Hand of the Cause.

Bahá’í youth host awards ceremony

The Soul Survivors, a group of Bahá’í youth and friends from Palmer, Rainbow, Willow, and the Matanuska Valley recently hosted an awards ceremony and dinner for their parents and guests. During the ceremony, the Creed of the Soul Survivors was read, and John Kolstoe, chairman of the National Spiritual Assembly, spoke.

The Soul Survivors had completed a course in first aid; it was an adult course, and nine of the twelve youth received cards of completion from the fire chief of Wasilla, who was their instructor. The youth plan to handle first aid for the International Teaching Conference in Anchorage. They also plan to take hunter safety and junior instructor courses.

Australia

Traveling teachers reach Aborigines

Three New Guinean women traveled and taught in Queensland, Australia, during January and attended the Youth Conference in Brisbane. Janet Elias of Manus, Elizabeth Karava of New Ireland, and Lynn Apu of Lae were accompanied by Margaret Sharon and four-year-old Anna Lisa Bluett of Lae, and by Louise Mills of Rabaul.

The team first went to Cairns and met about 20 people at meetings in the home of pioneers Janet and George Scott.

[Page 14] This happy group attended the Youth Conference in Brisbane.

The young women showed slides of New Guinea, and the seekers, who were Australians of Aboriginal, American Negro, and Singalese descent, were most interested in New Guinean ways. Two pioneer families took the team to an Aboriginal settlement near the small town of Mossman. Bahá’ís recently made contact there, and the people are very shy. The Bahá’ís went swimming with village youth and concentrated on encouraging trust.

The team then went to Mackay and enjoyed a musical meeting organized by a pioneer. Several pioneer families from Australia have recently settled in Mackay, which has a small Aboriginal community. The families take turns hosting regular meetings in a public hall in the center of town. The team arrived in time for a meeting that had been advertised by musician pioneer Margaret Brew as a musical talent quest. About 50 people, most of them musicians, came. Mostly youth, the majority had never heard of the Faith before and joined in singing Bahá’í songs from the song sheet prepared by Mrs. Brew. The teaching team, the guests, and the pioneers had a fireside until after midnight.

The team then traveled to the Brisbane conference, where they joined the dancing group which was part of a proclamation. They were on television and were interviewed several times by the press. During one interview, Mrs. Bluett told the story of Elti Kunak, an illiterate woman of 32 who had grown up in a tribal village. Seven years ago she became a Bahá’í, and last year she won the British Empire Medal for her services to the education of women in Papua New Guinea.

Misses Elias, Karava, and Apu returned after the conference to Mackay and spent a week in the home of pioneer Monnie Yaganegi, where daily informal firesides were held. One night the entire congregation of a church came with their pastor to hear the Bahá’í Message.

They then went to Cairns, where they renewed friendships forged during their first visit. Before they left, they prepared a New Guinean dinner for their friends, about 40 people. After the feast, the whole party accompanied them to the airport.

Cameroon Republic

Teaching trips follow conference

After the recent National Teaching Conference in Cameroon, teams set out on teaching trips. One of the teams, consisting of Auxiliary Board member Iraj Yeganeh, Naz Yeganeh, Suzanne Ovambe, and John Johnson, traveled by land-rover to N’Kongsamba, Bafang, Melong, Kekem, Foumban Foumbat, Bafousan, Bandjoun, Bafia, Batchenga, Obala, and Yaounde.

The team conveyed the spirit of the National Teaching Conference and discussed the goals of the Five-Year Plan with the Bahá’ís. Whenever possible, they met officials, introduced the Faith to them, and gave them books.

In N’Kongsamba, three Bahá’ís and ten seekers attended a fireside, and one seeker declared. In Foumban, there was one declaration during an afternoon meeting, after which the team split into two teams and invited people to an evening fireside. About 20 people came, and four declared. Another meeting attracted 22 seekers and four declarations, and in Bafia, an evening fireside extended into late night, and five people became Bahá’ís.

The teaching conference in Kumba December 19-21 had been distinguished by the active presence of about seven Cameroonian women, responding to the increased emphasis on the education of women required in Africa during the Five-Year Plan. In fact, the conference was chaired by Suzanne Ovambe, who also spoke and sang during an evening public meeting. Twenty-three seekers came to the meeting, and others attended firesides which were held on the two other evenings of the conference.

[Page 15] Canada

Dr. Muhájir meets with Canadians

The Hand of the Cause of God Raḥmatu’lláh Muhájir visited Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Winnipeg, Halifax, Toronto, and Vancouver in January during his first visit to Canada since 1965.

In Vancouver, he so moved the friends with his words about the construction of the Seat of the Universal House of Justice that they contributed about $450 to the building fund. He also encouraged them to teach the Indians, as there are nearly 30 Indian Reserves near Vancouver.

In Halifax, the Hand of the Cause attended a World Religion Day observance with a panel of representatives of the Hindu Faith, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, the Micmac Indian Religion, and the Bahá’í Faith. Bahá’í Pat Verge, who chaired the panel, announced that Bahá’u’lláh was the latest Messenger from God; a non-Bahá’í in the audience of 100 people said, “Surely this is a challenging statement, yet I see no reaction from any of the representatives.” Dr. Muhájir, from the audience, lovingly informed all the representatives that they were presenting a perfect picture of Progressive Revelation.

Dr. Muhájir told the friends in Toronto that homefront teaching would generate more pioneers, and he said that the pioneers in Africa and South America will soon have the bounty of witnessing entry by troops; the pioneers will become harvesters who can expect to gather countless new believers into the Cause.

80 attend Association for Studies meeting

The newly-formed Canadian Association for Studies on the Bahá’í Faith had its first annual meeting January 1-4 near Toronto. Despite a postal strike which limited communication about the meeting, 80 people came, representing Assemblies and campus clubs from nearly every province in Canada and as far north as the Yukon.

The program included the presentation of seven papers which were received with intense attention. Topics included the Faith and its critics, and the relationship between science and religion. Lectures were discussed during coffee breaks and the Ballet Shayda presented three dances Saturday evening.

Saturday afternoon, the Association consulted on work to date and made plans which include beginning and making available to universities a publication called Bahá’í Studies, the first issue of which will carry the texts of the seven papers presented during the first meeting.

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El Salvador

45 women attend special conference

An international women’s conference in El Salvador February 6-8 was attended by 45 outstanding Bahá’í women from Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. The conference was sponsored by the Continental Counsellors in Central America. Study sessions were for Bahá’ís only, but 19 non-Bahá’í women attended a proclamation luncheon.

At the luncheon, Counsellor Carmen de Burafato spoke of the activities of the Bahá’í International Community. As she ended her talk, a guest insisted that she explain more about Bahá’u’lláh.

In addition to the study sessions and the luncheon, the conference included talks by prominent non-Bahá’í women. Participants felt new understanding of what it means to be a Bahá’í woman, and they expressed the desire for more such conferences.

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Guyana, Surinam and French Guiana

Goals adopted at youth camp

The Third Annual Bahá’í Youth Camp in Guyana was attended by over 100 Bahá’ís with visitors from Surinam, Trinidad, Tobago, the U.S., Brazil, and Venezuela. Participants overcame torrential tropical rainstorms to reach Camp Kayuka in a beautiful forest in Central Guyana. The National Youth Committee had arranged for chartered buses to pick up the youth who would travel from their villages to major roadsides; despite nearly impassable, muddy roads, the youth came.

Continental Counsellors Leonora Armstrong, Donald Witzel, and Peter McLaren gave much-appreciated talks. Traveling teachers Dawn and Greg Dahl showed slides, sang, and spoke. Study classes were presented by Guyanese youth; other activities were dawn and evening prayers, swimming, sports, and a talent night.

[Page 16] The sun came out on the second day of the December 25-28 conference and shone till the last, when several teams of youth went immediately to assigned areas to spend the remainder of their vacations teaching. Camp participants adopted 83 specific individual goals to be filled by Riḍván.

India

Travelers find receptive areas

The receptivity of the people of India, Sri Lanka, and Burma thrilled members of a three-week India teaching project December 19-January 11. Participants in this second phase of the East-West project ranged in age from 19 to 50. They traveled in teams of two or three to remote villages as well as modern cities. Their ‎dutires duties‎ were chiefly to help with consolidation.

The Bahá’í teams were often the only westerners on the trains to the villages.

Traveling teachers from the United States spent three weeks in India, Sri Lanka, and Burma recently. At top, citizens of Sri Lanka carry umbrellas on a sunny day as they pass a small Buddhist shrine. Above at right is a typical village store in southern India. Below, the Mangalore Bahá’ís and projecteers gather at a fishing village beach.

[Page 17] The musicians among them learned songs in Hindi, one about unity which had been written by Mahatma Gandhi, and a Bahá’í song. This immediately attracted people, who approached and requested literature, read it, and immediately began asking questions.

“In the West,” explained projecteer John Woodall, who at 19 was the youngest on the trip, “we first have to establish the fact and reality of God. In India, belief in God is already a part of life.”

“Several thousand people heard of Bahá’u’lláh and His Teachings as a direct result of the project and about 100 declarations were received,” reported project coordinator John Knowlton Brown. “The areas where the teams worked were left stronger than when the teams arrived, often with the Local Spiritual Assembly now meeting regularly and deepenings held on a regular basis.”

The teams spent a week in Sri Lanka (Ceylon). Some of the Bahá’ís in one village there had been subject to subtle derision and persecution because of their Faith. The projecteers spent time with them and helped them elect their Local Spiritual Assembly officers. When the projecteers left, the entire Bahá’í community walked with them to the train in a courageous demonstration of unity.

One of the projecteers, Frank Stewart, went to Burma. He found that the friends there were very anxious to know of progress in the United States toward winning the Five Year Plan goals. They treated him with utmost consideration and tried to be with him as much as possible, as they understood how hard it is to be alone in a strange country, especially when one is unfamiliar with the language. They arranged firesides and he was impressed with the depth of the questions. On one ride home from a fireside, he was surprised as the Bahá’ís, young and old, began singing “We are the People of Bahá” at the top of their voices. “I felt like I was home. They sang it over and over again.”

Mr. Stewart gave firesides to Buddhists in the village of Akkyn, and to Muslims in the village of Themine. He attended Feast in Rangoon and was told that attendance was below normal, as some of the friends had gone to new or weak communities to help them with their Feasts. And one morning he rose at 6, met some friends, went to the jetty on the Rangoon River, caught a launch, and traveled across the river to a small shore town where they had tea in a native, thatched hut tea house. They then traveled by jeep to Daidanaw (Abdu’l-Bahá’s village) in the farmlands of Burma. There, they had a wonderful gathering. “The people are very deep and devoted,” Mr. Stewart wrote, “and one can feel the development of the World Order when among them.”

For many of the projecteers, this was their first Bahá’í experience outside of the United States. They were delighted to see familiar concepts of the Faith in action in a different context, and to talk with willing listeners.

“You can’t believe how ready they are to listen, how eager they are to ask questions,” said one projecteer.

In Sri Lanka, one team returned to their hotel from a meeting, and were approached by a waiter in the dining room who said that he needed their help. All the waiters in the hotel were talking about the Faith, he said, and he had run out of information.

An a projecteer, standing in a dusty field, in India, was asked by a villager if there were miracles in the Bahá’í Faith. “Yes,” replied the Bahá’í. “The fact that I am here, that we are talking, is to me a miracle.”

Korea

Teaching campaign held in villages

Korea’s National Teaching Conference, originally planned for March, was held January 1-5 because the Hand of the Cause of God Raḥmatu’lláh Muhájir, who visited Korea in December, emphasized the need to teach now.

The four-day conference was crowned with a teaching campaign in more than 10 villages. Three people declared in the villages and six more during women’s classes at the conference. Village women attending the class urged the Bahá’ís to visit their villages and teach for a sustained period. One of the new declarants, an 82-year old woman, expressed her readiness to meet Bahá’u’lláh in the Abha Kingdom any moment.

Five National Spiritual Assembly members attended the conference with Auxiliary Board member Seo Ch‘eol-Min and three of his assistants. About 80 Korean friends were present with six traveling teachers from Japan.

Trip uncovers many receptive souls

Nine traveling teachers from Japan discovered that Korea is a field ripe for harvest as they traveled to over 20 communities during December and January.

In fact, their success encouraged the National Spiritual Assembly to increase goals: from 1,000 new enrollments by Riḍván to 2,500; from 56 new Spiritual Assemblies to 95.

The first group of four teachers, Iranian pioneers to Japan, met over 400 Bahá’ís and friends. In the village of Chongch‘on they taught about 25 children to sing “Allah’u’Abha.”

Another teacher traveled through the country for a week; then a group of three worked for 10 days. This group visited the village of Shinch‘on‘ri, where the first group had held a meeting. They spoke to members of the village woman’s club and 22 women, who had been considering membership in the Faith declared.

Another teacher arrived on January 18 and made a 10-day trip, during which he visited a village in Kwangyang County where he taught the family of Seo Heon‘In, a recently enrolled college student. Mr. Seo’s parents became the first Bahá’ís in the village and later were joined by 20 more.

Laos

Youth participate in training institute

Youth met at the National Ḥaẓíratu’l-Quds in Vientiane for Laos’ Second Youth Training Institute January 24-February 1. Participants were specially invited by the National Youth and Children Committee, which planned the institute.

Continental Counsellor Firaydún Mítháqíyán addressed the participants and told of his recent teaching trip to South America. Other institute sessions included workshops on Local Spiritual Assemblies and on marriage, and lessons on the history of the Faith, Feasts and Holy Days, fasting, the Bahá’í Fund, and the Five Year Plan. Each day began with dawn prayers.

Immediately after the institute, the National

[Page 18] Teaching Committee gave a one-week deepening for new members of its teaching teams. The two teams travel extensively, one in North and one in South Laos. During this deepening, the teams prepared teaching posters inspired by posters sent to Laos by the Bahá’ís of the Philippines.

Malaysia

Colleges offered Bahá’í speakers

The Bahá’í Faith is now included among religions listed in the curriculums of teacher training colleges in Malaysia. Because non-Bahá’ís often have been asked to explain the teachings of the Faith, the National Spiritual Assembly is arranging to offer Bahá’í speakers and literature to the colleges.

New Zealand

Pioneer visits Summer School

A key teacher at the National Bahá’í Summer School in Blenheim, December 27-January 2, was Florence Fitzner, who is a Knight of Bahá’u’lláh.

Mrs. Fitzner spoke at several sessions and told of Portuguese Timor, her home and pioneering post since 1954. Mrs. Fitzner and her husband, Harold, were the first non-Portuguese to receive permanent entry visas to Timor, where they operated a private school that taught English. Mr. Fitzner died and is buried in Timor.

Mrs. Fitzner also addressed a public meeting on December 30. Guests from Picton and Blenheim came, attracted by a large photograph with a feature article on the front page of the newspaper. This was the paper’s second front-page article about the school.

The sessions were based on a study of Bahá’í literature, but one was devoted to a full and frank consultation, by parents and children, on Bahá’í standards of conduct.

Papua New Guinea

Traveling teachers visit 9 villages

“At all times we were treated like kings, welcomed with open arms,” reported three youth from New Zealand who taught in Papua New Guinea during December and January.

These villagers of Negemo in the Highlands of New Guinea were among those taught the Faith in a special campaign assisted by traveling teachers from New Zealand.

Geoff Irving, Adrian Richards, and Bernie Gilchrist visited nine villages in Papua and found the Bahá’ís in some places meeting for regular dawn prayers; in others, having constructed local Ḥaẓíratu’l-Quds; and in all, desiring deeper understanding of the teachings and the administration.

The three young men were guided by Tari Maro, chairman of the Spiritual Assembly of Port Moresby, who accompanied them throughout their journey. A young English-speaking student, Simoi Dumo, spent his two-week holiday translating for the team through many deepening and consultation periods.

To reach the villages, the team walked long distances through steamy, often rainy jungles; and crossed rivers, slept in mud, endured leeches, climbed mountains, sometimes were hungry, and struggled with languages they had never heard before. Of the villagers, they said, “Although to our eyes they have nothing, they gave all.”

Another team, from New Zealand and Australia, traveled through the Eastern and Western Highlands of New Guinea. Greg Anderson, Tony Voykovic, Tahana Moore, Tom Price, Bob Mannell, Ron Osmo, and Lishy Souness began their work by helping to organize a teaching institute in Arufa. They spread out through surrounding villages, in some cases traveling long distances, to bring Bahá’ís to the institute, which was conducted by David and Sue Podger, Mariette and Ho San Leong, and all their children. The believers of Arufa offered hospitality, and the Feast which concluded the institute was “beautiful,” one of the youth reported.

After the institute, the team broke into smaller teams. One traveled to the Jimmi Valley in the Western Highlands, another stayed in the Eastern Highlands, and the third went to the Siane and Chimbu area. Teaching and deepening in the New Guinea Highlands requires great patience and fortitude. The region is undeveloped, with villages as high as 8,000 feet in steep mountains with treacherous roads. The people are isolated, vigorous, and aggressive, with little knowledge of or contact with the outside world. However, they are responding to the Faith in large numbers.

[Page 19] and the youth were welcome in their grass houses.

Two of the youth helped the believers in the Eastern Highlands organize their regional convention in the village of Kiugato, and then, accompanied by New Guinean Bahá’ís, opened four villages to the Faith. The New Guinean friends did most of the speaking. An entire region called the Sinna Sinna was also opened. Here, one newly-declared Bahá’í had a dream of teaching the Faith to large numbers of people.

After the arduous work in the Highlands, three of the youth flew to Rabaul, where the Baining people live. These people are deeply attached to their churches, and teaching is difficult, but the youth managed to hold a meeting in one college. The three then went to the Trobriand Islands, another difficult teaching area, noted for beautiful scenery and carvings. One islander is now studying Bahá’í literature.

All of these youth traveled at their own expense; three of them wrote, “what a wonderful privilege it has been for us to share the Message of Bahá’u’lláh with these beautiful people.”

Philippines

Faith represented at Ecumenical Congress

The Faith was represented at the First Asian Ecumenical Congress in December by a Bahá’í delegation that included Continental Counsellor Vicente Samaniego. Over 100 people attended the congress, representing various Christian sects, Islam, the Taoist Movement, and the Buddhiyama Society.

Mr. Samaniego spoke on the second day of the congress in response to other delegates’ questions on the Faith. Some literature was distributed. The four-day conference included workshops and planning sessions, and two Bahá’ís served as secretaries.

The climax of the meeting was a courtesy call to President Ferdinand E. Marcos and the first lady, Imelda R. Marcos. A member of the Bahá’í delegation read a unity prayer, the first time a Bahá’í prayer was read in Malacanang Palace, official home of the president of the Philippines.

Because of the congress, the Asian Inter-Faith Council was formed. Mr. Samaniego was one of 15 people elected to the council. With 16 other Bahá’ís, Mr. Samaniego attended the induction party in Pangsanjan, Laguna. The diversity of the Bahá’ís (Filipinos, Iranians, Americans, and Eurasians) caught the eye of the press, and a photograph of the Bahá’ís with an article appeared in the paper. All the reporters received Bahá’í pamphlets.

A few weeks after the ecumenical congress, the Faith was again represented in the Philippines Mental Health Seminar, where Bahá’ís introduced the teachings into discussions and workshops.

Rhodesia

77 children attend new Bahá’í school

The first Bahá’í Children’s School of Rhodesia welcomed 77 children, ages 7-15, from 15 Rhodesian communities and from Australia and England. The children gathered in Salisbury West on the property of pioneer Lawrence Hautz to enjoy the program planned by the Continental Board of Counsellors in Southern Africa and the National Spiritual Assembly.

The teachers began school on January 10, when they were briefed by two professional teachers, Irma Allen and Carlos Kaupo.

Members of the Asian Inter-Faith Council are pictured with President Ferdinand E. Marcos of the Philippines and the first lady, Imelda R. Marcos. At the extreme right is Counsellor Vicent Samaniego, one of 15 persons elected to the council.

[Page 20] The children registered on January 11, and the oldest group of 30 met Mr. Kaupo who started them working on a puppet show. The school then progressed through a program that included daily prayers, lessons on living the life, and trips to a snake park and bird farm.

On the last evening of the school, the puppet show, acting out a Local Spiritual Assembly meeting and a Feast, was presented to parents and teachers. Counsellor Shidan Fat’he-Aazam then presented a pin and certificate to each child. The children’s happy smiles became wider when Mr. Aazam also gave them chocolate bars.

Counsellors address youth at school

The recent International Bahá’í Youth School at Hlekweni Rural Training Center was attended by 133 Bahá’ís from Botswana, South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia, Seychelles, Malawi, Germany, the United States, and Rhodesia.

The conference was highlighted by an evening discussion for the friends with three Continental Counsellors and five Auxiliary Board members.

Among the other speakers were Dwight Allen, who spoke on the role of youth in the Five Year Plan, and Gary Melendy, who presented the writings on Abdu’l-Bahá by Bahá’u’lláh. The friends also enjoyed a filmstrip of the Master’s visit to North America in 1912.

The school ended with a unity feast during which about $60 was contributed toward the building of the Seat of The Universal House of Justice.

Uganda

Thirst for Faith leads to Assembly

Bahá’ís brought the Faith to the village of Singo, Uganda, in 1963, and 12 years later Teresa Mbekeka of Singo traveled to the Bahá’í House of Worship on Kikaaya Hill, Kampala, to learn more.

The secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly invited her to stay on the Hill as a guest of the Faith while she studied and received answers to her questions. She had the bounty of meeting the Hand of the Cause of God Enoch Olinga. During a weekend study class, she spoke briefly; she declared, and returned to Singo with literature and declaration cards.

Her husband became a Bahá’í, then 19 others. Unexpectedly, she received a letter from a woman she had taught, but who was not a Bahá’í; the woman asked assistance because she had told people of the Faith and so many were interested. Mrs. Mbekeka hurried to her aid, stopping on the way at Kikaaya Hill to consult with the staff at the National Bahá’í Center.

The first Spiritual Assembly of Singo will be formed this Riḍván.

United States

Teaching in South moves forward

Teaching in the South has been reactivated through the visit of the Hand of the Cause of God Raḥmatu’lláh Muhájir, who stirred the believers’ response to the new plan by the National Spiritual Assembly.

“We do not know, individually, how long we have to build the Kingdom of God on earth,” said Auxiliary Board member Eunice Braun as she spoke at a training conference in Texas. “Every moment must count. It is time for dedication and inspired action.”

In Georgia, intensive proclamation and teaching have been taking place in the goal town of Gainesville since September. The result is expansion: a Spiritual Assembly will be formed this Riḍván. Recently, Bahá’ís were invited to give a full day of classes at Gainesville High School, and several students are writing papers on the Faith. The new Bahá’í community of Gainesville has regular children’s classes and a goal to reach nine families by Riḍván.

Atlanta, near Gainesville, will have a renovated Bahá’í Center by late May. The Atlanta Bahá’ís, now painting and furnishing the building, intend to hold firesides there five nights a week and to launch a Spanish-speaking campaign among Atlanta’s 25,000 Spanish-speaking residents.

In South Carolina, the program began with five declarations and the opening of two localities. In the goal town of Columbia, Bahá’ís sponsored four weeks of classes at the University of South Carolina and have regular firesides in Benedict College because of contacts made during direct teaching.

At the top, South Carolina Bahá’í children presented a special program for the Hand of the Cause of God Raḥmatu’lláh Muhájir at Louis Gregory Institute recently. The children spent an entire day practicing songs and talks about the Hand of the Cause. At the end of the program, the children lined up and each lovingly gave a flower to Dr. Muhájir. After he received a flower from one child, he would, in return, give it to the next child in line. Dr. Muhájir also presented the children Greatest Name pins. Below, Dr. Muhájir talks with the friends during consultation on teaching at Louis Gregory Institute.

[Page 21] South Carolina Bahá’ís began intensive, daily proclamation in Orangeburg in March.

Alabama Bahá’ís welcomed 14 new believers at the beginning of the campaign and opened three new localities and three counties. Traveling teachers from Alabama restored the Spiritual Assembly of Canton, Mississippi.

This is only the beginning of the campaign which was designed to reach large numbers of people.

National Teaching Committee member Fereydoun Jalali spoke at the Texas training camp February 21-22, recalling the first flush of mass conversion in the South in the early 1970s: “We were not really sure what to do, but we would walk down country roads, or the streets of small villages, and tell people about Bahá’u’lláh and His Message. We learned the hard way what methods brought good results and what ones did not.

“Each one of us has some memory of the look of a person hearing for the first time about Bahá’u’lláh and responding to His Message. There were many problems, but these are good problems to have, the ones that are connected with a growing community and with a sudden influx of new believers.”

Through the Local Spiritual Assembly Development Program, now in progress across the U.S., Assemblies will be ready to welcome masses of new Bahá’ís and educate them. Most of the current goal areas in the South are near Assemblies. In fact, the effort in Tennessee began in Chattanooga with a direct-teaching program in one neighborhood February 14. This was sponsored by the first Spiritual Assembly of Chattanooga, formed in February, and that Assembly is continuing neighborhood teaching. When the first Southern teaching plan began in 1969, believers gathered in Chattanooga for a conference. Chattanooga had no Bahá’ís at that time. Now, the Chattanooga Assembly is the springboard for Tennessee’s reinvigorated teaching work.

Mr. Hayden named poetry consultant

Bahá’í poet Robert Hayden has been appointed consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The post of consultant in poetry is often called the U.S. equivalent to Britain’s poet laureate. Mr. Hayden is the first black poet to receive the position. His duties as consultant in poetry will include advising the library on its literary collection, selecting scholars and poets for recordings and poetry sessions, and giving public lectures and readings.

Mr. Hayden is a professor of English at the University of Michigan and an associate editor of World Order magazine. He recently was awarded a fellowship of the Academy of American Poets, and was appointed consultant in poetry February 20.

His books of poetry include Heart-Shape in the Dust, Angle of Ascent, Figure of Time, and A Ballad of Remembrance, which won the grand prize at the first World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal, in 1962. Mr. Hayden’s work has often appeared in World Order.

Venezuela

4,000 students visit Bahá’í exhibition

Students of the Universidad de Zulia, Maracaibo, enthusiastically visited a Bahá’í exhibition January 21-28. Approximately 4,000 students viewed the exhibition and received explanations of the Teachings. Pamphlets about the life of Ṭáhirih, about the equality of men and women, and other basic Bahá’í principles were distributed.

One young woman received the pamphlet on Ṭáhirih in the morning and returned in the afternoon saying she had read it and that she would like to follow the example of Ṭáhirih and give her life for a cause. She took more pamphlets and spent her free time at the exhibition.

A janitor at the university studied the exhibition and talked with the Bahá’ís; then the Bahá’ís noticed that he was teaching others. He also spent his free time at the display, and copied in a notebook all the quotations and drawings.

Zaire

Quality of friends impresses pioneer

“The friends here (in Lubumbashi, Zaire), ... have become spiritually independent,” a pioneer recently wrote the World Center. “... encouragement flows from them to us, instead of from us to them ... Last year when we were here, we had to seek out the local friends and bring them to the meetings. Now they come and invite us. All meetings are conducted by them. They regard themselves responsible for the work ....

“Our joy knows no bounds, and we offer our gratitude to the Blessed Beauty.”