 | The text below this notice was generated by a computer, it still needs to be checked for errors and corrected. If you would like to help, view the original document by clicking the PDF scans along the right side of the page. Click the edit button at the top of this page (notepad and pencil icon) or press Alt+Shift+E to begin making changes. When you are done press "Save changes" at the bottom of the page. |
CLEMENTINA MEJIA DE PAVON
1900—1979
SEGUNDO PAVON BARRERA 1894—1979
Clementina de Pavon preceded her husband Segundo Pavon into the Faith by a few months in 1960, and in 1979 she preceded him, again by a few months, into the Abhá Kingdom. They had spent nineteen years serving together the interests of the Cause, of their children and of the Bahá’í community of Ecuador, especially the indigenous believers of the Otavalo and Cachaco areas.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Pavon were the ‘spiritual children’ of their own son, Raul Pavén, who became a Bahá’í during the Ten Year Crusade and is now a member of the Continental Board of Counsellors in the Americas. He purposely left the Bahá’í books lying about his parents’ house hoping his mother would read them to ‘see what he was mixed up in”. The result of her investigation was that Dofia Clementina embraced the Cause in July of 1960. In December of the same year, her husband Segundo wrote a perceptive letter to the National Teaching Committee explaining that he had made a thorough investigation of the Faith, having studied The Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh and The Dispensation Of Bahá’u’lláh as well as the communications his wife had been receiving from Assemblies and
[Page 672]
672
THE BAHA'I WORLD
Clementina Mejia de Pavo’n
committees. He related that through his study he had come to recognize'Bahá’u’lláh. ‘I have found the light with which the Lord our God has deemed to inspire his Divine Messengers to spread true faith in God, and being convinced of this reality, I desire to be accepted as a new believer in the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh.’ The light he found at that time was to guide his life until the end of his time on earth.
The Pavons were both born in Otavalo, a small Ecuadorian city in the Province of Imbabura, the province that holds the largest concentration of indigenous Bahá’í’s in that country. As this century opened, they were children growing up among the native people, learning Quechua, the lingua franca of the Andes, and learning also to appreciate the qualities and the culture of a greatly underestimated and disparaged people. They acquired those humane qualities and that spiritual nature that distinguished their years as Bahá’ís and gave them the unique ability to identify with the Quechua-speakers they served.
They married in 1920 and had nine children, two of whom died young. They lived to see all their surviving children and a number of
Segundo Pavo’n Barrera
grandchildren accept the Faith. Their lives were, even before their exposure to the Faith, devoted to humanitarian objectives. Mr. PaVon was a civil servant, who well understood the needs of the Indians, and his wife, a loving mother to her own children, was also widely known as Mother Pavon, a beloved ‘mater familias’ for all who needed her.
Early in their marriage they purchased a farm in Cachaco, miles from any city, so that their children could be raised in a healthy and spiritual environment. It was in a jungle-like area with no transportation, not even roads, An undependable train which ran at irregular intervals at some distance from their home was the only means of travel in or out. They could not have foreseen at this time that the farm would become a school under Bahá’í auspices and a training institute for the native believers of Ecuador. Seeing the needs of the children of Cachaco, who were without educational facilities, they opened a school in their home, supporting it from the proceeds of their farm insofar as possible.
When the National Spiritual Assembly of Ecuador was formed in 1961, the Pavons gave it their whole-hearted support, and began sending frequent detailed reports of their
[Page 673]
1N MEMORIAM
activities. In an early letter to the Assembly Dona Clementina wrote that she was teaching the principles of the Faith to the children of their school so that they would grow up to be true Bahá’ís. A few weeks later she sent notice that four of her pupils who ranged in age from six to sixteen years, had accepted the Faith. In August 1962 they shared with the National Assembly their happiness over the acclaim they received from the Ministry of Education for their efforts in educating campesino children. Unfortunately, a few months later Mrs. Pavén was greatly tested when she heard from the provincial director of education that she could not be considered a teacher as she had no degree in teaching. He wanted to send a young graduate with a degree to the area. Mr. Pavén wrote to say ‘The truth is, the priest and his followers have offered to open a school in the area . . . and take away our school’. In spite of the machinations against the school, their faith never wavered. Dofia Clementina wrote asking for prayers for guidance, her words reflecting her undaunted spirit: ‘I always have confidence in the help of Bahá’u’lláh and the prayers of our fellow-Bahá’ís’ and that ‘God is greater than every great one’. The school continued, with daily classes for twenty children and literacy classes for adults in the evenings and on Sundays. Through their work enrolments in the Faith continued month after month. Reflecting on the lives of Segundo and Clementina Pavon from this vantage point in time, it appears that their independent effort to provide schooling to campesino children and literacy classes to adults, might well be regarded as one of the earliest of the ‘tutorial schools’ called for many years later in the Nine Year Plan.
When the National Spiritual Assembly needed a couple to work with the indigenous people in the areas of mass conversion, they knew they had in the Pavons two capable believers with an innate respect for the Indians, and who were well-versed in their language and culture. They were asked by the Assembly to move from Cachaco to serve as pioneers in Otavalo, their natal city. The Pavons, in agreeing to the task assigned to them in Otavalo, were able to happily inform the National Assembly that the children of Cachaco would continue to receive education,
673
for through Mr. Pavén’s efforts a public school had been established and a road into the area had been opened.
In Otavalo the two worked tirelessly together on many projects. Sefiora Pavén was inspired to write songs, poetry and translations, while Senor Pavén spent many hours at the typewriter acting as her secretary, recording her work, meticulously and precisely, as was his nature.
The songs of Clementina Pavén, based on Bahá’í texts and set to the haunting Andean melodies she had heard from childhood, are played daily on ‘Radio Bahá’í of Ecuador’ and are sung in villages and international conferences around the world. One of them was sung by a choir in the Mother Temple of Latin America in Panama. They are songs that teach and instruct, that rejoice in the joy of being a Bahá’í, that bring the Mahifestation close to the believer and that strike a responsive note in the hearts of children and adults alike. ‘Radio Bahá’í’ in its early years would have been musically impoverished without the contributions of Dofia Clementina de Pavon. And her translations of the Writings into Quechua made possible the Quechua programming of the station.
In Otavalo, too, the Pavéns taught indigenous people to read and write. They helped to engender respect for the Quechua language, and to revive and restore its use among Quechua-speakers themselves, who were losing vocabulary from their language along with the self-respect of which they had been deprived by a Spanish—language culture. Mrs. Pavén helped to train the Quechuaspeakers who were the first radio announcers to speak about the Faith in their mother tongue to their own people.
Their story would not be complete without the story of José Manuel. When they learned that a mother was in the market-place trying to sell her partially paralysed four-year-old child who was also mute, they immediately took the child, disregarding the fact that they had a houseful of their own children. They feared that someone would take him who would not give him love. José Manuel grew up with the Pavén children as one of their brothers. Through their love and unwavering faith they were able to teach him many things, including the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, and the
[Page 674]
674
ability to utter a few words. Jose’ Manuel is now a man, a Bahá’í, devoted and ready to serve the Faith and the friends at all times. When their success with José Manuel was noted, they were offered another unwanted child who was totally deaf and mute. They accepted it and gave it the same loving care. Both are today loved and cared for by the Pavéns’ children.
As the years passed and the health of the Pavéns began to fail, they moved, at the urging of their children, to a warmer climate at a lower altitude to live with a daughter. While they enjoyed being with their family, they soon felt restless at being far from the heart of Bahá’í activities, and in time returned to Otavalo and became engaged in the work of the Bahá’í Institute. Over the years they were mother and father to many pioneers who had the privilege of working with and learning from them. Pioneers and others relied on the herbal remedies Mother Pavén dispensed. Particularly in Cachaco, where there had been no doctors and no telephones, the sick would often turn to the Pavons for help. Both served in countless ways on Assemblies and cornmittees, national and local, as teachers, administrators and collaborators with conventions, institutes and every Bahá’í event of the busy years during which the Faith dramatically increased both its numbers and its activities in Ecuador.
Segundo Pavén’s deep love for Bahá’u’lláh, his ardent desire to serve the Cause, and his complete devotion to his wife were all demonstrated at the time of her passing. While she was in hospital, Mr. Pavén, himself ill and quite fragile, was busy correcting her translation into Quechua of Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era in order to be sure that her last work would be complete and well-done. It seemed at that time that his sole desire was to complete this mission and join her.
Their staunch and unyielding faith in Bahá’u’lláh was the cohesive influence that welded this inseparable couple together in service to the Cause. They were richly rewarded in this life by seeing their son Raul named to the Continental Board of Counsellors in the Americas, two daughters, Isabel Pavén de Calderon and Clemencia Pavon de Zuleta named to the Auxiliary Board, and all their other surviving children enrolled as
THE Bahá’í’ WORLD
devoted Bahá’ís. They are: Rafael Pavén Mejia, Aida Pavon de Espin, Cecilia Pavon de Wilson and Teresa Pavén de Narvaez.
On the passing of Clementina Mejia de Pavon, on 17 May 1979, the Universal House of Justice cabled:
GRIEVED PASSING BELOVED CLEMENTINA DE PAVON OUTSTANDING INSPIRING TEACHER FAITH WORTHY EMULATION ALL BELIEVERS. OFFERING LOVING PRAYERS DIVINE THRESHOLD PROGRESS HER SOUL.
Only two months later, following the passing of Segundo Pavén Barrera on 14 July, the House of Justice again cabled Ecuador:
PRAYING PROGRESS KINGDOMS GOD SOUL SEGUNDO PAVON. CONVEY FAMILY LOVING SYMPATHY.
And to Counsellor Pavén, on 15 July, it joined the International Teaching Centre in cabling:
HEARTFELT CONDOLENCES YOURSELF FAMILY. ASSURE PRAYERS SHRINES BOUNTIFUL REWARD DEVOTED SERVANT FAITH SEGUNDO PAVON.
(Adapted from articles written by HELEN HORNBY)
