Here are two of the many stories the National Teaching Office receives regularly in connection either with programs of growth or with inquiries made about the Faith through www.bahai.us and 800-22-UNITE:

Perseverance in communication

This past February a community in Virginia received an online seeker inquiry. A local Baha’i who was asked to follow up sent a few emails, but did not receive a response. The Baha’i did not give up; because the seeker provided her home address she was sent a note by mail. When the Baha’i received a response, it turned out that the emails never reached the seeker!

Local Baha’is visited the seeker and invited her to several community activities, including a fireside, a devotional gathering and a study circle. The inquiring seeker attended all of these and was lovingly nurtured by the Baha’i community. It was at a Holy Day event that she declared herself a Baha’i and signed her registration card.

It is astonishing to know that through the perseverance of one person, the loving support of the community, and the refusal to give up too quickly on those we have not yet met, she is now a Baha’i. And in a postscript, her husband has also been investigating the Faith.

Exploring common bonds

Here a member of a teaching team in Florida shares a story about bonds created with a new neighbor as they explored their common religious backgrounds and questions about religion.

“We became fast friends and I told her about the Faith. Crystal was raised Roman Catholic so we had common backgrounds. She had the same questions about religion as I’d had.

“As she learned more within just a few days she started asking me [about signing] a card! I read her the story of the martyrdom of the Bab from The Dawn-Breakers and her eyes were as big as saucers. Then I sat her at the computer and she declared online on my 40th Baha’i birthday!

“After the reflection gathering today we stopped at Crystal’s parents’ house and I did some direct teaching with her parents.”

Bookcases smashed and toppled. Chairs strewn about. Electronics and cash missing. A layer of fire extinguisher foam covering nearly everything.

Dismay quickly turned, though, to concern for the perpetrators.

“We stood outside and said prayers, and the first prayer was for whoever did it,” John Cole told reporter Mecca Rayne of KKTV Channel 11 News for a piece airing that evening.

Asked what she would convey to the vandals, Dixie Cole added:

“Well, first of all that we love them, that we forgive them, that we know that their parents would be very hurt, probably, if they knew.

“We hope they can turn their lives around, and if they ever need any help from us all they have to do is come.”

After surveying the damage, the Colorado Springs Spiritual Assembly sent out an email urging Baha’is to keep their focus on building community:

“As this is a clear indication of the plight of the world today and the grave need for the healing message of Baha’u'llah, your Local Spiritual Assembly is asking tonight for your prayers to arise in service to fulfill our goals as a means to assist a desperate humanity.”

A message from the National Spiritual Assembly echoed those thoughts: “[T]his unfortunate incident … is … a stark reminder to us all of the urgency of the work we are striving to carry out.”

Similar messages were received from the Northwest Regional Baha’i Council and members of the Auxiliary Board.

And expressions of support poured in from the public.

“I am deeply shocked and saddened by the recent theft and vandalism at your center,” one reads.

“As a resident of Colorado Springs (I attend St Michael’s Episcopal Church), I know that this action is deplored by the entire community, and I hope those responsible will soon be brought to justice.

“I do hope that you’re quickly able to fully resume your work and presence among us.”

Another person wrote: “I’m currently a student at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, studying interreligious dialogue and education. Whoever ruined your building is exactly the type of person I hope to reach someday with a message of respect and peace for all faiths.”

A former Colorado Springs resident recalled living next door to a Baha’i couple 1963–65.

“They were a lovely couple and good neighbors, and I’ve always had a positive attitude about Baha’is. I can only think that prejudice and ignorance would be the reasons for such an act.”

From a person who had experienced hospitality there:

“I visited you several months ago with my daughter-in-law from California. I was so impressed by your warmth and welcoming spirit. I was so sad to read this morning that your center was vandalized.”

That person added: “I would like to replace the cash that was taken. It’s a small gesture, but you will know you are in my thoughts and prayers.”

The Assembly returned the check but expressed appreciation for the gesture.

In the days following the vandalism, cleanup by more than 20 Baha’is and their friends restored the Center to spotless condition and items were being donated to replace some of those lost.

Finally catching a moment of respite, the Assembly could reflect:

“We were shown how vulnerable we are in terms of our material possessions and how strong we are in spirit.”

Read the full blog entry

In this second video interview, Dr. West speaks on the Baha’i perspective of Race Unity, noting the “genuine universalness of the Baha’i Faith” and stating that it is one of the “first religious groups to hit racism and white supremacy head on.”

“The Baha’i Faith will be one of the leaven in the American loaf that allowed the democratic loaf to expand because of the anti-racist witness of those of the Baha’i Faith,” declares West. “A Christian like myself is profoundly humbled before Baha’i brothers and sisters.”

Read more about what Baha’is are doing to combat prejudice and promote Race Amity in the United States.

Related Items:

• Cornel West speaks on the persecution of the Baha’is in Iran: Dr. West speaks to the Baha’i persecutions in Iran and makes this statement: “I would like to say directly to the government of Iran that I’m willing to do all that I can to support my precious brothers and sisters of [the] Baha’i Faith, and that as citizens they ought to have rights and liberties that are protected.”

Related Stories:

• New film ‘Red Tails’ inspires Baha’is to remember those who served as Tuskegee Airmen
• Keeping King’s dream alive
• Couple’s marriage a witness to the oneness of humanity
• Race unity still a work in progress
• Louhelen provides a safe space for sensitive discourse on race
• U of GA. Celebrates 50 Years of Integration…me too
• Cape of Good Hope – Love, Compassion, and Race

The Tuskegee Airmen, who numbered close to 1,000, were the first group of African-American fighter pilots in the United States and the only group of African-American fighter pilots in World War II. Their bravery led President Harry S. Truman to order the desegregation of the U.S. military in 1948.

Dr. Dempsey Morgan, 91, a Baha’i from Virginia, was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen and was among 300 fellow officers, who were presented with a replica of the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor from President George W. Bush at the Capitol Rotunda in 2007. (See related article from USA TODAY).

Myron Wilson, who grew up in Danville, Ill., and died in 2001, was the only other Tuskegee Airman to become a Baha’i. After experiencing racial slights, Mr. Wilson dejectedly left the military, but found the Baha’i Faith, which his son, Myron A. Wilson, a Baha’i in Aurora, Colo, says helped “start the healing process. He went to his grave healed.”

Myron Wilson

Both Dr. Morgan and Mr. Wilson were illustrious fighter pilots. Dr. Morgan flew 181 combat missions and received 13 decorations. Mr. Wilson downed two German jet fighters, but, sadly, wasn’t accorded recognition. “Instead, the credit went to white pilots,” says Wilson’s son. “The Air Force said it needed footage of Mr. Wilson and his buddies flying the plane, something they couldn’t provide.”

However, Wilson’s son recently noted an interesting development associated with the debut of the new movie. “It appears that a Red Tails calendar has been released highlighting images of Tuskegee Airmen. My father’s Tuskegee graduation photo has been included on the month of June. In addition, the official United States Air Force archive photo that depicts the images of four Tuskegee Airmen walking away from their P-51 fighter planes on the tarmac…..the individual to the far right is my father!” he notes.

Dr. Morgan is currently in the Virginia Veterans Care Center and Adrienne Morgan, his wife, shared that the staff of the hospital took some of the patients, including her husband, to the movie theatre to see Red Tails. She said that Dr. Morgan was very pleased with the movie and said it was more authentic than a previous movie he had seen about the Airmen.

Dempsey Morgan located on the far left

Adrian McKee, a Bahai from Glen Ellyn Ill., took his sons to see Red Tails as soon as it came out. He had a special interest in seeing it because he discovered in 2002 that his uncle was a fighter mechanic during WWII and supported the Tuskegee Airmen. “One day I was doing a random search on his name and one of the items that came up was a book about the Tuskegee Airmen. It has the roster of the 99th and 332nd Fighter Groups,” he shared.

Related Items:

• For Tuskegee Airman, the Baha’i Faith healed the wounds of racism
• Honored Tuskegee Airmen include two Baha’is

Robert Turner in the Holy Land, 1898. Image Courtesy Baha'i National Archives, Wilmette, IL, USA

Robert Turner (1855/56 – 1909)
Sometime in 1898, Robert Turner became the first African-American member of the Bahá’í Faith.  He was the butler of Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, an early Bahá’í.  Mr. Turner visited ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the Holy Land (then Palestine, now Northern Israel), arriving on December 10, 1898 and staying into 1899. While in the Holy Land, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá displayed a great affection for Turner which stood in stark contrast to the conventions of interracial interaction in Western societies.  In this way He modeled how true Bahá’ís should act towards all members of the human race.  ‘Abdu’l-Bahá told Turner that “if he remained firm and steadfast until the end, he would be the door through which a whole race would enter the Kingdom.”

(Information courtesy of Lights of the Spirit Historical Portraits of Black Baha’is in North America: 1898-2000 by Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis and Richard Thomas, p.24)

Louis G. Gregory (1874-1951)
Louis Gregory became a Baha’i in his mid-30s, drawn by the Faith’s core belief in oneness and unity. For more than 35 years he taught the principles of “race amity” throughout the United States, giving up a successful law practice and real estate business to do so. Mr. Gregory was well-received whenever he spoke at colleges, churches, civic groups and clubs throughout the country.

Whenever he was accompanied by his wife–a white Englishwoman named Louisa Mathew–they received a different reaction because interracial marriage was illegal or unrecognized in a majority of the states at that time. Gregory and other Baha’is encountered other, more serious, responses. One time, the Ku Klux Klan broke up an interracial Baha’i meeting in Atlanta. Other Baha’is to whom Gregory spoke were evicted by landlords. In 2003 the Louis G. Gregory Baha’i Museum was dedicated in Charleston, S.C., to honor one of the most distinguished figures in the Baha’i Faith and a pre-eminent champion of the Faith’s central principle of unity.

After Mr. Gregory died in 1951, Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith, posthumously conferred upon him the title of “Hand of the Cause,” a spiritual distinction with which only 50 people have been honored in the history of the Baha’i Faith.

Learn much more about his life from the Baha’i Encyclopedia Project article on Louis Gregory.

Dr. Alain Locke (1885-1954)
Alain LeRoy Locke received a PhD in philosophy from Harvard in 1918, was the first black Rhodes Scholar and played a major role in the flowering of the Harlem Renaissance, which started in the 1920s and produced the likes of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and Louis Armstrong. In publishing The New Negro, an anthology of writings by African American authors, he gained national prominence as a spokesman for African-Americans. As a humanist and philosopher, Dr. Locke promoted what he called “cultural pluralism,” which contends that cultural groups can maintain their own identity and still be part of a broader culture. Some of his writings, including three essays published for the first time in their entirety, can be found in the 2005 Vol 36. #3 edition of World Order magazine. After becoming a Baha’i in his early 30s, Dr. Locke focused on the Baha’i principle of oneness and wrote: “The intellectual core of the problems of the peace … will be the discovery of the necessary common denominators . . .involved in a democratic world order or democracy on a world scale.”

Download a pdf profile on Alain Locke from the Baha’i children’s magazine, Brilliant Star.

Dr. H. Elsie Austin (1908-2004)
Elsie Austin’s life dedication to righting wrongs began at an early age when she pointed out to her 98-percent-white classroom in Cincinnati that the textbook they were reading disparaged the contribution of Africans in world history. Ms. Austin was a pioneer in the civil rights movement, and in 1930 was the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Cincinnati College of Law and the first African American woman to serve as Assistant Attorney-General of the State of Ohio.

Ms. Austin had a successful legal career with several U.S. government agencies, including the U.S. Information Agency, where she spent 10 years in Africa working with cultural and educational programs. In 1974, she co-founded the African and American Women’s Association. A Baha’i for 70 years, Ms. Austin served on Baha’i Local Spiritual Assemblies in the Bahamas, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and the United States.

Download a pdf profile on Elsie Austin from the Baha’i children’s magazine, Brilliant Star.

Fayard Nicholas (1914-2006)
Self-taught, dapper and imaginative, Fayard Nicholas was one-half of the Nicholas Brothers, a dynamic tap-dancing duo that wowed and amazed audiences for many years with their trademark daring athletic prowess: airborne splits and doing leap-frogging splits down a sweeping staircase.

Mr. Nicholas and his younger brother, Harold, started out in show business by touring with their parents’ vaudeville orchestra.

Mr. Nicholas developed the duo’s trademark balletic and acrobatic style, which they showcased in 65 movies, and which inspired such greats as Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and Michael Jackson, to whom they taught tap. Like many black performers, the Nicholas Brothers persevered despite facing racial obstacles in Hollywood and on the club scene.

John Birks Gillespie (1917 – 1993), jazz trumpeter extraordinaire, was among the top kings of bebop, a style of jazz popular in the 1940s characterized by fast tempos and improvisations. Gillespie was known for his puffed-cheek style of blowing—the consequence of being self-taught—and his onstage antics, which ranged from deadpan to wacky.

He also was known for being a generous mentor to many musicians. After becoming a Baha’i in 1968, Mr. Gilllespie became an international ambassador and spokesman for the Faith. In his memoirs, he wrote that “Becoming a Baha’i changed my life in every way and gave me a new concept of the relationship between God and man—between man and his fellow man—man and his family.”

In Dizzy: To be or not to bop : the autobiography of Dizzy Gillespie with Al Fraser, Mr. Gillespie mused that his “role in music is just a stepping stone to a higher role.”

Download a pdf profile on Dizzy Gillespie from the Baha’i children’s magazine, Brilliant Star.

The national Bahá’í schools, both permanent and seasonal, are seeking to support this special spirit by offering focused study that not only highlights ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s visit, but also assists with developing a deeper understanding of His vision for the American Bahá’í community.

As the Universal House of Justice pointed out in its Aug. 29, 2010, letter, the words and deeds demonstrated by ‘Abdu’l-Baha during His travels “offer an abundance of inspiration and manifold insights from which the body of believers can today draw.”

The goal of the national schools over the year will be to assist young and old alike to use His loving and wise example as a guide in their efforts to embrace receptive souls, raise capacity for service, build local communities, strengthen institutions, engage in social action and contribute to public discourse. School administrators are seeking fresh and innovative approaches to ensure a banner year of study and inspiration at the schools.

Individuals with presentation ideas on sessions that provide insights into and better understanding of the purpose of the Master’s visit are invited to submit proposals by email (schools@usbnc.org). Questions to consider regarding proposed sessions include:

• How will the session advance understanding and application of the purpose and message of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s visit?
• How will the session engage participants in the “society-building power” inherent in the Faith, a process given direction by ‘Abdu’l-Baha in His Tablets of the Divine Plan?
• How will participants’ capacity for service be advanced — including in influencing public discourse and social action?
• How can arts and creative activity be included in the learning process?
• How can interactive methods be utilized — such as small group study, consultation and problem solving, questioning, individual study and research?
• How can the session utilize young people as facilitators, and/or how can presenters with different styles accompany each other?
• How can participants be encouraged to take ownership of their own learning?

The National Assembly’s Office of Education and Schools is eager to consider original proposals for future school sessions based on the theme of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s example in the hope that, through consultation and collaboration, creative ideas may be brought into fruition.

It’s their daily mission, one they gained a greater capacity to serve through the culture of learning fostered there.

The Baha’i Conference on Social and Economic Development was the 19th sponsored by the Rabbani Charitable Trust but first in which the program was developed in collaboration with the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States and its agencies.

A planning committee was formed in response to guidance from the Universal House of Justice. Program changes such as the addition of reflection sessions following two conference plenary talks were its first fruits.

Talks exploring the concept and practice of nurturing human potential — by National Assembly secretary Kenneth E. Bowers on “The Process of Growth” and Counselor Garth Pollock on “The Challenge of Coherence” — bookended the conference.

A framework for our learning process

Bowers presented in freeze frame the current stage of a framework for growth that centers on the institute process:

• Learnings at the grass roots by the empowered friends influence further guidance and strategies, with reflection vital at all levels.
• As this series of Plans evolves, the roles Baha’is play and their integration are proliferating. No one serves in isolation.
• Accompaniment is critical, since each participant in the growth process must be nurtured according to his or her talents while contributing to an overall balance and single movement.
• Coherence must be achieved among the various threads of a tapestry of activity that includes capacity building, universal participation, and applying knowledge to action.
• As our partnerships with others grow, we learn more about how to discern which practices are consistent with Baha’i teachings and about how to make the principles a reality in the neighborhood and beyond.
• This year, as we mark the centenary of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s travels in North America, we invite Him to be with us again as we pursue the goals of the Plan.

Pollock brought the train of thought full circle, noting:

• Many points of potential coherence exist — between teaching and community building, among the core activities, between the activities of the institute and social action, among institutions, etc.
• As we get to know our neighbors we forge veritable friendships and begin to learn about their challenges.
• As we bring the principles to them, we can share Baha’u'llah’s vision for humanity.
• And as we do that, we start a process of community building that puts the principles into practice through activities.
• In that process of involvement in the activities their capacities are raised and the crushing isolation they feel is lessened.
• As the core activities develop, we begin to see the extent to which they are integrated and mutually supportive.
• Through accompaniment we overcome any residual personal inertia, create new paths of service and ultimately do together what would be impossible otherwise.
• Over the long term, our commitment to a neighborhood transforms it and raises resources that can be lent toward moving other neighborhoods to that level.

Opportunities to flesh out the framework

In between were presentations by Pollock on “Social Action” and Bowers on “Contributing to the Discourses of Society,” as well as the reflection sessions; workshops; networking sessions; a media boot camp to train interested individuals in telling stories from a Baha’i perspective for a public audience; special programs for children, junior youth and youth; and artistic expression of the conference’s theme.

Pollock used the analogy of a tree’s growth in describing how opportunities to engage in social action will arise organically from our efforts at the neighborhood level and beyond. A commentary excerpting the talk will be published in the March/April issue of The American Bahá’í.

Bowers also painted a word picture, of a world that changed glacially until the Industrial Revolution, picked up speed and now is hurtling — with all the turmoil you’d expect — toward a complete transformation.

Thankfully, he said, we have the writings of Shoghi Effendi to help us see the Plans of God in stages and the building patterns that are the nucleus of the future commonwelath.

And at each stage, as we do what we can to hasten integration amid disintegration, we have alongside our new opportunities a new vocabulary to help further discourses.

Right now, said Bowers, we are laying the capacity-building groundwork for systematic action and it will pay off in a number of arenas including race unity.

Reflection sessions held after each of these two talks focused on relevant excerpts from the Ridvan 2010 message of the Universal House of Justice and 10 questions to ponder about our involvement in society.

That Baha’is are already deeply involved, and are learning much from their efforts, was made abundantly clear over two afternoons of in-depth workshops and an evening of networking.

Auxiliary Board member Vahid Motazedian led one such workshop, on “Neighborhood Agriculture and Community Building.”

He told of densely populated neighborhoods in San Mateo and Gilroy, California, and of how the chosen service of junior youth groups produced community gardens on one level and a process for gaining and applying knowledge on another.

Sessions such as this fed naturally into networking groups bringing together conference-goers with like backgrounds and interests.

The agriculture and environment group, for instance, used what was learned in Motazedian’s workshop as the basis for further exploration of “green” cultivation and its potential to transform lives and communities.

The media boot camp put into participants’ hands the most accessible tools used in digital storytelling: blogs, audio recorders, still cameras and simple editing software.

Working with professional mentors from Baha’i Media Services and around the country, “campers” experienced all phases of the process — planning, production, writing and editing — as they crafted stories shared in a media festival.

Children and junior youths had a hands-on experience as well, translating newfound knowledge of applying the teachings to their lives into songs, crafts, collages and the like — many presented during the conference-ending plenary to the delight of parents and other attendees.

Giving the young people’s teachers an assist were the performers on hand for the conference. Led again this year by Jack Lenz, they coaxed talents from even the most timid little ones.

At other points in the conference, the performers trooped on stage to present spiritual concepts through song — or in the case of Mike and Karen Watt, through their depiction of how the Hand of the Cause of God Louis G. Gregory and his wife, Louisa, blazed a trail for other interracial couples.

A time for sharing and exploration

As in past years, a pre-conference seminar gave individuals with active experience in social action an opportunity to share what they are learning and explore Five Year Plan-related topics of mutual interest.

Facilitators Stephen Karnik and Ming Hwee Chong of the Baha’i International Community posed three successive questions:

• What does it mean to participate in the discourses of society?
• How are participation in discourses of society and social action “interconnected” and “mutually reinforcing”?
• How is participation in the discourses of society reflected in/applied to my area of work or service?

These understandings cemented, the SED practitioners spent the next two days discussing in small groups 20 topics related to integrating their work with the Plan’s processes of expansion and consolidation.

Among discussion topics were: using media and the arts to spark meaningful conversations, in particular the advancement of women; working with like-minded organizations; empowering people in rural and urban areas; overcoming cultural practices not in alignment with the Faith in SED projects; what Baha’is can do to end material suffering in the world; and avoiding partisan politics while participating in the discourses of society.

Also held before the conference was a study class titled “In the Beginning: The First Western Pilgrimage and the Early Days of the Baha’i Faith in the West.”

Kathryn Jewett Hogenson took the class on a historical journey that at the same time was a tale of the power of the Covenant. Participants learned how ‘Abdu’l-Baha molded the American Baha’i community and how that small band of stalwart believers laid the foundation for the processes of building a new World Order that we carry on today.

The Bahá’í community of Hungary would warmly welcome some Hungarian-speaking pioneers, or pioneer families. In particular, one long-standing but struggling community in Hungary would really benefit from having a resident Hungarian-speaking Bahá’í with experience in tutoring and/or core activities. Even a three-month stay could help a lot.

Pioneers needed in Japan

Pioneers are sought to live in the area of Sapporo, Hokkaido, in northern Japan. Ideally, a couple is sought to settle and consolidate the core activities in this community as well as take on the position of the caretakers of the Bahá’í Center in that city. Friends willing to serve as pioneers should have an understanding of the Five Year Plan, be able to facilitate institute courses and promote other core activities, and have a strong spirit of service and respect for other cultures. Ability to communicate in Japanese would be an asset, but fluency in English language is essential.

The caretakers will serve in a general capacity to maintain the day-to-day needs of the center. This is a volunteer position for a self-sufficient pioneer(s). Sapporo enjoys four full seasons with heavy snow in the winter; it is particularly appealing to people used to a similar climate.

Anyone wishing to travel to Japan is responsible for meeting visa requirements and making those arrangements. For requirements that apply to U.S. citizens, see the U.S. State Department website:

www.travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1148.html#entry_requirements

For more details, or if you are a citizen of another country, please contact a consular office of the Embassy of Japan, or go to:

www.us.emb-japan.go.jp/english/html/travel_and_visa/travel_and_visa_index.htm

If you are interested in either of the above opportunities, please notify the Office of International Pioneering (pioneer@usbnc.org or 847-733-3510).

What spurred them to expand their service to the international arena and spend six months supporting Baha’i communities in the U.S. Virgin Islands?

A presentation on international pioneering at their Unit Convention in fall 2010 provided an early spark. “My wife said that maybe we should go,” Michael writes.

They consulted, and they researched. A weekend Pioneer Orientation, held in Phoenix by the Office of International Pioneering, was an informative and “most enjoyable” part of that process, he adds. “This was when we found out that we were really committed to this journey of pioneering. It was no longer talk but action.”

All in all, Michael reports, they feel “it was Baha’u’llah guiding our steps.”

Once in the Caribbean, their half-year sojourn was highly active and engaging: supporting all kinds of Baha’i activities including children’s classes, study circles on the Covenant and on teaching the Faith, and a devotional gathering at a senior center.

Baha’i community life on the islands had its own unique qualities. “Sunday morning devotions at Megan’s Beach — what a thrill to say prayers, have a brunch, meet new people and then swim in the clear Caribbean,” Michael enthuses. The local Baha’i community even had a ceramics class that Lottie joined.

As with many extended trips abroad, some issues and surprises cropped up; the Chunowitzes mention housing, transportation and even sometimes the details of serving the Faith. Those rough spots were where the couple particularly appreciated the preparation from the Pioneer Orientation session.

There, Michael reflects, is where the bottom line is one’s prayerful relationship with Baha’u’llah, “continued focus on serving the friends and the community and saying yes to service at all times … making every effort to be self-reliant and adapt to the local cultural needs of the Baha’is, administrative order and the non-Baha’i community.”

The couple made lasting friendships and keep in touch, they add. Even on a recent trip to the Bahá’í House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois, they encountered one of their friends from St. Croix.

Since returning to Buckeye, the Chunowitzes have dived back into community activities with relish: taking part in study circles, membership on the Area Teaching Committee serving the West Valley cluster of Baha’i communities near Phoenix — and, of course, encouraging other Baha’is to go abroad as pioneers.

“Everybody should go [pioneering] at least once, even if for only six months,” Michael urges, saying the experience can help believers refocus their relationship with Baha’u’llah “to find out Who is in charge and how to serve the needs of the Faith.”

He adds, “All the difficulties we faced, from housing to transportation to serving the Faith, were continually under the protection of the Blessed Beauty that only [the individual soul] can experience. It gave me the opportunity to know that the same thing can occur here at home and anywhere I go.”