"Thank you for your sacrifice and your teaching"

This delightful piece from San Diego, CA (A) brought lots of smiles to my face. The teaching is continuing in earnest, and now there are signs of a SECOND “Bahá’í village” emerging in the cluster. Plus, an 8-year old believer participated on a teaching team, and his humble and thankful attitude gave much encouragement to the rest of the friends. I’ll say no more!

Cherished teachers

What an extraordinary teaching effort we just completed! The cluster’s second “Bahá’í Village” has now emerged. Over 3 weekends, there were 50 friends engaged in direct teaching in this neighborhood, including 10 visitors from all over the country. With so many loving teachers in the field, everything was surrounded and infused by the holiness of the presence of the Supreme Concourse. Now there are 9 more new Bahá’ís—9 more family members! . . .

Here is a beautiful story from one of the members of the coordinating team about our youngest teacher, __, who joined us at the tender age of 8. :)

With warmest love and affection for you all!

The Area Teaching Committee

Dear friends,

Here is the picture drawn the weekend of 4/18/09 by __.

He accompanied our teaching teams on Saturday during a teaching effort in a neighborhood. After spending most of the afternoon on Saturday accompanying his mother and another member of the team to visit homes, he came back to our afternoon reflection. While we ate lunch he drew a picture of the Bahá’ís visiting homes carrying the materials for Anna's conversation. It showed lots of details of the homes, even the staircases and doorbells and addresses. His drawing, as he described it to everyone, shows God smiling and happy with the sacrifice of the Bahá’ís who are teaching. Afterward, he came up to me and he said that he forgot to tell the group one more thing. He had wanted to tell them, "Thank you for your sacrifice today and for teaching." Rather than trying to get the attention of everyone again, I suggested he go talk to each of the participants and tell them directly because it was hard for everyone to hear him in the big group the first time. He did exactly that. I watched eyes get watery throughout the room as he, with such humility went to many of the friends, and I was happy that so many of the teachers told him what a difference his being there made to the effort.