They were so eager they contacted us 3 times in 1 day

When someone declares their belief in Bahá’u’lláh, it is wonderful when the local Bahá’ís can reach out to the new believer as quickly as possible and nurture their newly-found Faith. A growing number of individuals are registering their Faith online. Though many may have never before met another Bahá’í, many of them are very eager to connect with other Bahá’ís right away. In this following story, the situation was made a little more complex because the new believer moved across the country shortly after their declaration. Nevertheless, the friends worked together—at the national, regional and local levels—to respond quickly, and the result was a successful welcome!

In this first email message, the regional seeker response specialist is informed of a new believer who had declared online and moved across the country a short while later:

Dear __,

This email is being forwarded to you as regional specialist for seeker response and online registration.

Here is the email contact for __, who has moved to your region but has not yet provided any new phone or residential address information. __ declared online several weeks ago. The regional specialist for her old community has noted: . . .

__ was so eager to declare she contacted us 3 times in 1 day, once at the 800-22UNITE phone line and twice on the Web site www.bahai.us. . . . I spoke at length with __. She believes that Bahá’u’lláh is the Manifestation of God for this day, understands intuitively about progressive revelation, has been reading online extensively about the Central Figures and the Bahá’í laws, and agrees to live by them. She requested immediate Bahá’í local contacts and wants to study in a Ruhi study circle ASAP.

We can forward her record to you. Please assist this new and motivated new believer in getting connected to her local community.

With warmest regards,

L

The regional specialist later provided an update about how the local friends in the believers new residence quickly and warmly reached out to her:

Thought you might like to know that __ has been contacted by the local members in her new cluster. I received this today:

__ and I talked yesterday. We will pick her up and take her and her daughter to the devotional gathering on Saturday evening. We will talk about starting a Ruhi Book 1 study circle that evening. We will also see if she wants us to start a children’s class with her daughter and their friends.

I also wrote to __ asking for her new address and explained that she can update it herself using the “MyPage”. Hopefully that will be soon completed one way or another. She is in a cluster without a cluster institute coordinator, but we have a wonderful Bahá’í who helps us with seekers and transfers.

Loving greetings,

J