Changing Times Blog

4600 of Frankfurt

Frankfurt was buzzing with 4600 Central-European Baha’is from eleven countries. While International Counsellors Joany Lincoln and Steven Birkland clearly set out the goals for us, we devised strategy after strategy to meet them. No less than twelve pledges to raise Clusters throughout our countries to Intensive Programmes of Growth by Ridvan 2009 were made as a result of our active workshops.

Among the pledges was the Pristina cluster around the capital of Kosovo. With a fierceful army of only 25 Baha’i friends, they set out to raise their cluster from a C to an A level in under three months (and will welcome pioneers). There were one hundred friends of the Faith among the 4600 participants. Eight of them declared their Faith on the weekend, three of them on the bus on their way back to France.

Looking forward to hearing from the other cluster workshops and their results in the months to come!

Photo Credit: Mona Reyhani

Sydney Highlights

Highlights from the 5500-strong Regional Conference in Sydney. Frankfurt Conference is only hours away!

6000 at Sydney Conference

(mv) Over 6,000 Baha’is from Australia and abroad descended upon Sydney last weekend, gathering for the largest Regional Conference held to date. A stirring didgeridoo performance, a recognition of the Indigenous people of the land, served as the opening to this historical event which endeavoured to celebrate the community’s achievements, deliberate on its progress and plan courses of action for the remainder of the Five Year Plan. A giant bouquet of roses served as the centrepiece of the stage in the main auditorium, representing the Baha’is in Iran that are unable to share in the bounty of this series of spiritually uplifting and historically momentous conferences.

In attendance at the Conference were two representatives of the Universal House of Justice – International Counsellors Zeni Ramirez from the Philippines and Counsellor Stephen Hall of Australia. The unwavering support and encouragement that the Counsellors relayed on behalf of the House of Justice brought overwhelming joy to the hearts the mass of attendees. Participants described the event as “life-changing”, “spiritually exhilarating” and “the perfect platform to energise the community and confirms the indispensible role of the Baha’i Faith in establishing the unity of the whole of mankind.”

Sydney was also blessed to have a third day added to the Conference devoted specifically for the youth, the theme of the day being to “seize thy chance.” 1,500 youth were spilling out of the Baha’i Centre, listening intently to the Counsellors’ guidance and encouragement to accelerate their efforts even further as they are indeed the spearheads of the Baha’i community. Youth from across the country also shared uplifting success stories from their respective clusters and the day’s activities concluded with the attendees pledging to establish over 700 new junior youth groups and children’s classes by the end of the Five Year Plan.

Opening Video to London Conference

This is the video that opened the London Conference for more than 3000 Baha’is from Northern Europe. Madrid and Frankfurt are coming up soon!

3000 at London Conference

(bl) This has been an enthralling and inspiring day. Great talks by International Teaching Centre members – Counsellors Stephen Birkland and Uransaikhan Baatar – representing the Universal House of Justice. Workshops to study messages from the Universal House of Justice. Some wonderful stories of how the various elements of the core activities – prayer, study, education of children, training of junior youth – work in practice in various advanced clusters.

About 3,000 Baha’is of all ages (babies, children, junior youth, youth, adults) and many ethnicities and nationalities filled the Business Design Centre in London. The countries represented at the conference are: Denmark (including the Faroe Islands), Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Republic of Ireland, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom.

The conference is about raising our eyes to the horizon, inspiring us with the Universal House of Justice’s vision for the Baha’i world, and planning action to take in the next few months and, indeed, for the near future.

Source: Barnabas Quotidianus (Barney Leith)

A Soul-Stirring Account of the Uvira Conference

A war close at hand, difficult financial straits, the need to travel long distances under unsafe conditions, and blazingly hot weather did not stop 776 people from attending the Regional Conference in Uvira, a city on the eastern edge of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the heart of Africa.

Nasim Parsa shares her heart-warming, enticing account of the conference, with wonderful descriptions of the circumstances at and around the conference:

(NP) Burundi is really a beautiful country. Roads are paved and the place looks very green and clean! When we arrived to the border [to the DRC], and got our visas done, suddenly the other side was a complete change. Roads were made of mainly dust and rocks and the place looked drier.

When the car finally stopped, we were facing two very big cloths attached to different trees that were welcoming the Baha’is to this Regional Conference. As we were coming out of the car, people started coming to us and hugging us with lots of joy and love, saying “Allah’u'Abha!”. We followed them between houses made of mud and the huge mango trees, walking on dust, underneath a burning sun and they took us inside this sort of tent made of wood and orange plastic sheets. The venue was a school belonging to the Baha’i community. The tent was built in the “outside” of the school, while some of the classes were used by the friends as dorms for those few nights during the conference. The venue was also decorated mainly with pink toilet papers! On the last day, they also added some balloons!
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