Three “Galas” were held this spring to pray, reflect, and learn more about home front pioneering and other paths of service in goal clusters. In some ways, the various national Bahá’í communities face a challenge of opening clusters on the home front that is as great as that faced by the intrepid pioneers of the Ten Year Crusade (1953-1963) who arose to open dozens of countries and territories.
On April 26 and May 3, more than 60 friends from the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia gathered at the Northern Virginia Bahá’í Center and the Washington DC Bahá’í Center. On June 14, about 50 attended a similar gala at the Inter-community Bahá’í Center in Durham. At least a third of those present either made a commitment to serve in some capacity or to spread the word within the Bahá’í community about these critical needs for the final two years of the current Five Year Plan.
Those who attended studied recent guidance from the Universal House of Justice and learned about the importance of pioneering to the success of the Five Year Plan. During this plan, the Atlantic Region has a goal of raising 112 of its 138 clusters to have programs of growth. As of the end of June 2014, 56 clusters have a program of growth (50% of the total goal of 112). There remain 56 more to open or in which we must begin the process of community building.
At these gatherings, the friends studied maps of the goal clusters in the Atlantic Region. The clusters marked in pink on these maps indicate where home front pioneers are needed. Clusters marked in green are where mobile tutors, traveling teams, and other support are needed.
Many who attended spoke in their feasts and in conversation with other Bahá’ís about the needs of the goal clusters.
So much in the Writings of our Faith describes the relationship between effort exerted and the heavenly aid vouchsafed in response: “If only ye exert the effort,” is the Master’s reassurance in one of His Tablets, “it is certain that these splendours will shine out, these clouds of mercy will shed down their rain, these life-giving winds will rise and blow, this sweet-smelling musk will be scattered far and wide.” In our frequent visits to the Holy Shrines, we earnestly entreat the Almighty on your behalf that He may sustain and strengthen you, that your endeavours to reach out to those yet unacquainted with the divine teachings and confirm them in His Cause may be richly blessed, and that your reliance on His limitless favours may be unwavering. Never are you absent from our prayers, and never will we cease remembering in our supplications your consecrated acts of faithfulness. As we contemplate the imperatives that lie before the followers of the Blessed Beauty over the next two years, the Master’s emphatic call to action is a spur to the spirit: “Tear asunder the veils, remove the obstacles, proffer the life-giving waters, and point out the path of salvation. – The Universal House of Justice, Ridván 2014