Dear Friends,

Twenty three years ago Traci and I arrived in Scotland as pioneers. We served the Faith from Banff and Buchan to Dumfries. We went on many teaching trips to Shetland, Orkney and the Outer Hebrides. Now both Traci and I are settled in North Uist.

During this time I worked on National and Scottish Committees, mostly involved with travel teaching – a very enjoyable way to serve the Faith – and I thank all of you who helped me do this work. But now many things are changing in the way we do our teaching work and the need for a co-ordinator needs to change too, so we will see what the Council for Scotland will come up with for the future.

In the mean time I would like to share a few ideas with you, especially for the coming Five Year Plan. One of the things that has changed is that the way we used to travel teach is no longer being used. With the emphasis on training ourselves and preparing our communities for larger numbers of people coming into the Faith, we might want a different way of teaching. And since most of us haven’t had the time to travel very far from home we may still be able to do our teaching work right in our own areas. I would like to suggest a different slant on travel teaching.

We realise that due to world and local conditions the people around us need something to give them hope and to lift their spirits and need to be able to share their interest with us. If we could find some time, even if just once in a while, and choose an activity outside the Faith that we would really enjoy, and go to this activity with the honest idea of just getting to know the people in our communities, we might find people who would ASK US why we are happy, why we think the way we do, or how we would do things.

The key to this type of teaching is to give the people plenty of time to know us and trust us so that they want to ask about our Faith. We may have only travelled next door or down the street, but it is still travelling! If we can enjoy kayaking, quilting, cooking writing, knitting, wood carving, Tai Chi, swimming or auto mechanics, the local people will see that we enjoy some of the things that they too enjoy.

And we will also have the study circle, devotional meetings and children’s classes, to share with our neighbours and because we have been involved with their activities they may feel better about coming to ours. The Holy Writings give us complete freedom to teach in the way that best suits us, either directly or indirectly, and as long as we do one or the other we are serving the Covenant.

With love from North Uist,

Dear Friends,

What happens when random scousers invade an “A” cluster in Scotland, eh? Madness? Service? Hard-work? Fun?

Well, probably a bit of everything I imagine! But one thing is for sure, I’ll be finding out soon enough! After following my prayers I applied to serve in the Forth-Clyde Cluster and will be joining the Community in Glasgow to support those undertaking service during the cluster’s Intensive Program of Growth. Now, I am NO fortune-teller, but if the Cluster Reflection Meeting I attended in Glasgow back in February is anything to go by, then the IPG commencing in June promises to be BURSTING with energy! Seriously, from an outsider’s point of view, the Celtic spirit found in Scotland is, in my opinion, second to none, and I can’t wait to be amongst it. I’m convinced there is a lot that other communities can gain from the learning in Forth-Clyde and hope to pass on the inspiration to others when I get back home! Whatever the results of the IPG, I believe it will be a wonderful challenge, privilege and blessing to assist the Scottish friends in whatever way possible and I know this is in advance, but I just want to say “Thank-you for having me!”

Right! I’m off to pack my suitcase now – mustn’t forget to pack the fire-proof jacket! After all, if I can’t take the spiritual heat, then I better stay right out of Scotland!

With love from Liverpool, and loads of prayers,

Dear Friends,

After a very pleasant Holy Day celebratory picnic I arranged to meet one of the teaching teams to go over the home visiting workshop and to accompany them on a home visit. Four of us met and we studied the workshop material for about an hour then went together for a home visit. We were going to see a man who has been attending the team’s regular devotional meeting for the last three months and had become a friend to the team members. He warmly greeted us and after offering us refreshments seemed very happy to allow the team to share with him some of the Writings on the themes of “Love and Unity” as well as two prayers on the theme of “Aid and Assistance.” He seemed to be in complete accord with the ideas being expressed and talked passionately about the need for unity in the world and the need to be content in this life.

We did our reflection on the “Home Visit” on our walk back to the car. The team members recognised that some people took a lead role during the visit, while others took a more subtle, but no less useful role, of periodically offering ideas and reading quotations. I think the team recognised that if they were doing the visit alone they would need to be flexible and alter their approach according to the needs of the person being visited. It was an uplifting and very enjoyable experience for me and hopefully for the team members.

Dear Friends,

It was shortly after 10pm when I left the North Wales Conference Centre. The long journey and the long sessions of consultation at National Convention left me feeling quite weary. So I looked forward to a nice hot bath back at the hotel followed by a good night’s sleep.

The sun had been shining for most of the day but the wind was cold. Now at nighttime it felt more like February than like almost-May. The streets were full of people in various states of drunkenness. Most of them looked very young. More youth were screaming and tearing past in cars with thumping stereos and without regard for the Highway Code. I was walking along the edge of a dark and soul-less “retail-park” when suddenly I was roused from my thoughts by a girl shouting behind me. I walked on but she caught up with me. “Speak to me,” she cried, “Why are you not speaking to me?” I ignored her and quickened my pace, but she followed me and kept pleading. Perhaps I am just too soft inside. So I stopped and asked “What is it you want then?” The girl was small, Asian and not unattractive. She stood there looking up at me while shivering with cold in a skimpy, cream-leather miniskirt and one of those loosely-knitted cardigans that the wind must blow straight through. She demanded again: “Speak to me”. “Alright,” I said “so I am speaking to you now.” “No, you speak to me, I want you to speak to me!” she said with some anger in her voice – or was it desperation?

My first take on her had been that she might be a female of ill repute looking for a customer. My next guess was that she would probably seek to extract money out of me in some other way as yet to be revealed. Or perhaps it was just that she was drunk. I could smell the alcohol from her breath. Yet there was something about her, something uncomplicated and honest.

And so it happened that a 46 year old male National Convention delegate and a slightly intoxicated, 19 year old Thai girl sat side-by-side on a wall in Llandudno. A group of Bahá’ís approached from the direction of the Conference Centre. I had met some of them earlier during the day. Several pairs of sin-covering eyes swept over us and then discretely looked away as the group walked on past. They were deep in conversation about some of the finer intricacies of the Five Year Plan.

The girl began to tell me her story. Until three years earlier she had lived in the Phuket region of Thailand. Then her mother married a Welsh tourist and forced her to move with them to the UK. She told me how she has hated this country from the moment she arrived. She hates the freezing cold, but what she hates much more is being treated like dirt by everyone. It seems that underneath that pretty image, North Wales is no exception when it comes to racism. Recently she fell out with her stepfather and consequently with her mother whom she accused of preferring her stepfather over her. After a bitter row she left both of them. So now she is trying to cope on her own. Sometimes she works as a chambermaid in the hotels, getting paid very little. At other times she can get no work and she has to sleep rough on the streets.

Her English was limited and parts of the story did not add up. But even if she made the whole thing up, and I still half-suspected a con at that point, her anguish was undoubtedly genuine. Breaking down in tears she told me she has no one to talk to, nowhere to go to, and that all she wants is to go home, just to go home. She does not have a passport of course, so she can’t go anywhere even if she would somehow get the money for the flight. She told me she must have done very bad things in a previous life to deserve all this misery. I spoke very little and just listened.

At last she had finished telling her story and cried all her tears. I picked up the thread of religion that she had hinted at by talking about a previous life. She believes in God, but like most of us she cannot understand the pain and the cruelty. So I said the “remover of difficulties” with her. I said the words slowly a few at a time. She said them after me with her hands folded together under her chin and her eyes tightly closed. The sensation I felt is impossible to describe. Was this God’s love flowing through me, or was I just vainly imagining things? The moment felt so vulnerable, so beautiful. And when she opened her eyes it was as if I could see her soul.

After I had scribbled the “Remover of Difficulties” onto a piece of paper for her, we talked for another while but once again about lesser things.

The girl I finally said goodbye to was sober and calm and no longer full of anxiety. The hug we gave each other was a Bahá’í one. She said to me: “You are the best person I ever met, and when I die I will sing of you in heaven”. I still feel very humbled and tearful even now as I write this because I know only too well that am not as good as that. I just pray to God that she will be alright.