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Hiking a Path Together 

On Thursday, October 1, 2020, Fort Wayne’s weekly devotional for many years called Pie and Prayers, held a memorial service in honor of three great souls who passed consecutively this week to the Abhá Kingdom, Farzam Arbab, Violette Haake, and Douglas Martin.  The House of Justice asked “the believers in every land” to arrange a memorial for these three servants of Baha’u’llah. We promptly held a beautiful devotional whose theme was “Lamps” because these three helped light the world by spreading Baha’u’llah’s message.

“A small lamp may light a room, a larger would light a house, a larger still might shine through the city, but the sun is needed to light the whole world.

-‘Abdu'l-Baha, ‘Abdu'l-Baha in London, p. 59

I’m sharing this story, for you all to know the beautiful, mystical events that occur in this amazing Faith of ours! Many might think it is just a coincidence, but I need to share a bit before the memorial to set the stage for the miracle that happened in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I have been working for months on creating devotionals for our new website so that people can use our PowerPoint presentations for their Zoom meetings during the Coronavirus Pandemic. The latest I created was called “Lamps” and I was partial to it while creating it. At the end, the presentation took a little tour through the holy land to show the contrast between Akká as the walled prison city Baha’u’llah was exiled to in order to try to stamp out the light of the Revelation of God by the sultan of Turkey, and the magnificent one of two administrative cities of the Baha’i World Center it has become a part of, along with Haifa, in 2020. Then the Hidden Word quoted above was sung by Luke Slott in his song “Paradise” and I realized as I reviewed the entire presentation and modified it by adding the pictures of those memorialized and their loving obituaries by the Universal House of Justice, that unbeknownst to me, I had created the perfect memorial for these special souls that were “lamps” of guidance throughout their Baha’i lives of service. As I created it for the devotional, I cried, and as I added to it to customize it as a memorial for three, I cried. I felt such a connection to these giants who had passed, even though I did not know them!

When I signed into the Bahá’í Zoom Room on Thursday night, two people were already present. One, M..., a long-time member of our area Bahá’í community, and a new person I did not know named K..., from Canada. She told us that she was friends with M... since 1975 when they both declared within weeks of each other in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She then learned of a conference in Mexico that needed bilingual Bahá’ís to serve and her heart told her she wanted to go, but she did not have the financial means. Her friend M... said, don’t define your Bahá’í service by what you can do, but by what the Faith needs and what you want to do.  Trust and allow Bahá’u’lláh to figure out the means. So, she went to the LSA and asked for guidance. A fund-raiser was held and enough money was raised so she could go to Mexico for two weeks. (It turned out to be enough for her to stay for 6 months right up to the Conference itself.) She worked so hard that she was unable to attend any of the conference sessions, but she was able to attend the closing session where they asked for pioneers to come up to the stage who would volunteer. She was nudged by the elbow of the person seated beside her and she went up to the stage volunteering to be a pioneer. She did not know what a pioneer was, but she said if she knew, she might never have volunteered! She returned home to Fort Wayne shortly to finish her studies and get her degree and then left for 7 years of pioneering in Mexico.  She first met Dr. Farzam Arbab when he gave a talk to the NSA members at the International Convention in 1983.  The participants returned to their native countries and began to use the Ruhi system as he had guided them to do.  Only they weren’t books at the time, but copied stacks of sheets of paper by the lessons and they would travel large distances working with many groups of people on the Ruhi curriculum. This led to service in many more places, finally culminating at the Holy Land, where she gave many years of service.  It was there that she met up with Dr. Arbab again, learned more about the Ruhi method, youth groups and worked alongside his wife in translation.  It was there that she got to meet personally all three distinguished deceased members we were remembering today.

I felt the miracle of her presence and her story. I felt the connection with the Concourse on High with its three new members. We could very well have been the first memorial service held! It’s as if they knew and searched the planet and a link to Fort Wayne to let us know of their love and they found K...! K... who declared in Fort Wayne and loved Fort Wayne so much that when asked where she was from has said, Fort Wayne, even though she was born in C...! K..., who knew and them from her long service in Haifa. We had the blessing of K... attending our little memorial service and sharing stories of her life and service as a Bahá’í alongside these three “Lamps” to light the world!

“Thou art but one step away from the glorious heights above and from the celestial tree of love.” 

 -Baha'u'llah, The Persian Hidden Words

This was not a coincidence but a small mystical miracle that occurs daily in this incredible Faith of ours, 

“O thou who hast eyes to see!”

-Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 176

Yá Bahá’u’l-Abhá!!!

By Milena Stekly

Indianans “Light Up the Night” for racial justice