London Regional Baha’i Conference – Day 1

Some well known faces at the study workshop I facilitated this morning

I don’t have time to write a full report from the first day of the London Regional Conference. But I can say 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.

Counsellor Stephen Birkland

Some of the crowd at the conference

Listening carefully to a talk

Countries represented

The countries represented at the conference are: Denmark (including the Faroe Islands), Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Republic of Ireland, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom.

We had one prayer in Greenlandic (recited by an Eskimo), not to mention prayers in the languages of the other countries represented.

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.

Vision and action

Counsellor Uransaikhan Baatar, a Mongolian now serving at the Baha’i World Centre

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.

Hugging friends

Of course, on of the joyous things about gatherings of this kind is seeing and hugging old friends and new. I have to admit, I love to hug people, and my hug muscles have worked overtime today.

I had a wonderful experience when an African woman came up to me and asked if I was Barney Leith. I had to admit that I was. She introduced herself as Grace from Kenya and said she had been longing to meet me. Why, I have no idea. But it was a wonderful opportunity for an African-British hug, a blessed moment to meet a new friend and to share the love of God across the continents.

Another day tomorrow. I hope I will have time to blog a bit more, but I will have to get ready to leave home at 5 a.m. Monday to fly to Israel for a meeting at the Baha’i World Centre.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, London, conference, Denmark, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Republic of Ireland, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, Birkland, Baatar, core activities, Universal House of Justice

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Tagged as: Baatar, Baha'i, Birkland, conference, core activities, Denmark, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, London, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Sweden, United Kingdom, Universal House of Justice