CommuNIqué - Newsletter of the Bahá'í Community in Northern Ireland
Issue 76 - 9 Qawl 159 - 1 December 2002 CE

 

YEAR OF SERVICE

 

It is with great excitment that your Year of Service Co-ordinatior announces the all-new YoS Corner! In it you will be brought up-to-date on the "mighty mobilisation" of youth - all the kinds of exciting service and teaching projects the youth of our Community are taking (and have taken) part in around the world. Also, we will let you know of any opportunities for youth service that come up as and when. Don't forget if you want any info at all on YoS, please contact me: sarahmunro2000@yahoo.com.uk

To start off this month, we have an article from Karen Jamshidi who tells us about some of the ways that YoS has changed her.

“From the 5 August 2001 to 23 May 2002, I went through the most amazing experience of my life. I went to assist in the Brilliant Star Montessori school on the island of Saipan, Marianna Islands, with Lucie Hanrahan. Little did we know that it would be such a nourishing and life changing time. Before I went on my Year of Service I never really spent much time thinking about prayer or the power which it held. To be honest I never really thought about anything more than my A levels or what I was doing at the weekends!

Don't get me wrong. I prayed, and did so with Faith, but my journey to the other side of the planet really opened my eyes to the full potential of prayer and spirituality as a whole. At the moment I'm at University in Edinburgh at Queen Margaret University College and I am having the time of my life but the one thing I think of every morning when I get up is the life that I lived a year ago. People would say to me before I left, "You will be sent so many tests when you are on your year away and you will receive so many blessings!" - so I shouldn't really have been surprised when I was confronted with, what I thought, were insurmountable tests and difficulties. At night I would sit in my room and nearly go mad over some of the things that I came up against and the only place I could turn to was my prayer book and Bahá'u'lláh. It's hard to explain and I really think you have to experience it to really appreciate the true power and wonder of it all. But, literally, the next day the problem would have in some way been eased or have simply disappeared. This automatically brought me closer to God and Bahá'u'lláh. Even if I had resisted I would have eventually realised that Bahá'u'lláh is looking out for me and is when there is no one else, He is there. It's such a comforting thought and that thought stayed with me throughout my Year of Service and has now made me a stronger more independent individual.”

 

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