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European international teaching conferences have been convened successively in Geneva, in Brussels, in Copenhagen, in Scheveningen and in Luxembourg City, paving the way for the convocation of four successive Intercontinental Teaching Conferences, the first of which has recently been held in Kampala, in the heart of the African continent, the rest to be successively convened in Wilmette, Illinois, in Stockholm and in New Delhi—Conferences which, God willing, will be the forerunners of the World Bahá’í Congress, to be convened in the city of Baghdád, on the occasion of the centenary of the formal assumption by Bahá’u’lláh of His prophetic office.
Seventh, the incorporation of the three above-mentioned regional national spiritual assemblies. Eighth, the establishment by those same national spiritual assemblies of national Bahá’í endowments. Ninth, the establishment of a national Hazíratu’l-Quds in Johannesburg and one in Tunis and the conversion into a similar institution of the local Hazíratu’l-Quds of Kampala.
In our several ways we three are devoted to Africa: one way or another the Southern Cross is the constellation ascendant in each of our three careers. We had been dining on the bridge of H.M.S. Kampala the captain, the two ship's officers, the gunnery lieutenant and he who writes this story.
The goal of the seven-month plan, initiated by the Kampala Assembly, aiming at doubling the twelve enrolled believers, has been outstripped.
So brilliant and diversified a record of services to the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh, in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, has been greatly enriched by the plans now initiated for the launching of an ambitious three-fold enterprise, designed to compensate for the disabilities suffered by the sorely-tried Community of the followers of His Faith in the land of His birth, aiming at the erection, in localities as far apart as Frankfurt, Sydney and Kampala, of the Mother-Temples of the European, the Australian and African continents, at a cost of approximately one million dollars, complementing the Temples already constructed in the Asiatic and American continents.
On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the opening of the memorable Holy Year associated with the Centenary celebrations of the birth of the Mission of Bahá’u’lláh in the Síyáh-Chál of Ṭihrán—an anniversary falling only a few months before the decade-long global Spiritual Crusade, on which the entire company of His followers have embarked, will have reached its midway point—I feel moved to announce the convocation of a series of Intercontinental Conferences, five in number, to be held successively in Kampala, Uganda, in the heart of the African continent; in the city of Sydney, the oldest Bahá’í center established in the Antipodes; in Chicago, where the name of Bahá’u’lláh was publicly mentioned for the first time in the western world; in the city of Frankfurt, in the heart of the European continent; and in Djakarta, the capital city of the Republic of Indonesia.
To the Kampala Conference a representative of each of the United States, the British, the Persian, the North-East African, the Indian and the Iráqí National Spiritual Assemblies; to the Chicago Conference a representative of each of the United States, the Canadian, and Latin American National Spiritual Assemblies; to the Frankfurt Conference a representative of each of the British, the German, the Italo-Swiss and the United States National Spiritual Assemblies; and to the Djakarta Conference a representative of each of the United States, the Canadian, the Persian, the Indian, the Australian and the Iráqí National Spiritual Assemblies, should be sent in the capacity of an official participant.
To three of them, attending the Kampala, the Sydney and the Frankfurt Conferences, I shall entrust a portion of the blessed earth from the inmost Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh, a lock of His precious Hair, and a reproduction of His Portrait, to be exhibited by them to the assembled friends at these Conferences.
The number of Africans converted in the course of the last fifteen months, residing in Kampala and outlying districts, with Protestant, Catholic and pagan backgrounds, lettered and unlettered, of both sexes, representative of no less than sixteen tribes, has passed the two hundred mark.
The hour is propitious for all National Assemblies, particularly the United States, the British and the Egyptian, to participate befittingly in the opening of the three remaining Funds ere the first year of the Ten Year Plan draws to a close, insuring thereby the early purchase of sites for the future Mashriqu’l-Adhkárs in Cairo, Kampala and Johannesburg.
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