Baha'i Winter School, Tahlequah

Oklahama Baha'i Winter School, Tahlequah - January 1-4, 2009

It was a very inspiring conference, from every account. We had wonderful guest speakers: Ms. Erica Toussaint from the NSA (a wonderful speaker and story-teller); Dan Reimer and Behzad Rohani (Auxiliary Board Members); Mahyar Sadeghi and Simin Rohani (Cluster Insitute Coordinators); amongst others. The program was diverse with music devotions; youth, JY, and children's classes; practice Anna's presentation, evening programs including games, prayer beads-making, Persian dance, grilled hotdog sandwiches, etc; youth vespers; dawn prayers....it was all lots of fun. As you can see, I tried to take pictures of most things. I should have taken some pictures of the beautiful mountain ranges that surround the area. That means cell phones didn't work there...or at the most, they barely did!

Setting up on the first day.

Ms. Erica and me

Dearest Cindy van Cley. She plays the guitar and led us in many sing-along songs.

The daughters of my dear friends, Sayena and Chester Besong. Chester is Cameroonian and Sayena is Persian, so these kids are half-Cameroonian!

Some of our devotional perfomances.

I was one of the speakers. I gave an hour-long presentation on International Pioneering. It was very interesting and the friends found it very informative. We had a devotional part, a quiz part about pioneering, we had a "sharing experiences from the field" part, where some friends came up and talked about their wonderful experiences and made the friends cry; then we had questions and answers, and then everone's handout had a short pioneering prayer with the name of a pioneer behind it so that we could all go home and pray for the pioneers out in the field, then we acknowledged the international and homefront pioneers in the room, and everyone went away with bookmarks showing our pioneering goal for the Five Year Plan, as well as pretty pioneer prayers. I also had goal countries in a visual format printed out for people to take with them. The presentation also featured a visual part where I guided the friends step-by-step from a powerpoint presentation how to apply for pioneering from the national website. So everyone who got through that hour realized the pioneering has many facets and everyone can help achieve the pioneering goals for the 5YP.

A presentation on Huququ'llah by Perla Talebi and Keith Angier

Sing-along time!

The young fella, Andreas, with the beautiful smile was visiting from Columbia. He really had a good time. We also had an exchange student from Germany. He chanted a prayer in Deutsch.

Behzad and Simin Rohani are up front

David, in the back, with the green folder, is on the School Committee and was the school director.

Ralph Ferguson and Kamran Talebi from Arkansas smile for my picture! Thanks, guys.
Bernadette Rohani was a fantastic MC.

Our CICs, Mahyar and Simin, did a great job teaching us about, and demonstrating, Anna's presentation.

They used Victor as their seeker in demonstrating the use of Anna's presentation.

Mateen gave a brilliant report on Project Anis, of which he was a part.

Dan Reimer takes on a more difficult seeker, Terri Angier, in demonstrating Anna's presentation. Terri was watching a very important football match and Dan had to deal with that.

Terri finally decided to give him sometime, since her husband could later tell her about the part of the game she'd missed!:)

Our School Committee. From left to right: Mike Bigler, Tony Oates, Jacky, David Gainey and Kerry Koskie. Karen Darling on the far right is the Schools Coordinator.

Dan Reimer and me

The devotions group for that afternoon.

Trey Yancy gave a presentation on Spiritual Dynamics. He also taught some of the youth classes.

The Rohanis and me.

Erica Toussaint gives one of her talks

Meal Time

A great guitarist from Oklahoma, and the black guy is from Mississippi.

Chuck had some good stories and jokes during one of the evening activities. He also coordinated the prayer beads exercise.

Diane Ferguson had a couple of jokes too!

Kayhan Movafagh shared his experiences as a pioneer during my pioneering presentation and drew many a tear from the audience. He also told some jokes in the evening.

This kid did an Irish tap dance! Fun!

The Marshallese friends from NW Arkansas sang some of their moving songs.

A presentation by the 3-5 year olds! They were soooo cute!

Karen received a couple of gifts from the Marshallese friends. I don't remember what they call that flowery crown!:) Also notice her beautiful necklace.

Evening activities. Limbo time!

Get lower...

Keith and Chase Angier, and the gentleman from Oklahoma whose name eludes me right now.

Jump rope

Persian dance! I learned that it was all about screwing in the light bulb (that's how you know how to move your arms and fingers!:) ) Isn't that funny?

Everyone was trying it.

Erica gives her closing remarks on Sunday, the last day of the school.