Our weekend guest, Wintergreen, is a New Zealand blogger that George met online many months ago upon her return from Pakistan. She had been teaching 'The Pink Kit for Positive Birth', a resource that teaches the skills for positive birthing experiences. Wintergreen collaborated with a Baha'i Social Economic Development (SED) project in Pakistan. Her own non-profit organization is called Common Knowledge Trust. Wintergreen wrote on her blog: "All the visits I am making now are organized through the Baha’i community in Sindh Province in the South of Pakistan. I have discovered many Baha’i do ‘pioneering’ work in villages.
Unlike Christianity or Islam, Baha’i can not convert or proselytize their religion. They may discuss the Baha’i Faith when people ask them ‘what religion are you?’ So, discussing Baha’i must come from a conversation brought about by the other person. Baha’i has other values:"- Service
- Respect for all religions and Prophets.
- Living within the political system of the country where you reside.
- World Peace
- Equality of women and men
- Oneness of Mankind
- Independent investigation of Truth
- Harmony of Religion and Science
- Relinquishing of Prejudice
- Universal Education
- Spiritual solution to economic problems
- World Commonwealth
Through their e-mails, George and Wintergreen arranged a 3 day visit, primarily to discuss the Faith, of which she knows only a little. She wanted to know more, and possibly attend any Baha'i community events.
So, we picked her up at the train station Friday afternoon, had dinner, then went to our delegate's report from the 2007 Baha'i National Convention.
Dr. Christopher Gilbert, Executive Director of the Northwest Center for Ethics Training and Development and a business professor at Tacoma Community College, was our delegate. (Second from right in photo). As with most Convention Reports, there was a table filled with information, and I pulled out a presentation on Health for Humanity, which partners with local institutions around the world, providing health development assistance to communities in need. This was exactly the type of networking that Wintergreen was looking for.
The Baha'is of Gig Harbor hosted Wintergreen at one of their monthly firesides. She gave a presentation on the basic child-birth skills that she teaches in developing countries. Here, Wintergreen is teaching a young woman some of those skills.We also had the opportunity to meet Leila and Shaun, and members of their families. Leila and Shaun have recently moved to Seattle from Haifa, Israel, where they spent 3 years serving at the World Center of the Baha'i Faith.
I came to know Leila (Bottom right corner, next to Shaun) about a year ago, when I started reading her blog, Love From Leila. Never in my wildest imagination did I ever imagine meeting another blogger - and here I was meeting two of our internet friends in one weekend! And both of them spent time in New Zealand.... I thought the world was surely shrinking, bringing such wonderful people to my little corner of the world.
Sunday morning, the Olsen's hosted a Devotional Meeting, and Wintergreen got a chance to hear Baha'i prayers and a story from the life of Baha'u'llah. Here, Mauricio is singing a prayer.The Olsen's served a waffle and sausage brunch following the devotions, and then we took Wintergreen for a canoe paddle on Square Lake. She had done some canoing before, so didn't feel a bit of panic when large gusts of wind started pushing us across the lake.
She just hunkered down and followed George's directions. All three of us got that canoe to head in the right direction.
We took a long hike through theTheler Wetlands after the paddle. It too was windy, but many parts of the wetlands were sheltered. This trail went through a bit of forest, then through the wide open marshland draining out of Puget Sound. The wind blew, the sunshine was warm, and George and Wintergreen fine-tuned their conversation about religion, service to humanity, and the musings of what lay ahead. We headed home, and Taraz and Rahmat came for dinner. We played family videos that Taraz has recently made of our camping trip.
From here, Wintergreen heads up to Vancouver, then eventually to Vienna, Austria. She is a woman who has made herself at home in every corner of the world - Asia, Africa, South America. I couldn't help but wonder, how she felt about our small corner of it. We were especially glad that we had an opportunity to share it. During the visit, she said that one of our cats came up to her room every night. From time to time the cat would touch Wintergreen's cheek with her little nose, then press her paw on Wintergreen's shoulder. They became quick friends.
