On Intensive Teaching With Anna's Help: Thank you, Anna

Tags: Tacoma Ruston Way Waterfront, uploaded on October 24, 2006 by ranzel on flickr, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

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Concepts: Anna’s Presentation

THE ETERNAL COVENANT

(STATION OF BAHA’U’LLAH)
• World religion
• Bahá’u’lláh is the Promised One
• Purpose of Faith is unity of mankind

QUOTE 1 "That which the Lord hath ordained…."

The Bahá’í Faith is a world religion whose
purpose is to unite all the races and peoples in
one universal Cause and one common Faith.
Bahá’is are the followers of Bahá’u’lláh, Who
they believe is the Promised One of all Ages.
As you know, the traditions of almost every
people include the promise of a future when
peace and harmony will be established on earth
and humankind will live in prosperity. We
believe that the promised hour has come and
that Bahá’u’lláh is the great Personage Whose
Teachings will enable humanity to build a new
world. In one of His Writings, Bahá’u’lláh says:
"That which the Lord hath ordained as the
sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument
for the healing of all the world is the union
of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one
common Faith.

So begins Anna's resentation. My presentation was in my own words, but Anna's provided the model for me, as I had the chance to teach the Faith to two dear souls, a mother and her adult son, who happened upon me in the park today.

I had used Anna's presentation a week ago. Counting the partial presentation I had done with M and the full presentation I did to R last week, this made the third time I have drawn upon it with true seekers.

After the devotional meeting at Tim and Deb's this morning, Bonita and I were all set to go hiking up near Seabeck. The intensive was all but over. I had done some heavy-duty teaching with Tim yesterday, making two home visits to R's home, for a total of about 2 and 1/2 hours. I was thinking, oh, that's enough.

R was one of the seekers I did my Anna's presentation "practice" on last Saturday night, although, I must say, it didn't feel like practice. It was real teaching, real connecting, and real satisfying,and not merely going through the motions. It was surely one of the my most exciting teaching experiences ever.

I have had four stand-in-the-doorway home visits to R's home total, including the one yesterday, and two sit-on-the-coach home visits during this intensive campaign, for a total of 4 hours with R this campaign alone. Yesterday he was laughing about being ready to "convert." I made sure to extend the invitation to him during my presentation last week. He definately knows the welcome mat is out.

Tim and I had invited him to the devotions this morning, but R had to attend to his children and couldn't make it. Leaving Tim's I was all set to go hiking with Bonita on a nice covered forest trail I know of, when I noticed that it wasn't raining. Yes, it was overcast and quite cold, but despite the forecast of rain, there was none at the moment, and nor did there look like any in the immediate future.

I thought, I really I should go park teaching, as I have posted about before, instead of the hike. The intensive campaign really isn't over until sunset, I thought. There are a few hours left. And it's not raining. My wife encouraged me to go on down to Ruston Way. I'm glad she did.

It didn't take me look to gather the necessary items ready. The shepards hooks were in the closet. The banner was in the garage. I had my ipod and ipod-dock speakers. I had my teaching box at the ready. It was all systems go.

The park didn't have much foot traffic. I sized up quickly a place to put up the banner. I figured the best place for me was on a strip of park next to the old fireboat between two of the more popular waterfront restaurants. Here are some pictures on Flickr of the spot. I set up and waited.

I studied my teaching materials, keeping an eye out. I was thoroughly enjoying listening to my "park teaching mix" via the speakers. What good musical choices they are, I thought. I looked at the pairs of Goldeneyes on the water.

I had exchanged glances with many of the passers-by over the course of an hour, but had had no actual converstations until one called out to me from the sidewalk. "What's this all about?" she asked. "The Baha'i Faith," I answered. She said, "Oooh, I'd better come back." And she did a few minutes later. With her son.

I gave them George's version of Anna's presentation for the third time around. It felt so good.

They had never heard of the Faith before. The mother said all she knew was Jesus. During my presentation she was picking out specific passages from the quotes and reading out-loud, her son nodding in agreement. "This sounds like Jesus," she said. I told her how Baha'u'llah came in fulfillment of Christian prophecy.

I gave them the invitation. I asked for their name and number. She said she wanted to go the website and read more. She asked for my name and number instead. I gave her a teaching card with that, the day and time of our devotional, and our address.

I was in the park for all of an hour and three-quarters. I left before the rains came. What a great way to end the weekend and the intensive!