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⋅ ComeUnity
Thursday Jan 11 at 7pm
Second Thursday of every month.
First Church of Lombard 220 S Main Street
Lombard, IL 60148
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⋅ Monthly Devotions
Saturday Jan 13 6-8 pm
Held at the Shahrokh residence. Please
text (630)
805-1397 for the address.
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⋅The IL-3 Cluster reflections gathering will be
held January 13th 2024
9:30am - 1pm. It will be hosted by
Mark & Mashad
Movagh
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⋅Meaningful Discussions
Join in on studying sections from the Baha'i
writings to provide a spiritual perspective on
challenges that are relevant to the community
today.
Held Sunday mornings at 11AM at the Oak
Park Baha'i Faith Community Center
124 Madison, Oak Park IL
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⋅ Hour of Prayer
Held every Sunday at 10AM at the Baha'i
Faith Community Center
124 Madison, Oak Park and over Zoom. Go to this
website for details and links for Zoom. https://opbahai.org/activities
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⋅Men's Breakfast
Come and enjoy some flapjacks & Mancakes,
wash it down with a gallon of hot steaming java,
and top that off with an ice cold cup of OJ. Now
that's a breakfast!
Saturday Jan 13
2nd Saturday @ 8am
Uptown Cafe 24 E Miner St,Arlington Heights, IL
60004
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⋅First Tuesday Conversations
Tuesday, Jan. 2, 6:30pm – 8:30pm at Peoples
Community Church, 650 Lambert Rd. Glen Ellyn, IL
60137
Zoom Link:
https://zoom.us/j/664704223
⋅First Friday Conversations
Friday, Jan. 5, 6:30pm-8:30pm at the McKee
residence. For the address contact Nancy
McKee at:
Nancy@nibahai.org
Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/326557993
⋅Third Monday Conversations
Monday, Jan
15 6:30-8:30
1st
Congregational Church
535 Forest, Pilgrim
Hall
Glen Ellyn, IL.
Zoom Link https://zoom.us/j/168998487.
Meeting
ID 168
998 487
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If you feel ready to engage in meaningful
conversations about racism, what it looks like
in the world and in ourselves, and what we must
do to begin rooting it out, this is the place to
come.
We will be serving pizza, followed
by discussion on a topic related to
Racism/Social Justice.
The doors open at 6:30
with the meeting starting at 7:00 pm. Zoom will
be active at 6:45 for those who wish to stay
home or are to far away to join us in
person.
Our goal is building a stronger
community through sharing and
conversation.
Pizza Served at 6:30 pm
Meeting Start time: 7:00 pm
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On December 12, my friend and I did our Consolidation
Phase follow-up home visit with a friend we visited the
previous month. This time our devotions consisted of sharing
a few of our all-time favorite prayers and passages
from the Baha’i sacred scriptures. We talked about the
November 28, 2023 UHJ letter that recaps the achievements of
the first century of the Formative Age (1921-2021) and
we studied another section of the December 30, 2021 UHJ
letter which lays out the goals and objectives of
the current Nine-Year Plan. We also shared updates of
our individual Home Visit Plans and agreed to check-in
on one another’s progress every 2-3 weeks during
the remainder of this Consolidation Phase (Nov. 16-Jan.
13).
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Christmas Community Service at Cantigny
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On December 21, 2023, six Baha’is from our
cluster joined 20 other volunteers as guides and
greeters at Cantigny Park’s Christmas at
Cantigny light exhibition. This group of 26
volunteers came together at the invitation of a
local not-for-profit called A.A.L.R. (Asserting
Achievement, Literacy & Resiliency) in
support of its Ubuntu House initiative. Ubuntu
House is AALR’s effort to foster healing from
racial trauma in the society at large—especially
in the United States (www.aalr4success.org/general-9
). The McCormick Foundation which operates
Cantigny Park, offered AALR and 22 other
community organizations $5,000 each if they
gathered at least 25 volunteers each night
during Christmas at Cantigny, December 1-23.
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Being Organic Yet Systematic
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Recently, my friend and I have been focusing our efforts on
learning about how we can be organic yet systematic in our
own neighborhoods and putting into practice the Universal
House of Justice’s statement that the friends “should come
to view every task, every interaction, as an occasion to
join hands in the pursuit of progress and to accompany one
another in their efforts to serve the Cause”. This week when
we met to reflect, I asked her if I could share her
narrative with the community because it illustrated many
successes that have occurred in just the 6 weeks we have
been systematic in our efforts.
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In November, we discussed her neighbors- which ones she knew
and which ones she would like to know. Of the neighbors she
already knew (a little bit) she invited them to her
devotionals. One of the other neighbors is primarily Spanish
speaking so she bought a Spanish prayer book to gift her and
after a few interactions was even invited to come celebrate
Christmas with her new friend’s family. For the others, she
thoughtfully delivered cards that said “Happy Thanksgiving”
and included a sweet note and her contact
information.
One neighbor she had not met yet so she put
a card in their mailbox which they promptly returned to her
unopened. She was a little saddened when she saw it but the
next time we came together to reflect she decided to
hand-deliver it and explain that it was for them and
apologize for the confusion. They were very gracious and she
was able to have conversations with them that she will
follow up on in the next few weeks. Now that she has
introduced herself and had a few conversations this week we
collaborated on invitations to her monthly neighborhood
devotional that she will be delivering to her neighbors in
the next week.
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Ten of us volunteered (2 not pictured)on
December 2nd at Springbrook Prairie. We helped
remove invasive species as part of an ongoing
effort to restore the prairie to its native
ecosystem. This is the third year the Baha’is
have helped with this.
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Please send in any events, narratives, pictures, or arts
that you would like shared! You can reach us at Newsletter
Submissions
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Northern Illinois Baha'is
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2N500 Bernice Ave.
Glen Ellyn, IL
60137
United States of America
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