Passing of the last Hand of the Cause of God

Hand of the Cause of God Dr. Alí-Muhammad Varqá passed away on the evening of 22 September 2007 at his home in Haifa. We were privileged to attend the funeral at the Bahá’í cemetery two days later.
















For a brief account of his life, click here.

Happy Birthday uncle Arnold!

This month was the birthdays of auntie Canan and uncle Arnold (I pronounced his name "uncle atot"). Despite their busy schedules, auntie and uncle surprise each other e--very single year organizing a birthday dinner. This evening we joined the celebration of uncle Arnold's birthday at a dinner at uncle Shahram's place. As always, we enjoyed the food and company of the friends. My parents said though that I was a bit difficult at the later part of the evening because I was stubborn and unstoppable in playing and moving around the house.

singing "happy birthday" to uncle Arnold and uncle Navid (it was also his birthday a day before)

birthday cake

this is a sweet picture that says..."I love my baby girl!"...

Laroya family

uncle Arnold with the host and chefs of the night!

auntie Canan and baby Elfida

it's me making my muscles stronger

and again me...I just love going to any bedroom closing and opening doors...

the friends who came to greet uncle...

Tando visit with Tara and Rylan...

Here are some photos of our visit to Tando with friends Tara and Rylan last Tuesday (welcome back again Tara and auntie Sieni from your vacation). Tando is an indoor play area located in Vardiya, just few minutes drive from our home.

auntie Kami explaining how to share and take turns when playing

and it's Enna-Marie's turn to ride in this swing

Rylan is one of EM's favorite playmates these days as they see each other 2x-3x a week. She always includes his & auntie Kami's names in Allah'u'abha song & mentions their names each night be4 sleeping

cutie Tara who is getting bigger and starting to pull up and walk

she loves playing in this corner where she can climb and jump without hurting herself

and here's her happy smile, a sign that she's enjoying a lot

with mommy taken with a timer

oops...showing her sad, desperate face unable to lift the wooden cart up to the stairs. EM loves playing baby dolls nowadays and Tando has lots of these.

Teacher's Training...

Last Saturday was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It was so nice driving in the road, the streets were quiet and all Israelis were at home celebrating their New Year. That same day was our third and last teacher's training for the upcoming Bahá’í school this year, which starts on the 22nd of this month. I am going to assist in the pre-school and will be in-charge of doing activities with the children during break time. The ages of the children are from three to five years old. In the trainings I attended, I especially learned different ways of memorizing a quote or prayer, some tips on telling a story, making crafts, and also learned the new Bahá’í school song. There were also workshops on making lesson plans and class organization. The theme of the third training session was classroom management.

I am so glad I was able to attend these trainings as these are very helpful tools in teaching and training Enna-Marie at home and also for future children’s classes I will be involved with.

Here's a very nice quote we memorized during the second session that I'd like to share with you all: "According to the explicit divine Text, teaching the children is indispensable and obligatory. It followeth that teachers are servants of the Lord God, since they have arisen to perform this task, which is the same as worship. You must therefore offer praise with each breath, for you are educating your spiritual children."-‘Abdu’l-Bahá

busy discussing about classroom organization

teammates attentively listening to the person talking

our group finished first...he..he..and we were just waiting for the rest to finish their discussions

our trainings were facilitated by Irva Johnson, she's very good and very experienced

after this session we had a meeting with the parents of the children who will be attending the Bahá’í school

Welcome to Keon, Bahia and Lilli...

Here are the newest babies born recently, congratulations to the happy parents...

Keon Chase Sobhani

Bahia Eady

Lilli Simin Wong

















and finally here's a picture of Alexander Amin from Holland (he's 4 months old here) whom we mentioned in our previous postings that we didn't have a picture available of him at that time. Alexander's mom Shirin Milani is the sister of Maarten's sister-in-law Molouk.

Halo-halo fiesta

Remember this photo we posted two months ago?













This is halo-halo (Tagalog word "halo" means "mix") a popular Filipino dessert that is a mixture of shaved ice and milk to which are added various boiled sweet beans and fruits. After the Holy Day programme last Tuesday, we had lunch at home (I made pork adobo) and afterwards had halo-halo for a dessert. We invited Mildred and Christine over, and Jalal also joined us. The halo-halo ingredients we used include beans (red mung, kidney and garbanzo), sugar palm fruit (kaong), coconut sport (macapuno), jackfruit (langka), nata de coco, ube (purple yam), flan (custard), and gulaman (gelatin). I made the flan myself and Mildred prepared the gelatin. I remember buying halo-halo from a sari-sari store next to our house back home during the hot months (March-May), sometimes I bring my own glass so I can bring and enjoy it at home :-).

Here are few photos of our happy, excited faces. We enjoyed it a lot, I think this is one of the best halo-halo I tried. I only gave Enna-Marie a bit of the gelatin as she was already going to nap. So do u want to be our guest next time so you can try this mouth-watering dessert??

Mildred adding some ice, we call this ice shaver "pang-kayod" in Tagalog

finished product (gelatin and flan on top)...YUMMY!
















Jalal was the first one to try

mixing some more ingredients

I later joined the girls

and Maarten of course had his share...!

Holy Day Observance Martyrdom of the Bab...

We attended the Holy Day observance of the Martyrdom of the Bab yesterday here in Haifa at noon time. Here are some of the photos we took...

with some Filipino friends L-R: Vernalyn Hipolito, Mildred dela Cruz, Rey Peralta holding Enna-Marie, and Neil Songgadan holding his daughter Ariana

daddies with their daughters L-R: Siyamak with Lillian, Arnold with Elfida and Saba with Tara

Enna-Marie joined in the children's programme

story telling about the Martyrdom of the Bab

chatting with Kuya Nabil Burias

just waiting to join daddy for circumambulation

the Schoot family after the programme

Filipina beauties Christine, Mildred and Cllyv

with auntie Vanysha

Rose Garden class update

The Rose Garden class is back from two to seven children presently (yep it was just Rylan and Enna-Marie for the last two weeks). But now the class is full again. Enna-Marie and Rylan are happy to see Zane, Salim, Brennan, Melody and of course Rubin who joined us few weeks ago. Welcome back to you all! Hope you enjoyed your summer vacation.