Cast of the play on “Accompaniment”, starring a group of Cambodian Baha’i youth.

On a recent trip to Cambodia (ok, not so recent), my wife and I were blessed to be able to attend a national training session for institute coordinators at the Baha’i centre in Battambang. The training was specifically for coordinators from those areas that counted more than 20 active junior youth groups. Battambang, for those who don’t know, is one of those places in the world where there’s been a lot of growth in the Baha’i community. In the mid-2000′s, it was known as “the ‘A’ cluster of all ‘A’ clusters”, because thousands of people had embraced the Faith of Baha’u'llah thanks to the dedicated efforts of the friends at that time. In some places around Battambang, entire neighbourhoods are designated “Baha’i Communities” because most of their inhabitants have accepted the Baha’i Faith. The explosive growth they experienced has slowed somewhat, of course, as the community’s focus shifted to embrace both expansion and consolidation as concurrent processes.

Anyway, while we were at the training, we watched a play about “Accompaniment” presented by some of the participants. The photos are mine, and the script included below is written by my good friend Prema Krish, of Battambang. The original play was performed in the Khmer language, of course, but this translation should be pretty accurate. I’ll let it speak for itself, but suffice to say, it provides an inspiring example of how we can approach families about establishing children’s classes, and the difference that accompaniment can make in helping people gain the confidence to arise to serve.

G: Oh, i just finished my Ruhi at the Battambang Baha’i centre during the recent intensive institute training. I want to start a children’s class but i don’t know what i should do first.
B: Well, to start a children’s class, we first need to find children…hmmm…how shall we gather the children from our village?
G: Do you think the village leader might be able to help?
B: Maybe. Let’s go and find out together!

G/B: Good afternoon, Mr. Village Leader (VL)
VL: Ah, good afternoon!
G: You look deep in thought. What is the matter?
VL: I’m just looking at the activities around our village. For the past few months, i’ve noticed that there’s been a lot of children’s classes and junior youth groups carried out by the Baha’is in our village. It’s alarming because i see our youth are so motivated to serve the community these days!
B: Mr. VL, we have here G, who just completed Book 3 in the Ruhi sequence of courses and she would also like to start a children’s class. We came to you to find out if you can suggest any families in this village whom we might approach to start one.
VL: Another one! Oh, very good, G. I’m happy for you that you completed the course. Sure, i’ll be happy to help. Let’s see…there’s the A family whose children i think are not participating in children’s classes yet. I see them loitering by the road during the evenings when others are in children’s classes.
G: The A family? Err, i don’t know if they’ll be impressed if i approach them directly. They’re always so busy..
VL: Don’t worry! Mr A is my good friend! Let me talk to him.

Part 3/5. The A Family

Mr. A: Where are the kids? I hardly get to see them these days.
Mrs. A: I have no idea where they are. They leave the house early in the morning and i don’t know where they go or what they do…it’s concerning.
Mr. A: What do you mean you don’t know where they are?
Mrs. A: You know kids…they go out and play with other children. I’m sure they’re not too far away.
Mr. A: We need to watch out for them. There are many dangers all around us.
Mrs. A: I know what you mean. I heard there was a snatch thief in the neighbouring village who robbed an elderly lady in broad daylight! The nerve of these people! But having said that, I’m having trouble with the kids. They just won’t listen to me these days! All they want to do is play.

Part 4/5. The Visit to Family A

VL: Hey, Mr. A! How have you been doing recently?
Mr. A: Good afternoon, Mr VL. What a pleasant surprise. Please come in.
Mrs. A: Please have a seat, Mr. VL.
Mr. A: What’s going on around our village these days?
VL: I was just going through the monthly reports and i’ve noticed a lot of classes for children and junior youth going on. I don’t know if you know G, she’s one of the youth who just finished a course…err..
G: Ruhi Book 3, sir.
VL: Ah, yes, Ruhi Book 3! And now, she wants to start another children’s class! That’ll be the 6th in our village!
Mrs. A: What is a children’s class?
B: Allow me, sir. Mr. and Mrs. A, the course G just completed is to empower her to start a class with about 10 children between the ages of 6 to 11. The classes teach children a short quotation and they learn to understand it through stories, songs, games and coloring activities and they will be able to remember this quotation well. The quotations are like “So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth” or “Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself” which focuses on developing spiritual capabilities.
Mr. A: Hmmn, Mrs A and i were just discussing our concern for the children and the need to bring them up well.

The A kids, Aa and Ab, walk in with the neighbour, C…

Part 5/5. A Children’s Class is Formed.

Mrs A: Ah, there you are! We were just talking about you. Mr VL is here to visit, come and join us.
Aa/Ab: Good evening, Mr. VL.
Mr. A: Kids, big brother B has just been sharing with us about starting a children’s class. I think both of you should attend it.
Mrs. A: Where and when will this class be?
G: Err, i haven’t thought about it yet. You’re the first family we’re visiting…
Mr. A: Ah, good! Let’s have it here, at our house. Both Aa and Ab can join. Oh, maybe even C wants to join?
Mrs. A: C, why don’t you ask your parents about it tonight. Wouldn’t you want to learn together with Aa and Ab?
Ab: Mom, who will teaching us?
Mrs. A: Big sister G here will be teaching you.

Aa, Ab and C look at big sister G and they all smile at the same time :D

The three-hour class went remarkably well; I haven’t tried to go that long with a class in a while, and was pleasantly refreshed to see that we had enough material to keep the children engaged, having fun and learning through the whole time. After praying and singing a few of our favourite songs, we plunged straight into memorizing the well-known Baha’i quote, “Truthfulness is the foundation of all human virtues”. We tried explaining it in terms of the foundation of a building; I’m not sure whether the analogy helped them or confused them. I keep wondering about how good their command of English is, since most of them have only lived in Canada for a year, and I seem to end up explaining a lot of the words. Perhaps that’s actually normal for kids of their age (~6-7 years), and I’ve been coddled by only having gifted children to teach in the past. Well, whatever. This makes for great teaching experience.  The second half of the class, after a healthy snack, consisted of putting together a house out of wooden stir-sticks—illustrating how virtues can be a “foundation” for human spiritual life—and a dramatic presentation of the day’s story, which was a retelling of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. It was actually my first time successfully “doing” drama with the kids in a children’s class; we did it by eschewing a script and instead giving the children their roles and lines verbally, with extensive narration by one of the teachers. We had two children playing the mother and father, and one playing the titular character. The children took their cues from the narrator, acting out whatever the story said. The whole thing worked out well, I had my directorial debut, and they got a real kick from acting out the story.

The next two classes dealt with slightly more abstract themes, and I noticed that we had a tougher time getting the message across to all of the kids. During both the lesson on steadfastness and the lesson on humility, they seemed to have trouble understanding the theme, and I had to explain it a few times, leaving me wondering what they had come away with. I found that the description of Book 3 seemed to go a little over their heads, so I tried to explain humility to the children the following way: God is big and powerful, and we, on the other hand, are so small and weak by comparison. Humility is just remembering how big and powerful God is, and how small and weak we are. When we remember that we depend on God for everything, we stop thinking that we’re better than anyone else around us. It took us most of the class time to get to that point of understanding, though. I think we got it by the end, but of course, as suggested in Book 3 itself, we’ll have to repeat it later on to be sure.

Regarding steadfastness, I was pleased to see that nobody came away with nightmares from the story of Ruhu’llah and his father, which I decided to tell in its entirety, though as non-graphically as I could. I’ve heard Baha’is express misgivings about telling a story in which the main character, a young boy dedicated to teaching and spreading God’s message, watches his father die before him only to die himself after refusing to recant his faith—but, besides having to make certain disclaimers, I’ve never heard either parents or children object to the story. On one occasion, a child reacted with anxiety to think that children could be killed in such a way, at which point the parent on hand explained that, while such things may have happened in that place at that time (19th-century Persia), we don’t have to worry about it happening to us here in Canada, which seemed to bring the anxiety level down. I made sure to give the same disclaimer this time, and nobody even made a peep—which, again, made me wonder whether they had understood what I was saying… oh well.

activities
story: the children write their own story! ask the children about a time when they paid a visit to a doctor, either because they were sick, or simply for a check-up. help them to describe their visit by asking questions: what season was it? was the doctor in an office building or a house? was the doctor a man or a woman? Did he or she give you medication? A shot? Did you lie on a table, or sit on a chair? then, ask the children to draw a picture of their visit, and to write a few lines below it to tell the story.
game: help the sick, aka learning rescue carries.
drama: Ruhi Book 3A (the old book 5) often has the children performing skits, and this would be a perfect opportunity for one—one child plays the doctor, one plays a parent and another plays the child. they can act out a story told by one of the children during the lesson, or make up a scenario about a visit to the doctor.

reference
Resort ye, in times of sickness, to competent physicians; We have not set aside the use of material means, rather have We confirmed it through this Pen, which God hath made to be the Dawning-place of His shining and glorious Cause. (Baha’u'llah, Kitab-i-Aqdas, para. 113)

experience
Nov. 10, 2007: 1.5 hours, 7 children, average age 7-8. Great class! There is a lot to be said for team efforts. The class started with beautiful prayers—which the children love and vie with each other to say (!)—and continued with songs in which everyone joined in. We had four Haitian children (all related), so one of the songs we sang was “O God, Guide Me” in Haitian Creole, which is fun to sing and has a catchy rhythm. All the kids like singing it. Then we continued on with the lesson, which I had read a few times the night before—I still found I needed the sheet in front of me, though, and I still started to waffle on at some points (caught myself before losing the kids’ attention, though). The children had so much to say about visiting the doctor that we had to moderate the conversation a lot. It was really a topic they got into. So much so, in fact, that while we were working on the activity later on, they were so focused that you could hear a pin drop. Part of that, of course, should fall onto the skill of the teacher who animated that part of the class.

The activity itself worked out quite well; since they seemed to have a natural interest in the topic, it was perfectly natural for them to express their own experiences visiting the doctor’s office. We put together a sheet similar to the one provided in the Alaskan Materials for the Furutan lessons, with a quote at the top, an empty space to draw, and a few lines at the bottom to tell the story. We noticed a few things during the activity: the children shared limited materials together (pencils, markers, etc), which is important for them to develop collaboration skills, and, thanks to having three teachers on hand, we were able to give at least a little time to help each of them bring out their ideas and nurture their own creativity. We focused on getting some of the younger children to practice their handwriting skills, and allowed them to finish by colouring their drawings.

activities
projects: The children can be encouraged to take on a service project to learn about the importance of serving humanity. Examples could include putting together care packages for disadvantaged families, weeding and/or planting a garden, cleaning the local Baha’i centre or other gathering place, and so on.
story of Lua Getsinger: ‘Abdu’l-Bahá asks Lua to take care of a sick man. Ruhi Book 3, Lesson 5.
song: “Look At Me, Follow Me”.
drama/skits: The children can act out different scenarios of service, including the story of Lua Getsinger (without attempting to portray ‘Abdu’l-Baha, of course).
game: “Help the Sick”. one child pretends to be sick, while two others clasp their hands to form a chair and carry the “sick” child over to the “health center”. children can be taught various rescue carries in this way. Ruhi Book 3, Lesson 5.
drawing: “Tending the Garden”. Children can either colour a black-and-white drawing of someone tending a garden, or draw themselves tending a garden. The teachers may accompany this drawing with the quote of ‘Abdu’l-Baha given below.

reading/prayer for study
“That one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself to the service of the entire human race.”

reference
That one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself to the service of the entire human race. The Great Being saith: Blessed and happy is he that ariseth to promote the best interests of the peoples and kindreds of the earth. In another passage He hath proclaimed: It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens. (Baha’u'llah, Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p.250)

“To one who visited in Haifa, ‘Abdu’l-Baha said substantially, in likening the Cause of God to a Garden: ‘At the gate of the garden some stand and look within, but do not care to enter. Others step inside, behold its beauty, but do not penetrate far. Still others encircle this garden inhaling the fragrance of the flowers, having enjoyed its full beauty, pass out again by the same gate. But there are always some who enter and, becoming intoxicated with the splendor of what they behold, remain for life to tend the garden’.” (“The Garden of the Heart”, a compilation by Frances Esty)

experience
August 4, 2007: ~2 hours, 2 children, average age 8.
With a little maternal help (thanks mom!) we weeded the garden inside the patio at the Baha’i Centre and planted a beautiful row of geraniums there. To give a little bit of context, we looked at a photo of the terraces at the Baha’i World Centre beforehand and explained how the Baha’is had created the beautiful gardens there for the entire world to enjoy.

our garden supplies.

weeding the garden.

mom gives the kids a botany lesson.

our kids with a stubborn root they helped dig up.

after weeding and planting.

August 16, 2007: ~1 hour, 4 children, average age 6-7. Outreach class. Our last outdoor outreach class during the two-week pilot phase. With a week and a half’s worth of experience with these children under our belt, we were able to manage the class better than before. We used lots of movement-based activities to accommodate the uppity ones; they all enjoyed learning the “rescue carry” maneuver during the game. The entire class was basically taken straight from Lesson 5 of Ruhi Book 3, including the song (“Look At Me, Follow Me”), the quote, and the story. I think the children liked it, although there was an incident where I had to physically restrain one of the children while telling the story to avoid allowing him to fight with others. I took him aside afterwards, before we played the games, and told him firmly that he was welcome to stay in the class as long as he cooperated in the activities and respected the other children in the class—meaning no more fighting. It seems to have helped, even though we still had to monitor him very closely to curb any further outbursts.

August 18, 2007: 1.5 hours, 8 children, average age 8. Our last regular children’s class before school starts again! We had five of our usual kids and three cousins, and the group dynamic was great—although there was a little too much between-cousins tousling for the spiritual atmosphere of the children’s class. After two weeks of daily outreach classes, though, I had gotten used to playing kindergarten cop, so it was manageable. Most of the children said prayers, after which we memorized “O God, guide me” for the sake of our new students (and to refresh the memory of the kids who hadn’t been around during the summer) and then sang the same prayer in Haitian Creole (since several of our children come from Haitian families). We used the “step game” to help memorize the quote, but we noticed a couple of problems with it: 1) the game doesn’t work so well when there are lots of children (say, eight or more) in a line; 2) the game doesn’t work so well when the children can’t read well. We may adapt it for use with this class, which typically takes place indoors rather than outdoors and has fewer high-energy children than the outreach class. One nice thing is that we involved the children in snack time more than usual; for example, one set out a plate of cookies and poured juice for the others, while another helped wash dishes afterwards, and others helped to put away the colouring materials before we went outside for the end of class. The child who washed dishes—usually a rather distracted child—even thanked us for letting him serve in that way. nice :)