Ruhi Book 3 celebration

For a few months now, we've been getting together almost once a week with a lovely group of people who wanted to learn how to facilitate neighborhood children's classes whose purpose is to virtues and general spiritual education. The curriculum is based on Baha'i principles but neither the teachers nor the students need to be Baha'is to participate - they are for everyone concerned with the spiritual education of children. The book we studied is called "Teaching Children's Classes Grade 1" developed by the Ruhi Institute. We are excited to have completed the study of the book - although we will miss getting together very much - and now the real work begins of actually starting our children's classes! Three people from the group have already started one in their neighborhood! At the end of class tonight, we had a dinner to celebrate, and were joined by my mom as well as a neighbor of the hosts who is interested in learning more about the Bahai Faith.

This (photo below) is our wonderful study circle. One thing we loved about this group is that we had people of all ages, from Fazal to young people in elementary, middle and high schools and several adults. It was really nice to get input in all our discussions from such a wide range of participants.

All the children helped keep Fazal busy during the classes, and Cecelia, pictured here, was especially wonderful!!

The photo above was our group at the dinner tonight...
Fazal took NO naps today (I can't remember the last time, if ever, he has done this) so by the end of the evening he was really winding up and winding down, and koko was helping a lot! At one point, he just started shrieking at the top of his lungs, just for the fun of it, sending the kids into fits of laughter. He did this for several minutes, I think just out of sheer tiredness, until we took him outdoors, where he continued to scream and run around in the cold for quite a while until he finally got it out of his system ;-)