Northern Plains Community Development Activities, Facebook: know what is happening in our Region!

 "If a small number of people gather lovingly together, with absolute purity and sanctity, with their hearts free of the world, experiencing the emotions of the Kingdom and the powerful magnetic forces of the Divine, and being at one in their happy fellowship, that gathering will exert its influence over all the earth. The nature of that band of people, the words they speak, the deeds they do, will unleash the bestowals of Heaven, and provide a foretaste of eternal bliss. The hosts of the Company on high will defend them, and the angels of the Abhá Paradise, in continuous succession, will come down to their aid." 

Selections From the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, page 81.

27 August 2016 Pine Ridge 2nd Annual Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Summer Camp

Wyatt Morgano and Paul III taking a fun break.

Painting beautiful special things as reminders to say prayers.

Animators drove for over 1000 miles one way to nurture these wonderful young people!

Northern Plains Regional Baha'i Council members Alan Schulte and Karen Pulkrabec also came.

Wyatt Morgan came to help and see old and new friends. He is much loved here! I know the feeling is mutual.

Much love and appreciation to Cindy and Peter Catches for creating a space to nurture our sacred charge, and the "Herculean effort" Put forth by the friends to make this happen!

O Thou kind Lord! Graciously bestow...

OThou kind Lord!  Graciously bestow a pair of heavenly wings unto each of these fledglings, and give them spiritual power that they may wing their flight through this limitless space and may soar to the heights of the Abhá Kingdom.

O Lord!  Strengthen these fragile seedlings that each one may become a fruitful tree, verdant and flourishing.  Render these souls victorious through the potency of Thy celestial hosts, that they may be able to crush the forces of error and ignorance and to unfurl the standard of fellowship and guidance amidst the people; that they may, even as the reviving breaths of the spring, refresh and quicken the trees of human souls and like unto vernal showers make the meads of that region green and fertile.

Thou art the Mighty and the Powerful; Thou art the Bestower and the All-Loving.     ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

5 Year Plan Launch Rapid City, SD May 2016

Saying Goodbye to Barbara Bennett, after 20+ years in Mission.

Velma Little Eagle and Barbara Bennett, the best of friends.

2 June 2016 Small Steps: Book 1/5 Intensive, Martin, SD

”The sustained effort required will be arduous. But the outcome has the potential to be profoundly significant, even epoch making. Small steps, if they are regular and rapid, add up to a great distance travelled.” Riḍván 2016

2015 5 Year Plan: Fargo Launch May 20-22, 2016: Yay, Fargo!

Pine Ridge, SD: building a Baha’i gathering place.

Beloved friends,   I just had to share our happy news. Over the years we were able to have our Jr. Youth classes, children classes at my home. But for almost over a year my husbands lack of health and a few other things has made that very hard. You know that my husband is one of the founders of Oceti Wakan, who’s mission is the preservation of Lakota culture and language. He and his father have had a vision of a cultural/education/healing center for the past forty years. We were able to develop the design for the dream but the cost would have been close to 1.5 million. When a doctor from National Institutes of Health got involved with our dream, he was able to talk us into doing a double wide trailer to start a wellness center which brought the cost down to a few hundred thousand. He and a young man in Poland loved the idea so much both gave us the funds to start to develop the funds, with all that we are doing developing our life skills curriculum have had no success. The tribes’s addiction program contacted us to start a prevention program based on our prevention curriculum with our successful Jr.Youth group and more. They had us make a budget and wanted us to start in May.

But even though we have been studying Ruhi and getting a small group of Lakota’s ready to teach our Jr.Youth group and I would be able to pay them to do our prevention group, we still had no place that we could count on to do this in.

We decided after looking for used trailers for months, any kind of a building to build what we could afford with the idea that we would just add on as we got more funds. Below is the picture of, our crew is calling it the ‘little school room’, the first step of our Wellness Center. The focus will be our prevention classes and our Jr. Youth group classes to begin with. It’s only 16’ x 20’ but I think we will be able to add on a deck. And the good news is that we will be able to begin sometime in May. 

February Inter-institutional Meeting in Pensacola, Fla 2016

Famous Singers, including Karen Pulkrabek, Barbara Mark, Riaz Castillo, Jenn Doney, Wyatt Morgano, Alan Schulte, Dru Hanich , Ferris Paisano, Greg and Bahi Hansen, and two other famous young ladies in front! Smiles all around!

Sioux Falls meeting with NPRBC April 9, 2016Meeing

Meeting in Sioux Falls at lovely home of Mary Hiller, including Counselor Serrano, Auxiliary Board Members Riaz, Bahi , Jill, Ferris, Northern Plains Regional Baha'i Council  and members of the community. An historic meeting!

10 April 2016 Friends who, "serve the Cause the way the Cause must be served," Shoghi Effendi

Jill Hennes, Farris Paisano, Bahi Hansen, and Counselor Navid