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Messages to Canada

  • Author:

  • Shoghi Effendi

  • Source:
  • Bahá’í Canada Publications
  • Pages:
  • 276
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Pages 195-196

Letter of 5 May 1954

5 May 1954

To Emeric and Rosemary Sala1

Dear Bahá’í Friends:
Your letters, one from Mrs. Sala, dated February 20th, and two from Mr. Sala, dated March 25th and April 15th, have been received by the beloved Guardian, and he has instructed me to answer you on his behalf.
He fully realizes how deep your disappointment has been that you are not able to secure your visa for the Comoro Islands. He himself was deeply disappointed also. However, some of these places are extremely difficult to enter; and he hopes that where you have failed, at least for the time being, someone else will prove successful at a later date.
He urges you, upon your arrival in Zululand, to find out the status of the Cause in neighbouring places, and, if it is possible for you to settle in one of the neighbouring countries where the Centre is much weaker, and where it is more difficult for people to get established, and there is a better possibility for people like yourselves to build up a business and remain, that you by all means go to the weaker Centre, in preference to Zululand, which now has a certain number of pioneers.
He assures you that the example that you and the Robarts2 have shown has moved him very deeply, and he hopes it will stir the Canadian Community, and impress upon them the advisability of answering the pioneer call now, while the field is open, and the opportunities and the rewards so glorious.
You are often remembered in his prayers in the Holy Shrines, and he is supplicating that you may be richly blessed, and meet with success in both your teaching efforts and in your personal affairs.

With warmest Bahá’í love,

R. Rabbani

[From the Guardian:]

May the Beloved bless your constant endeavours, remove all obstacles from your path, and enable you to enrich the record of your meritorious services to His Faith,

Your true brother,

Shoghi
1.Emeric and Rosemary Sala—members of the National Spiritual Assembly 1948–53. During the first and second Seven Year Plans, they pioneered to Venezuela (1940–41) and travelled throughout Latin America. In 1953 they pioneered to South Africa, and returned to Canada in 1968. In 1971 they pioneered to Mexico, where Rosemary died in 1980. Emeric passed away in 1990. See The Bahá’í World Vol. XVIII, 713–715, and Vol. XX, In Memoriam.  [ Back To Reference]
2.John and Audrey Robarts—John was a member of the National Spiritual Assembly from 1948–53. In 1953 they became Knights of Bahá’u’lláh when they pioneered to Bechuanaland. In 1957 John Robarts was appointed a Hand of the Cause of God. He passed away in Rawdon, Quebec in 1991. See The Bahá’í World Vol. XX, In Memoriam.  [ Back To Reference]