An Invocation in Jamestown
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When in Bahá'í history
Jamestown, New York (today: Jamestown, New York, USA)
An American pioneering couple in the 1930s, Doris and Willard McKay, had had no results in Jamestown, New York, for over three years in spite of diligent efforts. When Dorothy Baker, later a Hand of the Cause, visited them in January 1937 and they told her, she recommended they say the invocation “Yá Alláh El-Mustagáth.” Doris hesitated, saying that the prayer was to be used only in dire circumstances, in life-and-death situations. Dorothy responded, “What greater calamity than for Doris and Willard to have spent three years in this town with no result?” Dorothy and Willard said the prayers, calling “Yá Alláh El-Mustagáth” ninety-five times. Doris later wrote that the effects of those prayers were the beginnings of the Jamestown Assembly.
Source: Doris McKay with Paul Vreeland, Fires in Many Hearts (the McKays’ years in Jamestown, New York).
Collected from bahaistories.com (Subject: prayer).
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