The Friends Who Crossed the Border

A retelling for children, based on Mahmúd's Diary (the entry for the Vancouver friends in Seattle, October 1912).

Far up in the northwest corner of Canada, in cities called Vancouver and Victoria, there lived a small group of friends who loved Bahá'u'lláh. There were not many of them — only about fifteen in all. They were spread out, and they did not yet have a group to guide them. But their hearts were big.

They had heard wonderful news: 'Abdu'l-Bahá was traveling across America! And so they wrote Him a letter with a hopeful question. Would He please come north, all the way up to Canada, to see them?

The answer came back gently. No — His long journey was already planned, and there was simply no room to add the trip north. It would have been easy for the friends to feel sad and give up. Instead, they had a braver idea. If 'Abdu'l-Bahá could not come to them, then they would go to Him.

So seven of them set out together. They climbed aboard a steamboat and sailed down the Pacific coast, all the way to a city called Seattle, across the border into another country. It was a long way to travel just to spend a little time with someone. But to these friends, it was worth every mile.

They arrived on the very morning 'Abdu'l-Bahá reached Seattle, and they asked if they might see Him. He said yes, and He set aside a whole afternoon — just for them.

When they were gathered together, 'Abdu'l-Bahá did not treat them as a tiny, faraway group that hardly mattered. He called them the friends in Canada, as if to say their country had its very own special place. He told them that the hearts of the friends in Canada were dear to Him. He had been reading their news from far away, and He knew how their little community was slowly growing.

Then He told them something about their city that made them feel proud. Their home, Vancouver, sat at the end of the great railway that crossed all of Canada — it was the doorway to the whole country from the Pacific side. One day, He said, a fine Bahá'í community would grow there.

But here is the loveliest part. 'Abdu'l-Bahá did not only speak to the seven travelers all together. He turned to each person, one at a time. He asked about their families, and their work, and the small kind things they had been doing to help others. He even gave some of them special jobs to carry home — He asked one friend to write more often to a younger believer she had been forgetting.

When the afternoon ended, there were refreshments and one last blessing. The next morning, the seven friends sailed back home up the coast.

'Abdu'l-Bahá never did set foot in Canada. But it did not matter — because the friends of Canada had carried their love all the way to Him. When something truly matters, we do not wait for it to come to us. Like those seven friends on the steamboat, we go the long way to reach it.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "Vancouver: The Master at the Border".

Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání, M.. (1998). *Mahmúd's Diary: The Diary of Mírzá Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání*. George Ronald.