Starting day of children’s class in Aliso Viejo

As Friday approached I was pretty excited. Not knowing what to expect or whether anyone would even show up was nerve racking. But I think I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me explain what I’m talking about. For the last couple of weeks we had been doing a service project in a community in Aliso Viejo, California. By we, I mean some Baha’is and I. You see I’m a member of the Baha’i Faith and one of my passions is providing service to mankind.

We had been drawn to this community because of all the children that lived in the community. We wanted to provide a children class where we could teach the children about the virtues of God and how to become better people. The receptivity was amazing, nearly all the parents we spoke with were favorable to the idea and truly expressed interest in the concept.  So we began the planning and the first class was to be on Friday October 24th at 4:30 PM.

My wife and a few others had arrived earlier and had setup the blankets by the pool area where we were going to meet. There were some fliers posted at various location in the community so things looked really good. I got there just before we were going to go out and start gathering the kids.

The first few homes we went to were not there and the next few that were home said the kids were not back from homework club yet. I was beginning to get worried but finally got to a home that wanted to come so we accompanied the mother and her daughter to the blankets by the pool.

As the class was getting started, there were only two kids. Younger than our target audience really but we were happy to see them none the less. The problem was language. The kids only spoke Spanish and communication was starting to be an issue. At one point my wife and I looked around and there were more helpers than there were kids so we just stepped away and individually started to say some prayers.

Call it coincidence or luck, but little by little the kids started filtering back from homework club and before no time there were about 24 kids at the class. It was wonderful to see the enthusiasm of the kids. The topic for the first day was Truthfulness and the first quote they learned was “Truthfulness is the foundation of all human virtues.” They also did some coloring and singing.

I didn’t have my camera with me so I pulled out my iPhone and took some shots of the kids having fun.