Ties binding the Bahá’í International Community to the United Nations reinforced through participation in European Regional Conference of nongovernmental organizations in Geneva; and in Latin American Conferences in Chile, Uruguay; and in similar conferences in Kansas and Lake Success; through submission in response to the request of the UNO Committee of statement on the Bahá’í concept and method of community worship, subsequently transmitted to the Secretariat responsible for the planning of permanent headquarters in the United Nations.
Last but not least, nay the crowning achievement of the year just concluded, are the stupendous exertions of the vanguard of the resistlessly advancing Bahá’í World Community resulting in the raising of half a million dollars, virtually attaining the objective set for the two-year drive to ensure the completion of the interior ornamentation of the Mother Temple of the West in anticipation of its approaching jubilee.
First stage of austerity period resolutely embarked upon, successfully traversed.
Resolution no less grim, self abnegation no less heroic, solidarity in sacrifice no less striking, must needs distinguish the final phase of the stern struggle, still facing the dauntless highminded spartan-souled American Bahá’í Community, designed to liquidate the deficit in the General Fund, marring the otherwise spotless record of collective achievement, as well as to provide financial support imperatively required to meet, through prompt despatch of substantial number of competent pioneers, the emergency existing in Central and South America, thereby ensuring the glorious consummation of the thirteen-year-old enterprise through the formation of the projected twin National Assemblies in Latin America.
—Shoghi
[Cablegram, April 25, 1950]
An Enterprise Transcending Any National Institution
Announce to believers, through all National Assemblies, termination initial stage of construction of domed structure designed to embellish and preserve the Báb’s sepulcher on Mount Carmel.