There is an old-saying, an adage, a proverb which says: ‘It is an ill wind that blows nobody good’.
For Bermuda that ‘ill wind’ was the Second World War. Great Britain as it was then called, under its Prime Minister Winston Churchill begged, pleaded with the United States’ President Franklyn D. Roosevelt for help to defeat Adolph Hitler and his Nazi regime. In a word, Churchill urgently needed arms, materiel to defeat the Germans.
As a result, the Lend Lease Agreement Act 1941 was forged between the United States and the United Kingdom whereby acres of land at the East End of Bermuda in the parish of St. George’s which included St. David’s Island was leased to the United States for 99 years.
Prime Minister Churchill informed the secretary of State: “I take this opportunity of telling the Bermuda house of Assembly, and through them the people of the Colony (Bermuda), how much we appreciate the magnificent way in which they have responded to this call upon their patriotism and understanding. I realize the sacrifices entailed, which are so much greater in Bermuda than in the other Colonies concerned, I know too how cheerfully they were accepted.”
“To the people of Bermuda has fallen the honour and privilege of making a notable contribution to the cause of justice and freedom for which the our Empire stands. Their act will not be forgotten.”
Meanwhile in the United States in Washington DC, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was quoted as terming the deal for leased bases “the most important action in the reinforcement of our national defence that has been taken since the Luisiana Purchase.”
It was that ‘ill wind’, the Second World War which saw the first Baha’i ‘pioneer’ to Bermuda. She was Mrs. Pauline H. Campbell the wife of an Officer in the United States Forces.
However, it was in 1929 that the very first Baha’i landed in Bermuda on her way to travel-teach in the West Indies and South America. This was March 1929. She was Mrs. Keith Ransom-Kehler, later to be appointed a Hand of the Cause of God by the Guardian. And during her very brief stop-over in Bermuda she was interviewed by the Island’s only daily newspaper the Royal Gazette and Colonist Daily.
Three years later, March 1931, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, Dr. Malcolm King, a Jamaican, embraced the Cause of God. Fired by the Teachings of Baha’u’llah, the Glory of God, this stalwart pioneer left the United States, during the first Seven Year Plan (1939 – 1946), to pioneer throughout the Caribbean. It is recorded that he taught the Faith in Nicaragua, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Antigua, British Guiana and Jamaica. The Guardian appointed Dr. King a Knight of Baha’u’llah in October 1953 when he set out for British Guiana at the beginning of the World Crusade.
In the early days in Jamaica, the friends met at the home of Mrs. Browne of Orange Street, Kingston. After the death of Mrs. Browne, Mr William Mitchell offered his office at 83 Church Street for Children’s classes on Sunday mornings and Devotions on Sunday evenings. During the 1960s the Baha’is moved to 5 Leinster Road, in Cross Roads and to its current 208 Mountain View Avenue address during the 1970s
So, what is the connection, the common denominator between the two Islands of Jamaica and Bermuda?
Naturally, it is that immortal ‘mandate’, that ‘supreme charter for teaching’ as so described by Shoghi Effendi in the book, “God Passes By”.
Revealed on March 8, 1917, in the summer-house at ‘Abdu’l-Baha in Haifa, and addressed to the Baha’i of the United States and Canada wherein it states: Therefore, O ye believers of God in the United States and Canada! Select ye important personages, or else they by themselves, becoming severed from rest and composure of the world, may arise and travel throughout Alaska, the Republic of Mexico, and south of Mexico in the Central American Republics, such as Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and Belize; and through the great south American Republics, such as Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, French Guiana, Dutch Guiana, British Guiana, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile, and Haiti, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Santo Domingo in the Greater Antilles, and the group of Islands of the Lesser Antilles, the Islands of Bahama and the Islands of Bermuda; likewise to the islands to the east, west and south of South America, such as Trinidad, Falklands Islands, Galapagos Islands, Juan Fernandez and Tobago. Visit ye especially the city of Bahia, on the eastern shore of Brazil. Because in the past years this city was christened with the name, BAHIA, there is no doubt that it has been through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Both our Islands have been Blessed with visits of Hands of the Cause of God, of Counsellors, of Auxiliary Board Members and countless travel-teachers and pioneers from the Americas and elsewhere.
Now, here we are in 2025, following the first international Plan of our dearly beloved departed Guardian in 1953, the World Crusade, in the third year of the Nine Year Plan of our supreme institution the blessed Universal House of Justice, focused on the single aim: the release of the society-building power of the Faith in ever greater measures.
