Saturday morning started with Universal Worship conducted by Jamila and 8 other cherags after which the trustees and elders walked down in light rain to the temple site. There Val welcomed us to the Temple site. Then Annie Bottcher spoke on the vision of the Temple of Peace. The sky cleared by then as had happened in the last 2 years. We read the prayer to the Universel . This was followed by Maria leading dances in a circle. She then led us in song, singing "My house shall be a house of prayer for all people" while we held hands walking in a line towards Halima's Memorial. There Ben spoke about Halima and her vision for Sharda,
Then everyone participated in a simple but touching ceremony of placing flowers on the memorial.
After lunch, Jessica and Shareen entertained us with some singing.
We watched a video that Julia made at her Art school and we carried on to watch videos of Halima,
We started with The Vision and then The Hidden Jewel of New Zealand.
A most amazing thing happened during the part of The Hidden Jewel where towards the end of the video, Halima was interviewed while seated in front of the altar. At that moment, sunlight came through and a spot on the wall was lit by a very vivid moving light exactly behing the spot she was seated. It moved and played on the wall the whole time the interview was on the screen. A few of us recovered enough to grab our cameras and take photos of the phenomenon. The photos do not show the intensity of the light or the movement but here is one:
You can see Halima on the screen and the light on the wall.
After dinner, there was time for levity. There was a lot of talking and mingling. It ended with a few dances of universal peace and a bit of impromptu singing (and clowning) by Aliah, Alim and Maimuna. They were joined by Bhajan on the guitar and Asunta, Rachman and Shafia singing spiritual songs.
We were joined the next day by Helen, Rakiah and Mahmud who came to help do some clean-up.
