Teen spirit? Young Baha'is give it a twist of faith

Haleh Chapman

Haleh Chapman says she “went in one person and came out a different one” after spending 1 ½ years volunteering at Bosch Baha'i School near Santa Cruz, Calif.

“I wanted to develop more as a person, to grow more spiritually,” says Ms. Chapman, 19, who grew up in a Baha'i family in Naperville, Ill., near Chicago. She took a year off between high school and college to fulfill what Baha'is call a “year of service.

”Baha'i young adults often do a year of service, which is voluntary, close to home or far away -- before starting college, or between one year of college and the next.

Ms. Chapman’s duties at Bosch weren’t spiritual, in and of themselves. She baked in the kitchen, clerked in the bookstore and even dug trenches. But it was “the rush at the end of the day,” she says, “that comes from knowing you’re doing it all for Baha'u'llah. That’s what captured my heart.

”She also spent magical hours with new friends, some of them “people with whom I have nothing in common except being Baha'i,” she says.

Ms. Chapman is currently a student at Saddleback Community College in Orange County, Calif., about six hours from Bosch, which she calls her second home.

Her mother, Vida, says she was delighted to see how mature her daughter had become after serving at Bosch. She herself had volunteered as a young adult in British Guyana, which she says made her “more humble at seeing how other people live. You realize that in America we’re very fortunate.

Annais Steptoe

”Another Naperville mom, Nita Hockley, says her daughters Annais, 21, and Krizia, 19, came back from their respective years of service “full of fire.” Their experience, she says, “solidified who they are as Baha'is. It’s one thing to say you believe in diversity. It’s another to live among people who at the same time are like you and unlike you.”

Ms. Hockley suggested that her daughters, third-generation Baha'is, spin a globe to decide where to do their year of service. Annais’ landed on Africa; Krizia’s landed on Tonga, in the South Pacific.

“I had a moment where I thought, ‘What was I thinking?’” Ms. Hockley admits. “I was as scared and nervous as the girls.” But off Annais Steptoe went at age 19 to Tanzania in East Africa, where she worked at an all-girls boarding school. Krizia left at age 19 to teach virtues, hip-hop and exercise classes, and conduct prayer programs and study circles at the Baha'i-inspired Ocean of Light grade school in Tonga.

Krizia Steptoe

“The Tongans were warm, welcoming and loving,” Krizia says. “They might not have a lot, but they’re willing to give up everything for you.”

Krizia says she also learned more about herself during her year of service and that teaching, her chosen career, best allows her to give back to the world, a core belief in the Baha'i Faith.

After teaching about the Faith to kids of all backgrounds, Krizia says she “believes stronger than ever in Baha'u'llah, His message and what He wants for humanity. I realized I can make a difference.”

Krizia says she also learned that it’s possible to live happily without a lot of “stuff.”

“’What is life really about?’” I asked myself while I was there,” she says. “It’s not about iPods and other things. When I came home I had a big culture shock. I had been without so many things. I realize it’s hard to apply the Tongan lifestyle here, but I can apply it to my studies at school.”

Krizia and her sister are taking classes at a community college near their home in Naperville and living the suburban life -- but not the way they did before doing a year of service. They still have that fire burning inside them for the Baha'i Faith and humanity, and it’s keeping them warm.

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Reprinted with permission from the Baha'is of the United States (see U.S. Baha'i News http://www.bahai.us/newsroom)