How Brad and I Became Bahá’ís, by Hannah Rishel

Submitted January 2024

In the winter of 1974-5, Brad and I lived on my parents’ property in Johnson County, between North Liberty and Iowa City. Joanne and Bert Marian lived in a farmhouse a couple miles away. They’d been neighbors to my family for the prior 4 or 5 years and were my good friends. Joanne, with her children Shireen and Rahim, had attended Brad’s and my wedding in Kansas in June 1974.

But that winter: Joanne–and then all of the Johnson County Bahá’ís — invited us to home after home. For firesides, deepenings, and Ayyám-i-Há. They fed us supper 2-3 times per week. We were jobless and didn’t know our life’s direction at the time. Vaughn Fletcher visited us in our trailer house repeatedly. He’d share some passages from the Writings. He made home visits and conducted meaningful conversations before such terms were coined. Brad and I had been given a prayer book, “Patterns of Bahá’í Life,” and… it seems one other thin book. We read from these and each morning and evening.

There were seven adult Bahá’ís in Johnson County: Joanne Marian, Tammy and Vaughn Fletcher, Rebecca and David Jensen, Sherry Kinsman, and Karen Wilke as I recall. Mrs. Khadem came to deepen / train the group for LSA formation. Brad and I asked if we could attend, and got Mrs. Khadem’s consent. We learned about “deepening,” “teaching,” and other practices which I later learned couldn’t be mastered in a session or two. We learned about the importance of “The Fast” and “pioneering.”

On a Saturday morning March 4th, 1975, here’s how I remember it: Brad and I were grappling with “what will we do in life?” He wanted to subsistence farm. My family had done enough subsistence living that the prospect was too hard to appeal to me. But I didn’t know what we should do either. We thought of going to talk with Joanne–maybe she could help us figure it out.

So we did visit Joanne in their farmhouse on the hill. We told her our quandary. She didn’t counsel, didn’t help in the way we’d hoped for. I said, “Well, I think I need to decide if I’m going to be a Bahá’í before anything else.” She asked, “Do you want to be a Bahá’í?” I said “yes!” So did Brad. We signed our declaration cards. I’m sure she welcomed us very very happily. I felt as if a cloud lifted. Our dilemmas evaporated. Of course we gained new ones in being new Bahá’ís. It was three days into the Fast. At Riḍván we were Bahá’ís number 8 and 9 to form an LSA. …. the rest is a long long story. But that was the day of rebirth!