Children perform a dance routine during the Children of Faith festival July 16 at the Vedic Cultural Center in Sammamish. The annual festival, in its second year, celebrates the idea that each person’s faith is a little different and people express their faith through different means, according to event organizers. The point is that when children learn this at an early age, they become tolerant and respectful toward each other. Approximately 200 people attended the festival, which featured performances from children ages 3 to 15. They danced, performed poetic and musical pieces and prayers and spontaneously showcased their talents during the open-mic time. Volunteer cooks catered to the children’s appetite with French fries and pasta, organizers said. Photo courtesy VCC

Harvey Nelson, of Pine Lake Covenant Church, pushes a box to the back of a 40-foot container June 8 while volunteers load 583 boxes of donated goods to send to Romania. Photo by Christopher Huber

As the boxes piled up in the back parking lot at Pine Lake Covenant Church June 8, volunteers played a big game of Tetris in the back of the 40-foot semi-truck trailer. They had to figure out how to best arrange nearly 600 boxes of supplies donated from the Sammamish community over the past month and a half. The church youth group members formed a continuous stream of boxes as they grabbed them from a room in the building and prepped them for loading.

Pine Lake Covenant Church gathered about 11,000 pounds of clothing, school supplies, household goods and other life necessities to send to families in Targu jiu, in the Gorj region of Romania. The youth group and other church volunteers spent the evening June 8 loading the 583 boxes of goods into a 40-foot shipping container.

“We really try to make it an all-church initiative,” said Nick Pringle, the youth director. “The best part is we know them (the organization receiving the goods).”

The loading party, along with a June 12 send-off party, capped a 45-day effort to collect donations from the community and the church body. Pine Lake Covenant sent the supplies to a Romanian social assistance organization, which will distribute the supplies among some of the most needy families in the area, said collection organizer Priscilla Larsen.

Church members focused much of their giving on school supplies. Some of the poorest children in Targu jiu are home-schooled because they don’t have jackets or shoes to wear to public school. So Pine Lake Covenant will provide parents with supplies to teach at home.

In the beginning, Larsen and others weren’t sure how they were going to fill the container and raise the $11,000 to cover the cost of shipping, she said. But by June 8, as a dozen or so volunteers moved boxes from the church building to the container, Larsen was confident they had hit their goals: filling the container to capacity and collecting the full shipping cost.

“It seemed like an insurmountable mountain … but lo and behold, it’s ready,” she said.

At one point during the donation drive, a family hauled in a truckload of goods left over from the recent Crest Neighborhood garage sale.

“We had things coming out our ears,” Larsen said about a week into the collection. “People have been so generous.”

Pine Lake Covenant last sent a container of goods to Romania 10 years ago, Larsen said, and wanted to fill the need again this year. The church specifically wanted the greater Sammamish community to take part, too.

“We wanted people to give outside of themselves. We needed an opportunity to give to somebody who has much less,” Larsen said. “The challenge for us has been to consistently work at it so we don’t get ourselves in a backlog situation. Trusting God, that was the biggest challenge.”

Reporter Christopher Huber can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 242, or chuber@isspress.com.

“Religion should be the cause of love and agreement,” said Nooshin Darvish, a Sammamish resident and follower of Baha’i.

World Religion Day was started by the American branch of the Baha’i faith in 1950. Since then, it has been adopted by practitioners from around the world, Darvish said.

The original idea, and the one which continues today, is to bring together people of different faiths and allow them to explain their religions to each other.

This marks the second year that followers of Baha’i in Sammamish have sponsored such a gathering.

Last year’s event, Darvish said, was successful in that it gave people from different religions a chance to learn about each other’s faith.

“They learned things from each other they probably wouldn’t have at any other time,” she said.

The gathering starts with members of each religion — the Baha’i have invited 16 to this year’s event — offering a prayer, reading or some sort of other representation of their faith.

“Something that signifies the beauty of their religion,” Darvish said.

Afterwards, participants will have a chance to enjoy some refreshments and talk. The hope is that people of different faiths can talk about their religions with each other. Since that’s the point of the gathering, they can do so without fear that they might be pushing their faith on other people.

“It’s just a time to get to know each other,” Darvish said.

The idea behind World Religion day is in keeping with some of the basic tenets of the Baha’i faith, Darvish said. Baha’i believe there is actually only one religion, and that prophets (such as Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and others) appear in the time and place they are needed most.

“They come at various eras to teach what the needs of that era are,” Darvish said.

In 1863, a man named Baha’u’allah appeared and declared himself a manifestation of God. Baha’i believe he is simply the most recent in the line of prophets, and that there are others yet to come.

This belief does not mean that the Baha’i intend to try converting others. They stress that individuals have free choice in selecting their religious expression.

“The idea is not sameness. The idea is to harmonize,” Darvish said.

If you go

World Religion Day will feature a short interfaith program followed by refreshments and fellowship. The event is scheduled for 2-4 p.m. Jan. 18 at the Lodge at Beaver Lake.

Editor Ari Cetron can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 233 or samrev@isspress.com. To comment on this story, visit www.SammamishReview.com.

Sammamish Hills Lutheran Church will hold different services at 5, 7, 9 and 10:30 p.m. Dec. 24 at the church. Visit www.shlc.org.

Good Samaritan Episcopal will hold services at 4:30 and 10 p.m. Visit www.goodsamepiscopal.org.

Sammamish Presbyterian Church will hold services at 3:30, 4:30, 7:30, 9 and 10:30 p.m. Visit www.spconline.org.

Faith United Methodist Church will hold services at 5, 7 and 11 p.m. Visit www.faithunited.org.

Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ will hold services at 7 p.m. at the Pine Lake Community Center.

Community Church of Joy will hold a candlelight service at 6 p.m.

Pine Lake Covenant Church will hold a family service at 4:30 p.m. and candlelight services at 7 and 8:30 p.m.

Christmas day

Sammamish Hills Lutheran Church 10 a.m.

Good Samaritan Episcopal 10 a.m.