Last week I spent 7 days working alongside 30 other staff to facilitate a Baha'i camp for over 70 youth. There is much to share. I attended the first Carmel session ever in 1995 as an awkward 13 year old and I've only missed two or three years since, transitioning along the way from a camper to a counselor to an organizer. It was this camp, plus a few other annual events, that brought me out of my spiritual lethargy. They inspired me to actually sit down and read a Baha'i book just before my 17th birthday and get involved throughout the year with other Baha'i youth.
For those who don't know, the Baha'i camps in Oregon have always been pretty advanced compared to the rest of the country. Just a few years ago, there were four in the state (now three) plus another two on the Washington side not far from Portland. Most states have only one or two, if any. Going back even further, there was an old camp called "Lobstock" in Lobster Valley (you can tell some hippies were involved in naming that one!) that galvanized dozens of youth into direct travel teaching projects around the state. There were also other smaller intermittent youth gatherings. Back in the 1980s when only a small section of the public knew of the Faith, these periodic gatherings provided a dose of medicine to isolated believers who were starved for the fellowship of other Baha'is. Annual gatherings became the focal point for growth over a large area, providing a Baha'i education and facilitating social connections between hundreds of people.
But that was the eighties. Around the year 2000 things started to change in the worldwide Baha'i community. In the United States, public recognition of the Faith grew dramatically, so Baha'is were no longer worried about people thinking they're in a weird cult. The Baha'i community grew dramatically, maybe even doubling in some towns and cities. The Universal House of Justice announced the new administrative structures of the Regional Council and the Cluster, providing groupings of states or counties with corresponding institutions to manage growth. They also announced as far back as the early nineties the formation of Training Institutes that would provide systematic growth instead of the haphazard stumbling along that is characterized by spontaneous bursts of energy.