Announce to National Assemblies of the Bahá'í world that the three week interval since the close of the Holy Year witnessed planting the banner of God's triumphant Cause in no less than twenty-one virgin areas of the globe, raising the total number of territories opened to the Faith to two hundred, representing well nigh a sixty per cent increase in the course of a little over half a year in the number of sovereign States and Dependencies included within its pale during the one hundred and nine years of its existence.
The seventy-two virgin areas, brought within the orbit of the swiftly expanding Bahá'í administrative order since the launching of the World Crusade, include twenty-one in the Americas, nineteen in Africa, nineteen in Europe and thirteen in Asia.
The following pioneers have been inscribed on the Roll of Honor since the last announcement: Gerald, Gail and Leeanna Curwin, Bahamas; Enoch Olinga, British Cameroons; Malcolm King, British Guiana; Peggy and George True, Canaries; Shirley Warde, British Honduras; Irving Geary, Cape Breton Island; Zunilda Palacios, Chiloe Island; Edith Danielson, Cook Islands; Himatlal Bhatt, Diu Island; Elinor and Robert Wolff, Dutch Guiana; Eberhard Friedland, French Guiana; Labib Esphahani, French West Africa; Adela and Salvador Tormo, Juan Fernandez Island; Gladys and Benjamin Weeden, Leeward Islands; Frances Heller, Macao; Lionel Peraji, Mahe; Ola Pawlowska, Miquelon and St. Pierre Islands; Elsie Austin, Nosrat Shayesteh, `Abbás &Muhammad-'Ali Jalali Rowhani, Ardekani Hasanzadeh Rafii, Morocco, International Zone; Bertha Dobbins, New Hebrides; Opal and Leland Jensen, Reunion Island; Marie Ciocca, Sardinia; `Abbás Kamil, Seychelles Islands; Emma Rice and Mr. and Mrs. Bagley, Sicily; Greta Lamprill and Glad Parke, Society Islands; Mr. and Mrs. McKay, Mr. and Mrs. Fleming and Miss Jenssen, Spanish Morocco; Muhammad Mostafa, Spanish Sahara; Lillian Middlemast and Esther M. Evans, Windward Islands.
As few as two territories of Europe, six in the Americas, fourteen in Africa and twenty-two in Asia still remain unopened, excluding the Republics and satellites of the Soviet Union. May the opening year of the decade-long spiritual Crusade be victoriously concluded and befittingly celebrated in the course of the festivities of next Ridván through the establishment of the nucleus of the Faith in each of the remaining forty-four territories, insuring thereby the virtual attainment of the foremost objective of the initial stage of the Ten Year Plan.
--Shoghi
[Cablegram, November 11, 1953]