Rachman’s photos from the Subud World congress in Freiburg, Germany from July 26 through August 8th, 2018.  There are a lot of photos so take your time in viewing them!  There are two links, one for July 26 through August 5 and the other one for August 5 through August 8.  Please add comments or identify people you know!

Links are here:

We have just learned that Ibu Rahayu will attend the upcoming World Congress in Freiburg. This will be a wonderful opportunity to be with Ibu Rahayu in person.

Please spread the word to others.

For information and updates regarding World Congress, please visit: www.subudworldcongress.org

Just a few days to the start of the 2018 Subud World Congress!
The 2018 Subud World Congress in Freiburg, Germany, begins July 28 and runs until August 8. If you plan to attend Congress but have not registered and paid, please hurry up and do so, and make your travel plans. It’s not too late!

Friday night after the Eastside latihan Oswald, Marston and Hadidjah brought goodies to share!  We sat in a circle and shared our various memories and experiences of Bapak.  It was a very nice evening and it was good to be reminded of what Bapak has brought us and how important is the gift of the latihan!  Danella mentioned she had shared some of her experiences in ‘Subud Reminders’, a web site with many Subud members shared experiences.

Bapak

See it here: http://remindersofreality.weebly.com/index.html

Photo of Bapak by Sim’on Cherpitel

The countdown to our 15th Subud World Congress is on!

Over 2000 Subud sisters and brothers from 69 countries around the world have registered for the World Congress. As of now, we are only 200 paying registrations away from our break even! This HAS helped us to keep the registration fee at €390 until the end of June. (the registration fee was supposed to go up to €450 ON the 15th of June already).
We are well aware that we in Subud love to decide at the last moment; never-the-less it would support the congress organizing team a lot if you register as soon as possible.

To register please go to www.subudworldcongress.org/registration

For on-going news updates, please visit: www.subudworldcongress.org

If you should have difficulties finding affordable accommodation, we still have
some beds left at the Old Town Hall! You just have to pay €180 for 13 days and €50 more for breakfast. Contact: viktor.boehm.wcot2018@subud.org.

Please click here to get a sense of the numbers involved in this World Congress!

Lucinda and I had excellent experiences at the national congress.

The Latihans were great for both of us, I suspect in no small part due to being during Ramadan.  Hadijah O’Bar is the new SPNW chair!  We will miss her as a helper, but our feeling is that her presence and experience will serve the region very well.
Another highlight for me was attending Isman Kanafsky’s session on Latihan in daily life.  I’ve been working on it ever since!  He shared some printed materials-here is a truncated excerpt from Bapak’s talk November 29, 1977, “If we want to experience the possibility of improving our being – that is, returning our being to its original state, to clean it out again – we have to receive the latihan every moment, every second, as Bapak showed with his pulse.  Every second, every heartbeat, we have to experience the latihan.”

It was great to reconnect with Subud brothers and sisters from throughout the country-and meet new ones.  Entertainment night was excellent with really great poetry, piano playing, guitar playing, and singing-plus a dance piece.

I left the congress feeling reinvigorated and reinspired!

Jim

Marston Gregory

My experience is that World Congresses are often life changing Subud events and so I have been moved to help our recently opened brother, Aarkarsh Gotthumukkala who is off at graduate school in Maryland and as with all students short of funds.  

I offered to do what I could to help him go including putting his airfare on a credit card.  

The next step is registration, food and lodging.

He has offered to work in the Childcare area so he certainly will be earning his keep…so to speak.  He has tutored young students in Math and is a Math wiz. He does latihan with the Washington D.C. group when there at college.  

I have set up a GoFundMe account to collect funds for his travel costs.

Please just click on this link to donate:  gf.me/u/iiym5d 

Thanks for any support you might give.

Sincerely,

Marston Gregory

International Helper Report On Their Visit To the Pacific Northwest

The area three international helpers began 2018 with a beautiful outward and inward experience by visiting four groups in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.  We are currently about half way through our visit to 13 groups in California.

We are very grateful for the hospitality and caring we have received. It is very inspiring to do latihan with many members some of whom have been doing latihan regularly for 40 to 50 years. When we receive to do so we often offer general testing after latihan and the test questions arise to fit the group we are visiting. Afterwards we talk, hear the questions and concerns in each group and share something of our experiences traveling as IHs and information about the world congress.  

In general we find that latihans are very strong and our visits draw people to come who have been away from group latihan. They express an appreciation for a renewed experience of strong receiving.

Some common themes and questions that come up during discussion time are:

• How are we living the gifts we have received from the latihan in our lives?  
• How can we talk about Subud in a natural way when we are asked about it?  
• Concerns about attending group latihans when busy lives, heavy traffic, and aging bodies make it very challenging to get there.
• Concerns about how to improve communication between men and women and between helpers and committees so that planning and decision making are coordinated.
• How to support newly opened people so they feel welcomed and cared about.
• How to create a welcoming atmosphere for younger and newer members so that they will feel comfortable to bring their friends who enquire about Subud.

We were impressed with the good condition of most of the Subud houses we visited. We feel we in Subud are learning to run center enterprises using the houses to bring in income. There are many challenges in maintaining and operating houses that create a context in which groups are learning and growing. Committee members play such an important role in providing spaces for latihan and managing finances.

We feel great admiration and gratitude for the generous ways in which people give of their time and talents. In several groups we see new and younger people coming to do the latihan. And we feel very hopeful about the future of Subud.

Often when meeting with Subud members stories are shared of times the latihan touched others or awakened something inside. We would like to share one such story.

Several years ago, during one of the wild fires that strike California the beautiful home of a Subud family was burned to the ground. As they looked through the rubble hoping to find anything that might have survived, they came across a burned down wall. They lifted up the rubble and saw one remaining sculpture turned over on its back.

They flipped it over and there was the face of our dear Bapak looking up at them, undamaged except for the paint having burned away. The sculpture was created by Liana Kelley, a long time Subud member and very gifted artist. This gift created from hands guided by God of our dear Bapak was the only surviving objects in the whole house. Going through the rubble and coming across this face must have felt like Bapak coming down from above, saying it will ok. God is with you always. Below is a photo of this sculpture.

Mahmud, Sjarifuddin, Suzanne and Myriam

I found a good deal through American Airlines for getting to the world congress. After hours of online searching I found flying to Zurich, Switzerland and taking a train from there was the best option for us. The flight has a stop in Dallas or New York then on to Heathrow airport in London and then a short flight to Zurich all for $638.00 round trip! The train station is at the airport and takes less than three hours to get to Freiberg at around $60.00 dollars. There seemed to be good connections with not very long wait times. The return flight was even better with only one stop in the U.S. before returning to Seattle. Most other flights to Frankfurt or Basil were a couple hundred dollars more but still envolved taking a bus or train to Freiburg. If you have not made reservations yet this seems like a very good rate.

I just went online tonight and registered for the World Congress and it was a breeze to do.

Before you start have: 1. Passport out. 2. Credit Card Available. (350 Euros = $415 US approx.)

They allow partial payments which is great.

Here is link: https://registration.subud.org/event/world-subud-congress/details

Due to high volume at the site and it doesn’t come up please try again later.

Hope to see many of you in Freiburg.

Marston

p.s. Cheapest fares are I find are on Air France (with Delta) to Basel, Icelandic to Frankfurt, and Norwegian Airlines via Gatwick (add short hop from Gatwick to Basel).